Safety Planning

A safety plan for mental health is like a roadmap to help you stay safe and feel better when you are going through a tough time emotionally and its hard to remember healthy coping strategies on your own.

As people, when we are triggered and severely emotionally distressed, our logical side of the brain shuts down and the emotional side of the brain takes over which causes us often to have difficulty recalling things like coping skills. Because the logical side of our brains shuts down, the problem-solving needed to get to a better place can feel unreachable. That is where the safety plan comes in—it provides a quick and easy reminder of steps to take.

It’s also a great tool to share with people who are your supports because then they can also help to remind you of these steps when you reach out to them and it will help guide them in how to be encouraging in that time.

Your Safety Plan is most effective in serving as a support tool to help you in difficult times when it is near you. There are many creative ways that people keep their Safety Plans near. Really, doing the one that feels the best to you and that you will ACTUALLY use in crisis is the way to go. Sometimes people will do a combination. Here are some ideas:

1. Print off your Safety Plan and put it on the refrigerator.

2. Take a screenshot of your Safety Plan and store it in your phone (ie. In a “Notes” app where you can easily find it)

3. Take the information from your Safety Plan and type it into an app for your phone that is specifically created to be used as your on-the-go Safety Plan (ie. “Suicide Safety Plan” is a free app that can be found at: https://suicidesafetyplan.app/ )

4. Shrink your Safety Plan into a small format or write keywords on a 3x5 card that link to your larger Safety Plan that you can keep in your pocket, wallet, purse, tucked away in a planner, etc.

5. Keep a printed copy of your Safety Plan in a place at home where you are most likely to go when feeling panicked, angry, overwhelmed, etc. or when having the urge to engage in self-harming behaviors.

6. Place a copy in a self-care or coping box that you store in your room, along with other tools to help you cope. Other tool examples can be 1-2 things from each of the following categories: sensory, relaxation, distraction, support, exercise, self-care, mindfulness.

Having a Safety Plan can help you feel more in control of your mental health and give you the tools you need to get safe and stay safe during times where in the past you may have felt runover by your emotions instead of in control of them. So basically, a Safety Plan can be a really empowering tool!

Remember it takes time. When we get to a place where our nervous system is in the fight-flight-or-freeze mode, doing one coping skill for 5-10 minutes is simply not going to be enough to get you through to the other side where your system resets and you feel safe again. Although you may begin to feel a little less intense in your emotions after 10 minutes, your nervous system actually needs 30 minutes to an hour (depending on the severity of your emotional distress) to fully reset and calm. So, doing a mixture of multiple coping strategies is a fantastic idea! It gives you more time to fully take care of yourself. This is also important to share with your supports, as trying to speed up the process can often retrigger the nervous system to go back into fight-flight-freeze if certain triggering topics are brought up too quickly. For example, if you appear calm, someone might try to restart the conversation that initially was your trigger because you look on the outside like you can handle it; however, your nervous system is not yet in a place to handle it. When everyone understands this, it often saves you and them from a lot of difficult moments. Once everything has reset for you, of course, you will then have both your emotional and logical sides of your brain ready to problem-solve in healthy ways.

Remember it’s okay to need help. We all do sometimes! It’s a part of our humanness. Sometimes when you are feeling super depressed, your internal voice may tell you things like, “Don’t be a burden,” “No one even cares,” or “I don’t deserve to have people support me.” These are the lies depression likes to put front and center to keep you isolated, but they are just that—lies.

On your Safety Plan there are people to call, text, grab some food with or take a walk together in nature with. They are your people. The ones when you were not in crisis that you knew in your core would be there for you because they care, and you matter to them. If it’s hard in the moment to reach out, make a code word that you can text them or use when you call so that they know immediately what’s going on without you having to take the energy to explain. Some of these supports may be great encouragers, while others really are more distracting in a fun or silly kind of way.

Some of the people on your Safety Plan are people you have never met but who totally get how it feels to want to die or to want to hurt themselves and because of this, they have devoted a good portion of their lives to answering the crisis calls or texts. They get it. It’s okay to get help. You are worth it.

Remember to go to the nearest Emergency Room or call your local Crisis Line if you are no longer safe. If you know that you have an intention to severely harm yourself or end your own life and that you have access to the means to harm yourself, it is important that you take the situation seriously. Your life matters. If you need someone to go with you, ask them. If you need to be taken and no one is around, call 911 and they will get someone to your home to take you.