Project Reassure: For-Self-Advocates

Understanding Trauma: Self-Advocates

Trauma is an event that occurs and may affect people in different ways.

Trauma may happen for things like:

• • Serious injury or harm
  • Violence
  • Death

Ways Trauma Can Happen

Trauma may happen directly to people. An example of direct trauma is someone having an accident. If a person sees something happen to someone else it may cause trauma. An example of this is seeing someone have an accident. Hearing about trauma happening to someone else may cause trauma for the person hearing about it.
An example is if someone tells a person details about an accident that happened.
Sometimes trauma may happen at work. An example of this is a police officer or firefighter.

When Does Trauma Affect People

Some people are affected by trauma as soon as the event happens. Some people may not feel the affects of trauma for days, weeks, or months. Some people are affected immediately by trauma and can continue to be effected for days, weeks, or months.

Impacts of Trauma

Trauma can affect many different areas of a person’s life.

Some of areas that can be affected are:

• • Physical health
  • Relationships and getting along with others
  • Emotions
  • Mental health

Types of Trauma

Trauma and traumatic events can happen in many different ways. Below are some definitions and examples of how trauma can happen.

Single Event:

• • This type of trauma only happens once. An example of this is a car accident.

Chronic Event:

• • This type of trauma is a series of events that happens over a period of time. An example of this is the COVID pandemic.

Developmental Trauma:

• • This type of trauma happens in early childhood. It is usually chronic. An example of this is having cancer and being in the hospital for many months at 5 years old.

Relational Trauma:

• • This type of trauma is caused by someone you have a relationship with. An example of this is being physically abused by a parent or caregiver.

Complex Trauma:

• • This is when someone has many different types of trauma events. An example of this is someone whose parents divorced when they were kids, saw a family member get into a bad car accident, and was physically abused by a caregiver when they were a teenager.

Intergenerational Trauma:

• • This is when trauma responses are passed down across generations by people who experienced a trauma. This can include a trauma that effects one individual, multiple family members, or an entire community. Examples of this are slavery and the Holocaust.

Specific examples of traumatic events include:

• • Natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, or tornados.
  • Accidents like car accidents or fires.
  • Abuse including physical, mental, or sexual.
  • Neglect.
  • Death of a loved one or close friend.
  • Medical events like surgery or chronic illness.
  • School events like bullying or school shootings.
  • Community events like riots or high crime levels.
  • Interpersonal events like domestic violence.
  • Wars and genocide like the Holocaust.
  • Human trafficking.

People are affected by and deal with trauma in different ways. People may go through the same trauma but respond in different ways. Some people may show signs of traumatic stress and others may have few or no signs.
People may respond to trauma in different ways depending on how old they are. Children who go through a traumatic event may wet the bed, become more attached to a parent or person who cares for them, or act out the traumatic event when they play.
Older teens may act rudely, be disrespectful, or make unhealthy choices. Adults might become angry, avoid others, or act out aggressively towards themselves or others.

Some signs that a person may have gone through a traumatic event include:

• • Signs of Depression: They may have a sad or depressed mood, lose interest in favorite activities, feel hopeless, have trouble sleeping or sleep too much, may eat less or a lot more than usual.
  • Signs of anxiety: They may have panic attacks, worry, or feel overwhelmed.
  • Changes in emotions: They may be more angry or irritable.
  • Concentration: They may have a hard time focusing or concentrating or be more forgetful.
  • Health problems: They may feel tired, have headaches or stomach aches, or get colds more easily.

Traumatic Stress

Trauma can be experienced when:

• • A person goes through a traumatic event.
  • A person sees someone go through a traumatic event or learns about a traumatic event from someone else.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is diagnosis given to someone who experiences trauma and develops symptoms that make it difficult to function in their daily lives.

Post-traumatic stress can cause symptoms such as:

• • Experiencing the trauma over again through flashbacks, nightmares, or upsetting thoughts.
  • Avoiding places, events, people, objects, thoughts, and feelings that are reminders of the traumatic experience.
  • Feeling tense or easily startled.
  • Being overly aware of yourself or surroundings.
  • Trouble with sleeping.
  • Getting easily upset, having outbursts, feeling irritable or grumpy.
  • Feeling guilt or blame.
  • Loss of interest in doing things you once liked or enjoyed.
  • Thinking bad thoughts that won’t go away about people, the world, or yourself.

Trauma affects everyone differently. Not everyone that experiences trauma will be diagnosed with PTSD.

If you experience a traumatic event, you could have all, some, or none of the symptoms of PTSD.

Four Steps of the Survival Circuit

1. 1. Something that we see, hear, smell, taste or touch tells our brain there could be danger. The alarm part of our brain reacts right away without thinking.
   2. Our brain tells our body to get ready for possible danger. The sympathetic nervous system starts acting right away without thinking. The black centers of our eyes get bigger, our heart beats faster, and we start sweating.
   3. The alarm part of our brain quiets down. The “thinking parts” of our brain start to figure out what is happening. Our brain thinks about what is going on and compares it to memories of things that happened before. With this new information, our brain decides if we are really in danger or not.
   4. If our brain decides that there is no danger, it tells our body to relax. The parasympathetic nervous system is turned on. The black centers of our eyes get smaller and our heart beats slower. This helps us relax and make it easier to make choices and return to routines.

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Post-Traumatic Stress and The Survival Circuit

The survival circuit is how our bodies and brains respond to threats around us. Trauma can change how the survival circuit works in our brain.

• • Sometimes when people go through trauma they may have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, also called PTSD.
  • PTSD can change the way our brains work and how we understand information.
  • When someone has PTSD, the alarm part of their brain tells their body to get ready for danger sometimes when there is no danger.
  • PTSD can also make the alarm part of our brain, or the survival circuit, work too much.
  • The alarm signals from the brain keep telling our body to get ready for danger even when the threat is gone.
  • The survival circuit may send alarm signals when we remember or think about trauma.
  • This can make our body have strong feelings or reactions even when there is no physical danger or threat.
  • When the survival circuit in our brain is overloaded, it can be hard to pay attention or make good choices.

When your brain thinks there is a threat it will send signals to your body to react to help keep you safe. This can happen when it is a real danger or if you think there is a danger but there is not.
There are different ways your body can react when your brain thinks there is a threat.
These are sometimes called the “Four F’s”.

• • Fight: The brain and body prepare to attack. A person may look angry and ready to fight. They may yell at other people, pick fights, or have a bad temper.
  • Flight: The brain and body prepare to get away. The brain and body prepare to run away or escape. A person may look anxious and afraid. They may try to avoid threats by staying away from people.
  • Freeze: The brain and body “freeze”. A person may feel like they cannot move or respond. They may stare and “space out” or may feel sad or ashamed.
  • Feign/Fawn: The brain and body worry about the next danger. A person may feel like they need to say “yes” and make people happy to avoid threats from other people. They may have a hard time setting healthy limits, rules, or boundaries for their own needs.

What is Resilience?

Resilience can be explained in many different ways. It can also mean different things. Everyone has resilience!
When we talk about resilience, we are talking about staying calm and in control when faced with a challenge.

Why is Resilience Important?

Resilience is important because it gives people a way to understand trauma and get through tough times.

Being resilient means that you are strong enough to be able to:

• • Get through tough times in healthy ways.
  • Cope with difficult situations.
  • Overcome setbacks or obstacles.
  • Adapt well when you experience adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or stress.

People with less resilience may use unhealthy ways to overcome tough times.

How Can I Learn to Be Resilient?

• • Resilience is a set of skills that anyone can learn.
  • Some skills help us change our thoughts.
  • Some skills help us make different choices.
  • It takes time and practice to build resilience.

Why is Resilience Important?

What Does it Mean to Be Resilient?

• • Being resilient, or resilience, means being able to deal with and quickly recover from a problem. Resilience allows individuals to be flexible when something happens. They can think about what happened to them and learn to how to change, respond, and heal.

How Do I  Know If I’m Resilient?

• • Being resilient means being able to bounce back up. If you have ever fallen to the ground and were able to get it back up, then you’re resilient. Even if you had help standing up, you are still resilient. Resilient individuals learn their own skills as well as learn to lean on support systems to work
    through challenges.
  • Becoming more resilient doesn’t mean you won’t experience stress or any other difficult emotions anymore. It means that you might experience emotional pain and suffering in your life, but you will survive and get stronger because of it.

The Resilient Zone is when we are in a place to be able manage our feelings and thoughts. The Resilient Zone can also be called the “OK” Zone.

Below is a picture to help explain the Resilient or “OK” Zone. The curved red line is our thoughts and emotions. The straight blue line is the edge of the Resilient or “OK” zone.
If we are able to keep our thoughts and emotions inside the blue lines, we say we are “in the Resilient or “OK” Zone”.

We are able to have many different thoughts and emotions. When we are in the Resilient zone or “OK” Zone we can be sad, mad, happy, calm, worried, or distressed. We are able to manage the thoughts and feelings that we have when we are in the Resilient or “OK” Zone.

Sometimes things in our life can move us out of our Resilient Zone or “OK” Zone. When we are moved out of this zone it can make it harder for us to cope or do things in our life. We may react without thinking first. We may also do things that are harmful to ourselves or others.

Below is a picture showing what it might look like if someone moves out of their resilient zone. The green line is where the person is in their Resilient or “OK” Zone. The red lightning bolt is a stressful event in their life. The blue lines are the edges of their resilient zone.

We can learn ways to make our Resilient Zone or “OK” Zone bigger. The bigger our zone is, the more resilient we are. If the person above is able to build their resilience and make their Resilient or “OK” Zone bigger, they are able to handle stressful events and stay in their zone. Below is a picture of the same person as above who was able to make their zone bigger.

Resilient Zone:

The Resilient Zone is also known as our “OK Zone.” This zone is where we feel “OK” and can manage our thoughts and feelings. It is a state of well-being.

Parts of the Resilient Zone

1. High Zone: When we’re in the high zone, we may feel edgy, irritable, mania, anxiety, angry, or pain.
2. Low Zone: Our low zone usually leaves us feeling depressed, sad, isolated, exhausted, or numb.

It is easy to get stuck inside one of these zones which can make it hard to concentrate.

Emotions:

Inside the Resilient Zone

We can be sad, mad, happy, calm, worried, and/or distressed in this zone all at once while still being able to manage it all. Our emotions simply exist in the Resilient Zone, there is no right or wrong way to feel.

We may experience many different emotions whether they’re positive or negative without overacting. These emotions are present but they are easy to deal with, even easy to ignore.

Outside the Resilience Zone

Our emotions may become unpredictable. They are overwhelming and hard to manage no matter what we’re feeling. We are not able to react well.

• • Practice the “shift and stay” method if you feel outside of your “OK Zone.”
  • Shift (change) your attention from the bad thoughts to neutral or pleasant thoughts. Once you focus on something new, stay there.

The Goal: Widen the Resilient Zone.

There are certain things like traumatic and stressful events or reminders that can bump us out of our “Ok Zone.”

Being bumped out of the Resilient Zone can make it harder to deal with things and to express ourselves. Outside of this zone, we may act without thinking or even harm ourselves or others. Managing our feelings becomes difficult.

Widening your Resilient Zone is extremely important because it allows us to feel and
experience more while still being okay. The wider our zone, the more space there is for our thoughts, feelings, and reactions.

We become more resilient when we widen our zone. It gets harder to move outside of the zone and overact, and easier to stay OK longer.

What Does It Mean to Be Trauma-Informed?

People who are trauma-informed understand that trauma can affect individuals in many different ways.

You learn that people are suffering whether you know the exact reason or not but still try to understand it. This is why it’s important to look for signs in individual’s behavior that might be the result of a traumatic experience.

Someone who is trauma-informed would never ask someone “what is wrong with you.” Rather they would ask “what happened to you?” These individuals understand that you cannot blame a victim and that a person’s trauma is not their own fault.

Trauma-Informed Care

Trauma-informed care providers need to know what their patients have been through and how it has affected them. This will allow them to provide the specific type of care they think is best for every individual they see.

Goals:

• • Understand that trauma is extremely common among all people and has a major impact on both children and adults.
  • Understand many paths of recovery specific to individuals needs and certain types of trauma.
  • Recognize behavior and symptoms that may be the result of traumatic experiences.
  • Avoid re-traumatizing individuals.
  • Treat individuals with patience, kindness, and respect to actively help individuals recover.

This type of care helps people recover and heal. They allow individuals to find new purposes and live full, meaningful lives even after having experienced
trauma.

The better care individuals receive, the more resilient they will become.

What Does it Mean to Be Resilience-Informed?

Being resilient means having the ability to “bounce back” when something bad happens.

Individuals can learn new resilience skills that allow them to deal with issues in healthy ways. As well as find ways to lessen their suffering.

Being resilience-informed also means being aware that anyone could be dealing with trauma. They would never ask “what is wrong with you” or “what did you do to cause this bad thing to happen.” Rather, they would ask individuals “what is right with you?” and “what are your strengths?”

Resilience-Informed Care

Resilience-Informed therapy often goes along with trauma-informed care. This is a type of therapy that allows individuals to work through their trauma. It also helps them build up more resilience and learn new skills.

Goals:

• • Help individuals find new resources and learn how to lean on support systems.
  • Focus on their strengths while also finding new ones.
  • Help people process and talk about traumatic events in a healthy, safe environments.
  • Avoid re-traumatizing them.
  • Provide opportunities for individuals to grow and feel empowered over their own life and well-being.

Resilience Skills: Self-Advocates

Staying in your Resilient Zone or “OK” Zone helps you to keep working on your goals. But how do you know where you are in your Resilient or “OK” zone? And what can you do if you are moved out of your zone?

Resilience skills are things you can do to help you:

1. Know where you are in your zone
2. Stay in your zone
3. Get back into your zone if you are moved out of it

It will take time and practice to learn how to use these skills to become more resilient. The more you practice using these skills, the wider your resilient zone will become and the more you will be able to manage stress and challenges.

These skills can be used alone or together to help you stay in or get back into your resilient zone. These are the different resilience skills:

• • Tracking: This skill helps you figure out where you are in the resilient zone by paying attention to your thoughts and senses.
  • Resourcing: This skill can help when you are near the edge of your resilient zone or if you’ve been bumped out of it, by paying attention to memories, people, places, things, and ideas that help you feel better.
  • Grounding: This is a good skill to use when you are having trouble staying in your resilient zone by paying attention to things that are around you in the moment.
  • Gesturing: This is another skill you can use to help move you away from the edges of your resilient zone by paying attention to your movements and using them to help you relax.
  • Shift and Stay: This skill is a powerful way to stay in your resilient zone by learning to shift your thoughts away from things that are bothering you to stay on neutral or happier thoughts.
  • Help Now!: This is a skill that can be used if you are stuck outside your resilient zone. These strategies focus on calming your body, and bringing you closer to your resilient zone.

What Is Tracking?

Tracking is a way to help you stay in or get back to your “Resilient Zone” or “OK Zone.” When you use tracking you pay attention to what is happening with your mind and body. We sometimes call these thoughts and feelings in our mind and body “sensations”.

What Do We Mean By Sensations?

There are many ways the brain takes in information. One way is through our senses. These are called sensations. Some senses are sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. You can pay attention to other sensations like breathing, your heartbeat, and how your stomach feels.

Sensation Words

Having the right words to talk about what you are thinking and feeling is important. Here are some sensation words that may help you talk about what you are paying
attention to inside your body:

• Vibration: shaking, twitching, trembling, fast/slow
• Size/position: small, medium, large, up/down, center
• Temperature: cold, hot, warm, neutral (just right)
• Pain: intense (which means strong or sharp), medium, mild, throbbing, stabbing
• Muscles: tight, loose, calm, rigid
• Breathing: fast, short, deep, shallow, light
• Heartbeat: fast, slow, rhythmic or regular, fluttery, jittery
• Taste: spicy, sweet, sour, juicy, bland or plain
• Texture: rough, smooth, thick, thin
• Weight: heavy, light, firm, gentle cold, hot, warm, neutral (just right)

Why is Tracking Important?

You may feel different ways in your body because of what you experience, your thoughts, and your feelings.

• • Some things give you good feelings in your body and mind.
  • Some things may make your body and mind feel bad.
  • Sometimes, your body and mind feel the same as usual.

When you track how your body and mind feel, you can pay attention to when those feelings are bad.

Bad feelings may be telling you that you are moving to the edge or even outside of your Resilient or OK zone. You can then use your resilience skills to help you stay in your Resilient or OK zone. Feelings that are usual or good let you know that you are in your Resilient or OK zone.

You can choose what to pay attention to in your body when you learn the difference between good and bad feelings.

Paying attention to good feelings in your body may help you stay in your Resilient or OK zone and feel better.

Learning How to Track

Tracking is when you pay attention to what is happening with your mind and body. Tracking can help you pay attention to good feelings in your mind or body to help you stay in your OK or “resilient zone”.

It may be hard to pay attention to what is going on with your mind and body. Talking to people you trust about these “feelings” is important. They may be able to help you learn to pay attention to good and bad feelings.

Practice describing how you feel and what you sense by speaking up and telling others.

Asking yourself questions can also help you pay attention to what you are feeling. Some questions may be things like:

• • Is my heart beating fast or slow?
  • Is my breathing fast or slow? Deep or short breaths?
  • How do my clothes feel? Are they tight or loose? Soft or scratchy?
  • Am I sitting, lying down, leaning, or on my knees?
  • Is this food spicy, salty, sweet, sour, bitter, or plain?
  • Do I feel hot, warm, cold, or “just right?”
  • What sounds do I hear?
  • Is it loud, quiet, non-stop, or something else?

Tracking Practice

Tracking is when you notice what is happening inside your mind and body. It is one of the skills that can help you get back to your Resilient Zone or “OK” Zone.

Let’s look at an example of the thoughts and feelings someone might have if they are practicing tracking. In this picture, Jack and Jill are having a picnic at the park after a bike ride. What kinds of sensations could they notice?

Jack and Jill have noticed these sensations during their picnic:

Tracking is paying attention to the sensations within your body. The five main senses are what you see, hear, touch, smell and taste. Practicing tracking can help you learn more about your body and your body’s sensations. All of this practice can help you to stay in your Resilient or “OK” Zone.

What is Resourcing?

Resourcing is a resilience skill that uses people, places, things, and ideas to help you feel better.

Resourcing can help you stay in your Resilient or “OK” zone. It can also help you get back into your Resilient or “OK” zone if you have been bumped out.

Resourcing uses things you like to help you feel better. These things are called resources.

Resources Can Be Things Like: 

• • Things you like about yourself like your hair, eyes, or sense of humor.
  • A happy memory.
  • A person that makes you happy or feel good.
  • A place that you like to go.
  • Your favorite animal or pet.
  • A special picture.
  • A favorite song.

If you have the resource with you, use your senses to pay attention to how the resource looks, smells, or feels. If it’s a picture of a person or place, pay attention to the details of the picture.

If you are thinking about your resource, imagine what it looks like, how it feels, what it smells like, what it sounds like, and how it makes you feel.

When you are using the skill of resourcing, try to pay attention to at least three details about your resource.

After you have spent some time thinking about your resource, try to notice parts of your body that feel calmer or even “okay.”

Pay attention to your breathing, heart rate and muscles. After thinking about your resource your breathing and heart rate may slow down, and your muscles may feel more relaxed.

Resourcing Practice:

Resourcing is the name of a skill that includes resources. Resources can be anything that helps a person to feel better. They can be a person, place, thing, idea or, anything else that helps them feel better.

Jack is telling Jill about how he learned to take pictures with his mom. Jill asks him questions about his mom and the things he likes about

taking pictures.

Jack says that he enjoys taking pictures with her outside and the time they spend together. He says she is funny and makes him laugh. Jack

smiles as he tells Jill about his mom.

Jack’s mom is a resource for him. Even when he is not with her, he can think of her and it can help him feel better.

Jack can practice resource intensification by trying to remember specific details about his mom.

Resourcing Practice Examples:

What is Grounding for Self-Advocates

Grounding is a way of focusing on things that are happening right now. One of the simplest ways to do this is to pay attention to the sensations in your body. You can then use that information to help your body get into more comfortable positions.

Difference between Tracking and Grounding:

Sensations…..

• • include sight, sound, smell, touch and taste.
  • can be comfortable, uncomfortable, or somewhere in the middle.
  • are different for each person.
  • can change over time.

Grounding Practice for Self-Advocates:

Grounding is a way of focusing on things that are happening right now. One of the simplest ways to do this is to pay attention to the sensations in your body. You can then use that information to help your body get into more comfortable positions.

Practice Activity 1:

Find ways of paying attention to your body’s senses. Which of these things do you like the most? When you find a sensation that is comfortable or calming, try to focus on it for a little longer.

• • What do you feel right now?
  • What can you see?
  • What can you hear?
  • What can you taste?
  • What can you smell?

Practice Activity 2:

• • A body scan is another good way to practice grounding.
  • Focus on each part of your body by starting at your head and going down until you get to your feet.
  • What does each part of your body feel like as you scan it?
  • Does it feel comfortable, uncomfortable or somewhere in the middle?
  • If any parts of your body feel uncomfortable, try changing your position so you feel a little better.

What is Shift and Stay?

Shift and Stay is a skill you can use to change your thoughts and get back into your resilient zone.

In order to shift and stay, you have to use the other skills; tracking, resourcing, grounding and gesturing along with it. Using these other skills first helps you find more comfortable thoughts. Let’s refresh!

If you are thinking about something uncomfortable or difficult, SHIFT those bad thoughts to good ones. Find something that is “okay” or happy to think about. You may need to practice using the other resilient skills to find thoughts that are calmer, more comfortable, or more peaceful.

After that, STAY focused on those good thoughts. Do this until you feel better and are ready to move onto something else.

It is okay if the skill does not work the first time you try it. Sometimes people need to try out several skills before they feel calm. Sometimes people need to practice the skills a few times before they feel calm. The important thing is to keep using them until you are back in your resilient zone.

Practicing: Shift and Stay?

Shift and Stay is a resilient skill that needs the other skills (tracking, resourcing, grounding, and gesturing) to work.

SHIFT your bad thoughts to good ones. Use the other skills to find something that makes you feel happy, calm, or relaxed. STAY focused on these good thoughts.

Practicing this skill is helpful because you can use it when you are faced with challenges to get back into your resilient zone. It also lets you practice the other skills at the same time!

Practice:

Practice using each of these skills to SHIFT your focus to something “okay” or pleasant, and then see if you can STAY with those thoughts for at least two minutes.

After you go through this activity, take a minute to think how each skill made you feel. Which skill was the most helpful? Keep practicing the skills so you can have better control over your thoughts and your body.

Help Now Overview: 

Help Now: is a skill you can use when you feel overwhelmed. When you are faced with a lot of challenges, it can be hard to stay in your resilient or “OK” zone.

Usually when you are bumped out of your zone you can use the other skills to get back into your zone. Sometimes you may get so overwhelmed that the other skills don’t work well enough and you get stuck outside of your zone.

Help Now Strategies: 

Pay attention to how your body feels before and after using them to see what might work best for you. You may need to try more than one.

• • DO SOMETHING PHYSICAL: Try stretching the muscles in your neck, shoulders, arms, back, chest, or legs. You can also go for a 5 minute walk, do 20 push-ups against a wall, or jump up and down 10 times.
  • COOL DOWN: Try drinking a glass of ice cold water. Or you can run your hands under cold water for 20 seconds.
  • USE YOUR SENSES: Find 6 different colored items in the room, find items around you that have different textures and pay attention to how they feel, or focus on sounds that are around you.
  • COUNTDOWN: Slowly count backwards from the number 20.

Help Now Practice:

Help Now is a skill you can use when you feel overwhelmed and can’t get back into your resilient or “OK” zone.

This skill is made up of many different strategies. The skills in Help Now! focus on your body instead of your thoughts. As your body relaxes, you can keep using this skill or switch to one of the other resilience skills. Try out some of these Help Now! skills for yourself. Pay attention to how your body feels before, during, and after using each skills. Some of these may work better for you than others. Try them out at different times to see which you like best. Put a check mark beside the skills that work best for you.

Once you find the skills that work best for you, practice them throughout the day so you can use them more easily when you are bumped out of your resilient or “OK” zone.

What is a mental health crisis?

A mental health crisis means that a person’s feelings or problems are so strong that they cannot do what they need to do that day.
A mental health crisis may also mean that the person is at risk of hurting themselves or others.

Signs of a mental health crisis:

These are some common signs that the person you support may be having a mental health crisis:

• • Not able to do daily activities like bathing, brushing teeth, or changing clothes.
  • Changes in mood, increased energy level, or restless
  • Suddenly sad, withdrawn, not wanting to be around other people.
  • Angry, verbal threats, violent, destroying property.
  • Using drugs or other substances, self-harm like cutting, abusive behavior.
  • Not able to recognize family or friends, confused, strange ideas, thinks they are someone they are not, hearing voices, seeing things that are not there.

how long does a mental health crisis last?

Sometimes a crisis will only last a few minutes.
Sometimes a crisis can last for days or months.
It depends on how quickly the person is able to get help and the type of coping skills they have.
If a person is able to widen their resilient or “OK” zone they may be able to recover from a mental health crisis more quickly.
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What Should I do If I’m Having a Mental Health Crisis:

• • The most important thing to do in a crisis is to TELL SOMEONE.
  • If you tell someone else that you are in crisis, they can help you to work on a plan to feel better.
  • Start by talking to a person you trust like a parent, friend, support staff, or doctor. Be honest with them and tell them about thoughts you have been having.
  • If you need more help, you can talk to a professional by calling or texting the National Suicide Helpline at 9-8-8.
  • If you need immediate help to stay safe you should CALL 9-1-1.

How Can I Prevent a Mental Health Crisis?

It is helpful to plan how to handle a crisis before it happens.

Having a plan can help you to get through a mental health crisis more easily or even prevent a crisis from happening.

Your plan should include:

• • A list of triggers that may cause a mental health crisis.
  • Strategies to help you feel calm again.
  • Phone numbers for trusted adults and emergency providers.

A mental health professional can help you create a mental health crisis plan. They can also help you to learn and practice skills for managing your emotions.

What Is a Resilience Plan?

• • A resilience plan is sometimes called a self-care plan.
  • It is a way to help you widen your resilient or “OK” zone and have a plan for how to use the skills.
  • The resilience or self-care plan should have information about what it looks and feels like when you are being pushed toward the edges of your resilient or “OK” zone.
  • The resilience or self-care plan should have information about the resilience skills that are most helpful to you. This may include things like specific resources or gestures.
  • A resilience or self-care plan can also have information like what to do in a crisis situation.

Resiliency Plan Template