Keeping Your Mental Health Crisis Plan Up to Date

Sometimes you don’t know you need a crisis plan until you do. Or until someone who cares about your well-being does some homework and encourages you to write one. My then boyfriend (now husband) encouraged me to create a document called a crisis plan that would help him help me if I ever had another mental health crisis like the one I had before I met him. To read my original blog post on creating a crisis plan, you can click here. The purpose of the current post, however, is to stress the importance of keeping your crisis plan current with the most up-to-date information. In my original post, I mentioned that a crisis plan should be a living document that you make changes to as needed. I for one did not heed my own advice. I had gotten so comfortable with my day-to-day life and had distanced myself so much from the crisis I experienced in 2017 that I thought all of that was behind me. Little did I know that about six years later I would essentially experience the same crisis over again.

I had not updated my crisis plan since its creation in the spring of 2020. Fortunately for me, many of the things that happened during my first episode repeated themselves the second time. I am also fortunate that my husband and I discuss my healthcare providers and visits fairly regularly. For instance, I wanted to schedule an appointment with my therapist before my crisis occurred, but, due to the holidays, I was unable to make an appointment. I remember screenshotting the holiday notice and sending it to my husband. He later used that screenshot to contact my therapist on my behalf. Had I not done that and had I not openly discussed my mental health with my husband, the most recent crisis that occurred at the end of 2022 could have played out much differently.

Information that should have been updated on my crisis plan that had not been include: contact information for my current nurse practitioner, contact information for my current therapist, contact information for my manager, and a list of current medications. Your list of medications, if any, shoud not be limited to only psychotropic ones. At the time of my most recent crisis, I was – and still am – taking two different blood pressure medications. Without these medications, my blood pressure can reach stroke level again. It is important for whomever medical professionals that are responsible for my care during a crisis to be aware that I also have phsyical health conditions that need to be controlled because my life depends on it.

Although experiencing another crisis was not on my list of things to do before ringing in the new year, it was helpful for loved ones to see how I behave when I am having a manic episode. The first time this occurrred, I was living in another state away from my family. I say that it was helpful because now those same people who witnessed me in crisis can also contribute what they observed as indicators of an impending crisis to my crisis plan along with ways they can help me through it. Now that I have experienced this type of crisis twice, I know that taking on too much and failing to be intentional about practicing self-care are two major red flags that were not noted on my original crisis plan.

Moving forward, I plan to review my crisis plan quarterly and on an as-needed basis so that I can receive the best care possible if this were to ever happen again. As previously stated, I have not been keeping my plan current, but I now realize how crucial this is. I hope you do, too.

Signed,

Lai (Bipolar I)