Crisis Resources 

Warning Signs For Suicidality (Thoughts/Feelings/ Triggers):

What are your personal warning signs for suicidality?

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The warning signs don't all have to be resolved at once, but having a few wins can be a very big deal. 

• Isolation: One way to counter isolation is through connection. Try to reach out to friends, family, old connections, or people you can see deepening the relationship with. If these aren't options try joining a group to have access to a loose community while you develop deeper relationships.  

• Substance Use: Using substances makes people more impulsive and sometimes deepens negative feelings leading to more risky behaviors in the moment and potentially even after the using stops. Counter this risk by abstaining if you are not in a healthy headspace. 

• Purposelessness: Counter by finding meaningful activities aligned with your values. This could be volunteering or connected to something you are already doing like being a mom or doing your job. Suicidal ideations likes to have us focus solely on our own world, so look up. What do you care about? Whom do you care about? How can you move toward more? 

• Anxiety: Anxiety is in almost everyone, but it can be very painful if it's not managed and can often lead people to self-harm because they are trying to escape. Counter with self-monitoring and use of self-care skills for integrating calm/peace/ security/ stability in your life. Create a life you don't want to escape from. What would add stability in your life?

• Trapped: Sometimes someone has trapped you or you have trapped yourself by your own decisions. Sometimes you realize there is no easy way out of the road you have been placed on against your will. In these moments try to cast out further. Maybe it is unrealistic to get out of your situation in the next 6 months or year, but the more you can make changes now the more in 2 years or 4 years you may find yourself in a completely new place.  Counter by finding the choices in your life even if all of the choices are negative. This exercise is helped by having other people do this with you. 

• Hopelessness: Discuss this with your therapist because cultivating hope can be complicated and is unique. Many people lean on spirituality here. Counter hopelessness with imaging 5 years from now if this is conquered. Imagine a life you might enjoy or want to live.

• Withdrawal: Counter this with activity scheduling.  Make yourself face the world even though it isn't going to be easy. 

• Anger: Everyone feels angry just like everyone feels anxious. Acknowledging and coping with your anger is the most important thing. It doesn't have to rule you. Use intense exercise when you feel stuck in a rage rumination or use the physicality of the emotion to help you break down boxes or create full-body art. Journal about it to recognize the unfairness in your life and process through unjust situations. Set boundaries to work on resentment. 

• Recklessness: Counter with finding more productive uses of adrenaline seeking or activation such as roller coasters, jet skiing, sky diving, or a haunted house. Recognize impulsive and compulsiveness leads to more impulsive and compulsiveness, so use more self-control in areas of dopamine seeking while thrill-seeking in appropriate ways.

• Mood Changes: Counter by self-monitoring. Notice you are not quite yourself and going through rapidly changing moods.  Attend ongoing therapy more than typically and potentially explore medication.

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Write down your warning signs for being in your flipped lid or Amygdala for too long (Find the lead up):

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Ask yourself:

• How will you know when to use your safety plan?

• What is happening when you start to experience suicidal thoughts or feel overwhelmed?

• How do you feel physically (body sensation) before you begin feeling suicidal or like harming yourself? 

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Put away any sharp objects you can use to harm yourself, ask someone to hold them or throw them away (removing opportunity for our anxious or depressive thoughts to take over and create permanent damage for temporary issues). 

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When focusing on your safety, you want to ask yourself these questions: 

What can you do, on your own to help yourself stay safe?

What will/can you tell yourself to keep yourself safe?

Who can/will you call? 

How will you safely seek comfort? 

What coping skills can/will you use?   

What positive distractions can you use to help you bring yourself back into your frontal lobe and ground you?

Which people or places help take your mind off of your problems at least for a little while?

Who helps you feel better when you talk to them? It is not necessary to tell this group of people what you are going through.

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If you are able, here are some other questions you can ask yourself to further help: 

What do I need to help decrease the risk of me acting on my current feelings? 

What has helped me in the past? 

Am I in a safe place? Where is safer (if needed)? 

What are some good things in my life right now? 

What would I say to my friends or another person I care about if they were feeling this way?

What are your reasons for not harming yourself? 

What coping skills can you use? 

What are your personal triggers?

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Don't wait until things get worse, always be preventive! 

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We always want to delay our urges to self-harm, because we know that they will pass, as they always have--you being here is the greatest evidence of that! We want to accept our feelings and then delay and distract until the intensity has passed and remind ourselves that we can handle these feelings/urges with help and coping skills. 

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