wellness plan

Wellness Plan – Stressors

Peggy Rice1 Comment

If you’ve been reading this blog lately, you know I’ve been working on my Wellness Recovery Action Plan – WRAP. I invested in the guide from Mental Health Recovery – it gives more explanation, details and examples than the WRAP app did. I’m really glad I bought the book – I’ve found it very helpful, and have added to my Wellness Toolbox and the next step in the process, The Daily Plan.

The Daily Plan is an outline of what I look like – my moods and attitudes – and what I “do every day to stay well and stay on track with my goals.” (Reference: WRAP app) It includes an outline of a typical day of wellness. It was fairly easy to write.

The Stressors section was much more difficult. Stressors, sometimes known as triggers, are “things that happen that can cause a reaction. Sometimes they are reminders of specific events, or they may evoke a feeling that takes you back to a time when you felt helpless, scared, or out of control.” (Reference: Wellness Recovery Action Plan – Renewing Your Wellness Your Way, copyright 2018)

The first step was to write down “things that might make me feel unwell or throw me off track if they happened” (Reference: WRAP app) and just the question sparked anxiety in me. I started with a list of five stressors – certain times of year, when my husband travels, when my meds stop working, grief, and major life transitions. But as I worked on this section with help from the book, I came up with seven more. That’s a total of twelve potential stressors! Argh!

Thinking of these stressors was difficult – indeed, it caused a stress reaction in my body. Heart racing, shallow breathing, a lump in my throat. I put the list away several times to take mental breaks from it – had to calm down before I came back to it.

Working on the relief to those stressors brought relief to my physical reactions. Again, originally I had twelve stress relievers, but with the help of the book and deeper consideration, I came up with a total of 22 tools to use when stressors hit my life. Things like walking around the block, savoring a cup of tea or coffee, reading fiction, sitting in my glider, practicing deep breathing techniques, writing in my gratitude journal. These are good wellness tools to add to my mental health toolbox.

I know the process of writing the WRAP will continue to be difficult. The next two sections are When Things Are Breaking Down or Getting Much Worse, and Crisis Plan, which first caused me anxiety when I read about it. And while the point of the plan is steps toward mental health, it’s anxiety-producing in the process of writing it. But I’ll take my time and persevere, because I’m sure the end result – my personalized detailed wellness tool – will be worth it.

Post script – in an effort to be transparent and maybe helpful to someone else writing a WRAP plan – here is a complete list of my stress relievers:

  • See therapist
  • See psych doc
  • Tell husband, sister, and friend that I’m struggling
  • Nap
  • Walk around the block
  • Dance
  • Savor a cup of tea or coffee or mocha
  • Journal
  • Pray
  • Watch Netflix
  • Read fiction
  • Coloring books
  • Knit
  • Listen to playlists (I have several made for my “moods”)
  • Gratitude journal
  • Tell folks at Fresh Hope support group and ask for prayer
  • Coffee date w/friend
  • FaceTime w/my kids
  • Take a break from obligations (work, volunteering)
  • Practice deep breathing, relaxation techniques
  • Rock in my glider
  • Have a date with my husband
  • Take a trip to see the kids

Wellness Plan

Peggy Rice10 Comments

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.