Short Version - it's a list of things to do instead of ~~doing dumb shit~~ making life altering-ly bad decisions.
I typed this up real quick in reply to a question I saw elsewhere on Lemmy.
Why?
- Your mental health just generally sucks lately
- You're waiting on an appointment with a psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, or other treatment program that is days, weeks, or even months away and you need to make it there in one piece.
- If you get dragged to the ER for ~~doing dumb shit~~ making bad / harmful decisions, you want something to show the ER psychiatrist so they're less likely to admit you to the psych ward (I work in one. I try, and if you need it you need it, but they pretty much all suck).
- You wanna start a trend among your friend / social group of thinking about these things ahead of time instead of right before or during the ~~dumb shit~~ life altering-ly bad decisions.
Also a cool upside: you can make this all on your own and never have to show anyone. You can print it off and write on it and stuff it under your pillow, you can take a picture of it and burn it, you could just write the entire thing out in a password-protected note. This is for you, and while it can help to share the plan with your loved ones, you don't actually have to show it to anyone!
Here's the SAMHSA template but if you don't like it there's plenty of different variations around on the internet or you can just make your own.
Components:
- Warning Signs: especially the less obvious ones you might not think about consciously, sleeping too much or too little, eating too much or too little, forgetting to shower, etc.
- Things you can do on your own: can be self-care activities like watching a favorite movie or having an at-home "spa day," or making sure to handle a responsibility that might make things worse if you miss it like making a doctors appointment if you already have one or checking on your finances.
- People or places to go for safety: This could be a family or friend's house, or if you don't have a safe home environment it could be something like the nearby waffle house. It can be helpful to pick somewhere where there's people to check on you, but it could also be a place of solitude like a hiking trail. Just try to consider what is actually safest for you, if you have a tendency to get into trouble when you isolate, plan to avoid that.
- People you can call: usually a friend or family member but it could also be a mentor or life coach or a trusted spiritual leader. I would put the person most likely to answer the phone for you at 3am near the top, then the next most likely et cetera.
- Crisis resources: these are the emergency "noting else worked" resources. A lot of places have local options, and there are a lot of specialized hotlines for minority and under-served populations such as LGBT, PoC, and veterans. If you can't find any local ones or don't like / trust the ones you find, Here's Wikipedia's List
If you found this helpful and are interested in a similar but more in-depth concept (and especially if you have a longer / more complicated mental health history), I highly recommend WRAP Planning. Again it's a plan you make for yourself and that you don't even need to share with anyone else if you don't want to:
- SAMHSA Guide
- Fill-In Workbook Again, there's multiple versions floating around the internet, and you don't even have to use all of it. Mine is four typed pages (two when printed front & back).
- When you're filling out the list of things to do to stay well it can help to look at SAMHSAs guide to free support groups There's often better, more local options, I just give this one to patients as a cheat sheet to fill in some easy stuff
Hope this helps!
I was briefly working on a super basic website / guide to mental health concepts for people who can't afford / access therapy if anybody wants to collab (my biggest issue was lowering the reading level enough, it can be hard for me to remember which concepts will be new to someone who hasn't been working in the field for years).
I will not drink with you today!