WHAT I CAN'T CONTROL
Your friend doesn't text you back right away.
How quickly someone responds to you.
You have a couple assignments due at the same time and you find yourself feeling overwhelmed and not sleeping well.
One thing at a time
Organize your time to get everything done
Calm your body ( deep breaths...)
Before you get to group, you find your stress level at a 9/10 due to the events prior
Talk to the group about your day!
Journal
Ground yourself and take yourself out of bad environment
You made a huge mistake during your big school event such as a band performance, track race, musical number, DND tournament ect. Everyone in the crowd noticed and you see your coach or instructor look at you with a stern face.
Everyone makes mistakes!
Take deep breaths
Talk to someone and vent about your mistake, don't hide from it
You are the only person in your friend group without a HOCO date
Don't compare yourself! Pour into yourself and notice cog. distortions
Someone at school doesn't like you even though you haven't done anything wrong.
Someone else's opinion of you.
You notice yourself having brain fog, difficulty concentrating, and overall dissociating from reality. You also notice yourself increasingly becoming emotionally numb
Talk to support person
Use grounding techniques
Find active and joyful activities to do (childhood favorites, exercise, spending time with friends)
Call for help if serious intervention needed
Someone made a joke about your appearance and you notice yourself getting hot in the face with rage and you want to talk back to that person.
Ground yourself in that moment ( box breathing, ect)
Let anger out (rant to friend or in therapy, journal, yell in a pillow)
You have been left on delivery by your crush or best friend for 15 hours. You keep checking your phone if they have responded yet.
Grounding
Remove yourself from phone
Recognize that they might be busy
You said “you too” when the fast food worker said “Enjoy your food”!
Laugh it off
Take a deep breath to release tension
Tell someone about this event in a neutral or funny manner
Why shouldn't one person's opinion determine your self-worth?
Because one person's opinion is only one perspective and does not define who you are.
You start to compare yourself to a friend that you deem is doing better than you. They might be in a relationship, are closer to their other friends, make more money, etc.
Challenge negative thoughts with realistic thoughts
Life is not linear
You find yourself hating the way your body looks in the mirror and want to hide how you feel. You started to spiral with thoughts about your body.
Talk to trusted person
Ground yourself
Recognize cog. distortion, change perspective
Positive self affirmation
Journaling
You did not do as well on the English exam as you thought you would and now you are freaking out about your GPA.
Recognize that one bad event will not determine your whole future
You want to talk to the person next to you because they seem really cool, but you find yourself becoming shy and anxious to say anything.
Give yourself a pep talk
Take a deep breath and give it a chance!
Change “Everyone thinks I'm weird” into a more balanced thought.
“I don't know what everyone thinks about me.”
You have noticed yourself getting more frequent ideas about self harm. What coping strategy can you use?
Talk to a trusted adult or supportive person
Notice possible triggers or life events that are causing these feelings
Distract from feelings of hopelessness
988 or deeper evaluation
You found a social media post that has a triggering image
Remove yourself from harmful space
Check in on your body and notice how you feel
Ground or calm yourself down
Tell support person about event
You have repeating negative self talk such as “im going to mess it all up again”
Recognize how harmful the self talk is
Self affirmations
Challenge thoughts with situations in the past that you have not messed up
Journal
Someone keeps pressuring for you to hang out with them even though you do not want to and have indirectly said you are not interested. You feel bad for rejecting this person.
Stand up for yourself even if it is hard to confront
Rant to friend to let tension go
You are walking in the hallways and notice your friends are whispering and laughing. You immediately think they are talking about you and find yourself feeling embarrassed and angry. You want to confront them ( what can you do before reacting).
"Maybe they are laughing at something else. If they are laughing at me they are not my real friends"
You get into a huge argument with your mom or dad because of your recent attitude. The fight escalated to yelling and saying some things you regret. What coping strategy can you use?
Walk away from the situation to calm yourself (go to your room, take a walk)
Come back to the conversation and be open about your feelings with parent
Let that anger out. Scream into a pillow or throw ice outside
You realize that your close friend doesn't treat you well. They bring your energy down, constantly make japs at your expense, and judge you for your mental health struggles. However, you have known this person for a while and your friend group is very integrated. This person is one of the only people you feel you can trust, but they aren't being there for you as you need them to be.
Let go of people who are not good to us
reconsider friendship
Be honest with your friend
Journal
Your friend is having thoughts of self harm or suicide and you make a pinky promise that they do not go through with these thoughts. What would be a better alternative to help your friend?
Tell a trusted adult immediately and tell your friend you will tell someone
You are unsure about what college or university you will go to, and this uncertainty is giving you stress. You start to have a snowball effect of thinking about your future and how many factors you have to consider
Understand that everyone's path is different
Journal
Talk to someone about feelings of uncertainty