Suicide Safety Planning

Awareness is just one step in suicide prevention. Asking if someone has thought about suicide and taking action can be vital in saving a life. Having suicidal thoughts or thoughts of self harm does not mean you are broken or crazy, it just means that you can no longer do this alone and you absolutely don’t have to. Hope and help is out there.

Read to learn more about what a suicide safety plan is and how you can implement one for yourself or your loved ones. Feel free to save and share the tiles via your social media channels.

If you or someone you love is in crisis, you are not alone. Dial 988 for 24/7 access to crisis support.

cite: verywellmind.com

What is a safety plan?

A suicide safety plan is a written set of instructions that you create for yourself as a contingency plan should you begin to experience thoughts about harming yourself. It contains a series of gradually escalating steps that you follow, proceeding from one step to the next, until you are safe.

Creating a plan

Work with someone or several people you trust when you are feeling well and can think clearly. Put it in writing, keep it somewhere easily accessible, and inform anyone who is a part of it.

Here's what to include:

Warning signs

Think about the types of situations, images, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that might precede or accompany suicidal urges for you.

List these warning signs so that you can refer back to them when deciding whether to activate your plan.

Reasons for living

Create a list of your reasons for living.

Ways to calm/comfort yourself

Create a list of activities that can be soothing to you when you're upset. If you can't think of any examples off-hand, you may want to try some mind-body methods that have helped others, such as breathing exercises or body scan meditation.

Trusted contact information

Keep a list of contacts you can talk to if self-help measures do not work. List names, phone numbers, or other contact information, and be sure to have back-ups in case your first or second choices are unavailable.

Professional Resources

Create a list of all professional resources available to you, along with their phone numbers, email addresses, and other pertinent contact information. This is also a good place to keep a number for a crisis hotline such as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.

Ways to Make Your Environment Safe

Plan what steps you can take to make yourself safe. This may involve removing or securing any items that you are likely to use to hurt yourself, or going to another location until the urges have passed. It may also involve getting another person involved to help you. If you feel like hurting yourself, you might plan to go to a public place to distract yourself. Or, if you are feeling suicidal and have access to a gun, you might ask someone to keep it at their house.

Using your plan

If you begin to experience any of the warning signs of suicide listed in your suicide safety plan, proceed through the steps you have previously outlined for yourself, one by one, until you are feeling safe again.

An exception would be if you are feeling out of control and are strongly thinking of suicide. In that case, it is best to call either a trusted friend who can be with you immediately or emergency services.

Tools

safety planning apps are available via the app store

Safety Plan

ReMinder

Beyond Now

For a safety plan template, visit zerosuicide.edc.org

Resources

9-8-8 National Crisis Line

@988lifeline

Crisis Text Line

Text TALK to 741-741

Veterans Crisis Line

Send a text to 838255

SAMHSA Treatment Referral Hotline (Substance Abuse)

1-800-662-HELP (4357)

RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline

1-800-656-HOPE (4673)

National Domestic Violence Hotline

800.799.SAFE (7233)

National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline

1-866-331-9474

The Trevor Project

1-866-488-7386

@trevorproject

THS IS OUR STORY

​Traumatic events left untended that grow into demons that become almost unbearable to face.

Don't let it get to you, you'll be fine, just push through it.

I made it through the rest of my shift fine, laughing and joking around per usual, but when I left that night, I crumbled.

I would sit on whoever’s floor, and I would sob, begging my friends to help me because I was tired of fighting alone.

That became my norm. Drunk everyday after shift, crying alone, but smiling in front of my friends and co workers so that know one would know I was slowly dying.

When I was 21 I had an episode that I can only describe as some sort of psychosis where I was having constant panic attacks for 3 days straight and couldn’t distinguish between reality and dreams.

My story actually started on this day, six years ago and along with it so came my daily struggle with anxiety and depression.

I believed that the sadness started on the day that my husband left me.

I had a son roughly 7 months ago. He is my third child, my second son. By around a week we knew he had issues, but by 3 weeks, I knew something was wrong with me. I am the 1 in 7. I had PPD.

My mom who is the best mom anyone could ever hope for doesn’t understand depression. She just did not understand what was wrong with me.

I have flashbacks of that day sometimes, hearing people laughing and having the time of our lives, feeling the sun beating down and the slight breeze from the water, all the while having no inclination of the tragedy that we would soon have to endure.

At times my depression felt like it danced with my trauma but stepped on my soul in glass shattering steps.

Funny how someone else's PTSD and depression basically triggered my own.

The days, months and years to follow have been a constant struggle between wanting to live for him and not being able to live without him, wanting to tell my story but also not wanting to be defined by it and more deeply feeling the constant anxiety of losing those closest to me.

I couldn’t simply feel better. I couldn’t say…didn’t know how to articulate… that the sadness was growing.

Living in a dark hole of fear and sadness is so foreign to them, but to those of us who live with it daily, it's an all too real prison.

What if…I mean what if…I don’t notice that the semi in front of me stopped for railway tracks? The other driver would be okay. And I wouldn’t have to feel this growing thing inside me anymore.

I will never forget where I was when I literally wanted to jerk my car off the road into a telephone post.

What does PPD look like? It knows no bounds. It does not discriminate on the basis of age or race. It doesn't care what your religion is or how you were brought up. It doesn't care how much you love your children, how hard it was for you to have them, how you got there, or how long you waited and prayed for them. 1 in 7.

The longest journey of my life (a 10 year process) was looking at the scars and acknowledging the depression flowing inside my body.

As she writes, she realizes that the end of her life as a child sex slave, was the beginning of a beautiful life (foreordained by her loving Father in heaven), which she could have never imagined possible.

My name is Dianna Pippins and I am a US Army female Veteran that suffers from PTSD and anxiety due to Military Sexual Trauma while serving my country. Everyday is a challenge and it very hard to just live. I and others like me have suffered in silence for way too long.

I had the overwhelming fear that the people I loved would be taken from me and it was a fear I thought I had to live with, I thought it was my burden to bear until I woke up one morning and decided to get help.

Hope saved me in the same likeness like when a wildfire is finally tamed and controlled.

Food can truly change someone’s life and often makes me wonder who else is suffering because of the food we consume.

I found a therapist the following week. I vomited the Darkness in front of him as brutal as I could stomach. His response, “You’re not always going to feel like this.”

I didn’t get help until I was standing on a desolate plain behind the remnants of bombarded walls.

Broken… Hopeful

It was honestly a hundred little things that helped me survive. It was baby ducks coming up to me by the LSU lakes, it was laughter and connection, it was deciding that I wanted more from life, and it was acknowledging that I could be resilient despite all the trauma and darkness.

Other’s transparency about their own mental health struggles helped me feel like I wasn’t alone.

Nothing feels more comforting than realizing that what you face every day, and what seems insurmountable, is not unique to you; you really are not alone.

I AM FREE. And to think IT all had to do with diet. I am truly convinced I am not alone in this food thing.

I could learn to live with myself, and not let my PTSD and depression be the definition of my life. I don't know that she'll ever know it, but that counselor saved my life.

Depression and anxiety are very real and though some forms come from experiences such as mine and others from chemical imbalances, the most important thing to know is that YOU AREN'T ALONE and I'm not alone. We are all in this together.