Sunny with a Chance of Clouds

I started working on a wellness plan for my mental health. It was inspired by a video from Fresh Hope, and I did a little research on WRAP. While it’s not an official WRAP plan, since I’m not in the class (it’s copyrighted), I have the components.

A wellness plan addresses my mental state when I am healthy, what my triggers are, and how I intend to respond if my mood darkens. It’s designed to outline in detail the steps I will take to remain or return to health. It’s to be shared with support people, so there’s accountability to taking those steps when they’re needed.

I was doing fine filling in the blanks until I got to the question about my crisis plan: how I want to be supported if I experience crisis.

I got to this section and felt my heart rate speed up and my breathing become more shallow. I remembered my times of crisis, and a wave of anxiety hit. I suppose that’s natural; reflecting on negative experiences brings back negative feelings. Still, I was caught off guard.

I don’t want to experience crisis again. But considering past ones makes me think I’ll go through it again. This is silly, since the whole point of a wellness plan is to put steps in place to keep a crisis from happening. Yet the possibility always exists that my wellness steps won’t be enough to avert the crisis, and I could find myself in the depths of depression again.

In recent years, any dip in my mood for longer than two weeks – any journey back into depression – has been mild, quickly treatable, and short-lived. But what if I go through a big one? What if grief brings back depression? What if I can’t handle a life transition? What will I do to keep depression at bay?

That’s the point of the wellness plan – to address those “what-ifs.” To have steps in place in the case of triggering events. Which tells me that, as difficult as it may be, I need to write these steps down and share them with my trusted others, so I’m not left without direction, without actionable steps toward mental health.

I’ll finish writing it all down – my health, my triggers, my warning signs, my crisis and post-crisis plans. I’ll share it with my husband, sister, and best friend. I might even blog it, as an example so someone else can write one.

And I’ll pray that I never have to use the crisis portion of the plan.