Okay, so on World Suicide Prevention Day’s post, I’ll actually go into depth more about how to talk to someone who might be suicidal. So I’ll only gloss over that briefly today. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has so many great Social Media images that you can use for this week! I wanted to make sure I didn’t share all of them in one post, but today was a bunch of the #RealConvo images.
Normalize 👏🏽 Talking 👏🏽 About 👏🏽 Mental 👏🏽 Health
So this week, I really wanted to talk about some specific DBT skills that assist you when you’re feeling suicidal. We’ve covered the ABC and PLEASE skills in the Journey Podcast before, but repetition is always an important part of learning, memorizing, and mastering something.
ABC and PLEASE Skills from Emotion Regulation
A – Do something that you like. Do something that will make you happy. Even the smallest thing can be helpful when you are in crisis.
B – Building a mastery helps improve self-esteem and confidence. Focus on what you’re doing, being mindful of the activity, so that eventually you’ll be able to turn towards doing these sorts of activities even when you are struggling during crisis.
C – Before I started DBT, I was doing Cope Ahead’s in a negative way. I’d always do the scenario situation in my mind. What if I go to the pharmacy to pick up my meds and they are closed? What if they don’t have my prescription on file and I need to call my doctor? ‘What If’ing’ can steam roll you into a panic attack. Instead of going in the negative direction, you want to use Cope Ahead to practice these scenes in your mind. What might happen. How you should react in these situations. Have you ever come away from something and later realized you should have said “X, Y, or Z” as a comeback? Rehearsing mentally beforehand in a situation helps you practice what you might need to say and takes away the pressure and anxiety of doing it in the moment. Afterwards, ALWAYS remember to practice relaxation.
As with most DBT skills, there’s always a number of steps with each one. Don’t forget that you need to do each part otherwise the skill won’t do you any good. It’s like any good recipe. You might be able to make the cookies without a specific ingredient, but the cookies won’t be as good as if you follow the complete recipe.
I’ve seen a few different mental health blogs talking about their journey and it’s funny how their tips always veer very close to DBT modules and skills.
Kat references 5 important tools to manage her mental illnesses…
- Sleep
- Self-Care
- Distraction
- Analysis (Dude, that’s totally “Check the Facts!”)
- Positive Reinforcement
Crazily enough, most of those are on par with some of the DBT skills.
I’m not entirely sure about tomorrow’s topic. I think I’ll research a bit about exercising to help with mental health and suicide prevention. (Don’t hold me to it! I’m writing these blog entries at silly o’clock right now.) The physical side of things definitely play a HUGE part of mental health. Your mental health can suffer so much from physical health issues.
Have you had enough water? Are you hangry? Have you eaten something today. Being dehydrated or hungry can cause headaches. And as I stated in a post last week, sometimes something as little as two drinks can cause deep depression. So avoid substances that might depress you. Getting enough sleep is imperative. Getting the right amount of REM cycles can completely alter how well your brain functions.
All right, I’m done rambling! It’s Wednesday! Hump Day! Made it halfway through this week! Oof. Even though I’m writing this in the distant past, I hope you’re week is going well!
Atelier Whootique 