Mental Health Resources

Everyone's life is precious, and suicidal thoughts are serious issues to be handled by qualified and licensed mental health professionals.

Helping others is one of the most important things we can do as individuals. If you can recognize when someone is going through a rough time in their life, you may be able to help them, even if it’s just to show that you care and are there for them to lean on.

What You Can Do

Be a friend. That means you should be supportive and encourage them to reach out to their family, loved ones, and/or medical professionals. Remember, you aren’t their therapist and can’t provide treatment, but you can be a support system and someone they can rely on.

Being a friend also means making the hard choices. You may need to call emergency services or a family member on behalf of your loved one. While these decisions are tough and uncomfortable, it's important that we look out for our friends and make sure they are safe.

Taking on the burden of being someone’s support system when they’re going through emotional distress can be extremely stressful and draining, so remember to recognize your own limits and take care of yourself, too.

Here are some common strategies you can do to offer support:

1. 1. 1. Encourage them to seek treatment
      2. Offer to accompany them to appointments
      3. Plan enjoyable activities together
      4. Exercise together
      5. Encourage them to socialize with others

More Resources:

• Guardians Mental Health
• Take This: Mental Health Resources
• Mental Health is Health
• Action for Happiness
• Lifehack
• Roots and Boots

Self-harm can manifest differently for everyone. And, the ways people may self-harm extend far beyond the usual references to cutting in media. Simply, self-harm is anything and everything someone can do to purposely hurt their body.

Managing Self-harm

It's okay to not be okay. Your emotions are real and you have to find ways to cope with them and process what is going on in your life. If you feel the urge to self-harm, here are some common strategies to try to help process and assist with those emotions:

1. 1. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a real human
   2. Try and channel that energy into something creative - Art, Writing, and Listening/Playing Music are great examples.
   3. Try taking a few deep breaths and some grounding skills to help minimize the urge.
   4. Download a few meditation apps to help reduce stress.
   5. Talk to a professional.

Learn the Signs of Self-Injury

More Resources:

• Crisis Text Line: How to Deal with Self Harm
• Self-Injury Outreach and Support
• Help Guide: Learn how to stop hurting yourself

Part of the first step in looking to better our mental health is finding a mental health professional who will assist us on that journey. Sometimes this can be the hardest step due to insurance, cost, or even availability of a provider. The following information is being shared to help try and make the process of finding a mental health professional easy: 

Individuals With Insurance

While insurance can be a luxury, navigating co-pays, authorizations, and finding a professional that will accept your insurance can sometimes be challenging. All insurance providers have clinical staff or representatives who can assist you in locating a provider. You should be able to find a mental health professional in your area that accepts your insurance. It is also important to know your co-pay or other deductibles. Most insurance providers will help to break it down so that it is easier to understand precisely what you owe (if anything).

If your insurance comes from your employer, you may have something known as Employee Assistance Program (EAP) benefits. These are therapeutic sessions that your employer covers. The sessions are usually brief (anywhere from 4-10 sessions approved), but your insurance provider can assist you in finding an EAP-specific provider and can provide you with information on how many sessions would be covered.

Individuals With No insurance or Insurance That Does Not Cover Mental Health

Other Commons Ways to Find Mental Health Professionals

Addiction is an inability of having control over engaging in a behavior or substance to the point that it interferes with your daily life and relationships and/or causes you psychological or physical harm.

Addiction triggers the reward pathways in your brain, making you feel good or happy for doing something. Anything that positively alters your mood can become addictive: food, caffeine, video games, sugar, shopping, sex, television, tanning, gambling, exercise, alcohol, drugs, smartphones, and more.

These things are fine in moderation, but when used or done excessively to the point where the impulse of doing or using them causes suffering related to health, family, relationships, work, and everyday activities, it becomes a problem.

Symptoms of Addiction

1. 1. Lack of Control – You can’t stop doing it and can’t stop thinking about it. You’re willing to do things you normally wouldn’t to keep doing it.
   2. Interference in Daily Life, Relationships, and Work – Your responsibilities are suffering because your time, and more, are supporting your addiction, and people are starting to notice.
   3. Ignoring Physical Issues and Risks – Even though you know you’re having health problems or may get hurt, you continue doing it.
   4. Trouble Managing Emotions – You’re becoming more sensitive to stress, have more outbursts, and are becoming more defensive. You can’t identify exactly what you’re feeling.
   5. Change of Appearance – Your appearance has changed, including weight loss and a noticeable abandonment of hygiene.
   6. Lack of Energy – You no longer have any energy to do anything except feed your addiction.

Treatment and Recovery

While addiction is a chronic and often relapsing disorder, people can and do recover from addiction, often on their own or with the help of their social network, and sometimes through a treatment provider. It usually requires many attempts to accomplish, and while you might fail, you can always try again and learn from the experience. There are many routes to recovery and finding the right path for you is what is most important. Here are some common strategies:

• Medication-based treatment
• Behavioral therapy and counseling
• Medical devices to treat withdrawal
• Treating related psychological factors, such as depression
• Ongoing care to reduce the risk of relapse

More Resources:

• ASAM: Definition of Addiction
• Addiction Center: Understanding Video Game Addiction
• Healthline: Recognizing an Addiction Problem
• MedicalNewsToday: What is addiction?
• MHA: Can you be addicted to a behavior?
• NHS: Addiction: what is it?
• WHO: Addictive behaviours: Gaming disorder
• Harvard Health: What is addiction?

Anxiety disorders involve more than a temporary worry or fear. They are actual physical reactions that can interfere with daily activities such as job performance, schoolwork, and relationships. You might feel anxious when faced with a problem at work, before taking a test, or before making an important decision. For a person with an anxiety disorder, the anxiety does not go away and can get worse over time.

Those experiencing anxiety may experience some of the following symptoms:

1. 1. Feeling restless, wound-up, or on-edge
   2. Being easily fatigued
   3. Difficulty concentrating or mind going blank
   4. Irritability
   5. Muscle tension
   6. Sleep disturbance (difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, or restless, unsatisfying sleep)
   7. Excessive anxiety and worry that you find difficult to control.

More Resources:

• Crisis Help Line: How to Deal with Anxiety
• NIMH: Anxiety Disorders
• Guardians Mental Health: Anxiety
• Better Health Channel

• UK: Call (if under 18) at 0800-1111, call 0808 800 5000, call 0808 802 5544, and visit YoungMinds.
• Canada: Call at 800-668-6868
• Australia: Call 1-800 55 1800, call 13 11 14, text 0477 13 11 14, visit Lifeline, and visit kidshelpline.

• • Walk away if you can
  • Tell someone you trust exactly what is happening
  • If this is at school, contact a teacher, school counselor, your principal, your superintendent, and even the State Department if nothing has changed
  • Try to avoid the bully when you are alone
  • Block them on all social media and any other means where they can contact you
  • If they've already contacted you, don't read or respond to their messages, then block them
  • Be brave by not reacting to them
  • Don't be afraid to ask for help from those you trust
  • Keep a record of the bullying to provide proof of how bad it is, including any messages they have sent you online
  • Don't ever share your name, age, address, or contact information with ANYONE online
  • Always log out of your online accounts and never share your passwords with anyone

What is Bullying and Cyberbullying?

Bullying is when someone repeatedly embarrasses, threatens, or hurts someone else’s feelings. Cyberbullying is bullying that can take place 24/7 year-round while being anonymous using electronics and over the internet, including cell phones, computers, tablets, social media, and other chat services.

Online Gaming and Cyberbullying

Playing videogames should be fun and engaging. When playing online, sometimes emotions can be heightened, and if some players aren't performing well, other players will billy them. With how anonymous players can be online, it's difficult to hold them accountable when they bully others and use games as a form of harassment, sometimes stealing information from other players.

Tips to Stop Cyberbullying in Games

• Block or Mute the bullying player from being able to contact you. This can include de-friending them if they're on your Friend's List, using your game and platform's "Block" button, and updating your platform's Settings so that non-friends can't contact you. 
• Report the bullying player using your in-game Report tools. View our article to Report Players in Destiny 2. If the bully threatens that they are reporting you, don't worry about it - only players who break rules are banned.
• Quitting a match or turning off the game can stop it immediately. Some games may warn or penalize you for leaving a match, but you did it for your own protection and mental health.
• Contact the game's support team or moderators to see if they can offer assistance. If you can, provide evidence of the bullying, such as screenshots or videos.
• Telling a parent or guardian and ask if they can help you.
• If the harassment gets worse where you begin feeling unsafe, contact your local law enforcement agency to see if they can help.

Preventing Cyberbullying in Games

To prevent cyberbullying from occuring before it beings, here are some tips that can help:

• Change your platform's communication, security, and privacy Settings so that only Friends can contact you.
• Turn off Voice and/or Text Chat, or alter your game's settings so that they can only be used when with friends or when you're on a team.
• Don't open message or voice requests from people you don't know.
• Keep your personal information private and don't share it with anyone. This includes things like your name, email address, phone number, social media accounts, birthdate, and the location where you live.

Kids: How to Tell an Adult

If you're being bullied, you should tell an adult. You may feel scared and think that things won't change, but you won't be able to get help until you tell an adult. It might be hard to explain what's happening, so decide for yourself what you want to say and who you want to speak to. Sometimes it's more difficult to tell a parent than someone else about an issue you're facing.

Burnout is a form of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion brought on by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when feeling overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and general fatigue, usually related to a job or workplace, but it can occur in any area of someone’s life.

The issue of burnout can have many systemic influences, meaning that the cause or root of burnout can be attributed to a system someone is a part of instead of an individual.

There are three categories of burnout symptoms:

• • Emotional Exhaustion - Feelings of being emotionally extended and exhausted by your work.
  • Depersonalization - An unfeeling and impersonal response toward people of your service, care, treatment, or instruction.
  • Personal Accomplishment - Feelings of competence and successful achievement in your work.

Burnout in Regular Life

Burnout that is not work-related can occur from different roles in someone's life, especially when giving or committing a lot of energy to a role. Roles require a lot of energy and involve varying degrees of stress, and stereotypes and stigmas can make those suffering from burnout within these roles feel that they are to blame for their issues. As a result, they can often hide their struggles from others. Without treatment, burnout can cause severe consequences to those affected.

The most common non-work-related burnout are:

• Parental Burnout – Burned-out parents can put a tremendous amount of stress on themselves due to trying to get everything done. Sometimes this can result in trying to get away from being a parent to preserve what energy they have. Parents can also feel that they aren't the parents they want to be, feeling shame for not being who they want to be.
• Caregiver Burnout – People who voluntarily give up their free time to help care for a loved one experiencing illness, disability, or any condition requiring attention are sometimes called informal caregivers. It can be difficult for informal caregivers to take a break from their responsibilities because they feel that someone else is depending on them.
• Relationship/Marital Burnout – Long-term conflicts within a relationship or marriage can compromise the quality of the relationship, leading to a possible increase in aggression and reduced feelings of love. Setting aside a specific time with a partner to reconnect can help combat this type of burnout. Therapy can also be an option for those couples who can't find common ground anymore.

Depression (major depressive disorder, also known as clinical depression) is a common but serious mental health condition. It causes severe symptoms that impact multiple aspects of daily functioning, such as how you feel, think, sleep, appetite, and motivation. To be diagnosed with depression, the symptoms must be present for at least two weeks.

Those with depression may try to hide the fact that they’re depressed or they may not even realize they are.

Recognizing Depression

1. 1. Depressed mood most of the day nearly every day
   2. A loss of interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities
   3. Significant weight gain or weight loss when not dieting
   4. Sleeplessness or an overabundance of sleep nearly every day
   5. Making movements for no reason (such as tapping your shoes or pacing around a room) or noticing that movements, thoughts, and speech have slowed down.
   6. Fatigue or loss of energy
   7. Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt
   8. Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness
   9. Recurrent thoughts of death

Getting Help

Here are common strategies that may help you or a loved one during treatment for depression:

1. 1. Contact a medical professional. Some depression types, such as chronic depression, can't be managed by the common strategies below and need a medical professional to help manage those symptoms.
   2. Try to be active.
   3. Set attainable goals for yourself.
   4. Try to spend time with other people and confide in a trusted friend or relative.
   5. Try not to isolate yourself, and let others help you.
   6. Expect your mood to improve gradually, not immediately.
   7. Continue to educate yourself about depression.

More Resources:

• Depression Information
• Screening for Depression
• Depression Support
• Major Depressive Disorder
• APA - Depression
• Recognizing the hidden signs of depression
• Signs of Depression
• Depression Symptoms and Warning Signs
• Recognizing the Signs & How to Help

Imposter syndrome (also known as imposter phenomenon) is a feeling people have when they doubt their accomplishments, skills, expertise, or talents compared to their peers and have an internalized fear of being revealed as a fraud or failure.

Signs and Symptoms

There may be times when others give you praise for your successes that you brush off, claiming that it was just timing, luck, or other things besides your skills. If you keep doing this, you’ll never believe that earned your success. Due to you not believing that you earned your successes, you fear that others will eventually believe the same thing.

As a result, you may push yourself to work harder than before with the belief that you'll:

• stop others from seeing your perceived failures or shortcomings
• make yourself feel better from “tricking” people
• eventually become worthy of your role that you don’t believe you earned
• cover up what you consider to be a lack of intelligence

As you work harder and accomplish more, the accomplishments won’t reassure you, because you’ll see them as products of your efforts to maintain the “illusion” of your success. And then you’ll take all the blame for any mistakes made, even though you consider your accomplishments to be from something other than your skill.

Over time, this can fuel a cycle of anxiety, depression, guilt, and burnout.

The Five Types

There are five patterns in people who experience imposter feelings:

1. 1. The Expert – Those who try to gain knowledge and understand everything they can about a topic, and then consider themselves failures if they don’t know the answer to a question or encounter more knowledge that was previously missed.
   2. The Individual – There are those who believe that if they can’t achieve success on their own, they are failures. Asking for help, or accepting help of any kind, means admitting their limitations and admitting that they are failures.
   3. The Natural Genius – When those who always learned things quickly start to struggle, it can be a big blow to their ego and mental state, causing embarrassment or feeling ashamed that they failed to succeed easily.
   4. The Perfectionist – Those who strive to be perfect set extremely high goals for themselves, and if they don’t achieve all of them, they can feel like failures, even when they achieve most of their goals.
   5. The Superhero – For them, to succeed means pushing themselves to the limit and using as much energy as possible in every role they take on. If they aren’t giving 100% all the time or believe that they can do more even when they can’t, they can feel like failures.

Overcoming Feelings of Imposter Syndrome

If you recognize that you’re undergoing feelings of imposter syndrome, there are ways to overcome your beliefs:

1. 1. Prepare for Your Feelings – You can prepare yourself for feelings of imposter syndrome. When they happen, recognize them, and try to reassure yourself that they’re just emotions and that you’re capable of your successes.
   2. Save Your Accomplishments – If people give you praise, write them down and save them somewhere close. If it’s a chat or email, save them in a document to find later when you’re feeling like a fraud.
   3. Recognize That Your Have Expertise – You don’t have to just look at those with more experience for help, you can also give advice and assistance to those with less experience, allowing you to recognize how much knowledge you have.
   4. Remember What You're Good At – Write down what you do well and what areas you think you need improvement in.
   5. Quit Comparing Yourself to Others – If people accomplish something, don’t compare your accomplishments to theirs. Instead, recognize that you both have accomplished things, and celebrate them.
   6. Learn to Celebrate Imperfection – Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good. You should always strive to do your best, but don’t let trying to do your best impede your progress. Find a reasonable balance between the two so that you can still celebrate your accomplishments.
   7. Speak to a Friend or Mentor – Your friends and mentors can help you understand your feelings, reassure you that their normal and irrational, and encourage your growth and progress.
   8. Talk to a Professional – Talking to a therapist or psychologist can help you break out of the cycle of feeling like a fraud.

More Resources:

• American Phycological Association
• Healthline: Overcome Imposter Syndrome
• Time: How to Deal with Imposter Syndrome
• The Journal of Behavioral Science

Trauma is not a conscious choice but a normal survival reaction from our brain and limbic system to abnormal situations.

What is Trauma

The word ‘trauma’ can encompass many different experiences. However, the consensus is that trauma is an often-invisible wound that injures people emotionally, psychologically, and physiologically.

Trauma is a significant emotional response to learning about, seeing, or experiencing distinct threatening events, such as accidents, natural disasters, devastating losses, war, systemic racism, persistent fear and stress within negative relationships, or toxic work environments (APA, CPA, NCPTSD). Trauma can also affect future generations of a family or group of people; this is called intergenerational trauma.

While many people may go through some of these events in their lifetime (in the U.S., 50% of men and 60% of women), not everyone will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from it. Usually, only 8% of the stated 50% of men and 20% of the stated 60% of women develop PTSD. For those who experience trauma, the symptoms following the event (distressing thoughts, persistent images, a strong sense of threat, feeling emotionally numb and irritable) persist longer than intended, affecting their physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual health.

Following a traumatic incident, people can feel stunned, disoriented, and unable to process the information they have seen. Our brains react to what has happened by going into an alert mode (Amygdala), but while this happens, our memory storage and recollection (known as Hippocampus) does not work so well. This can lead to a multitude of unwanted feelings and symptoms:

1. 1. 1. 1. Intense or unpredictable feelings of fear or anger – Feelings of anxiety, nervousness, overwhelmed, or even grief-stricken. These symptoms can also lead to increased irritability or moodiness.
         2. Flashbacks and unwanted memories of the trauma – Repeated and vivid memories of the event may present themselves following the trauma. These memories may occur without reason and may lead to acute physical reactions such as rapid heartbeat, sweating or even panic attacks. Flashbacks can impact concentration and decision-making abilities.
         3. Hypervigilance for potential danger – Sirens, loud noises, burning smells, or other environmental sensations may stimulate memories of the disaster, creating heightened anxiety. These “triggers” may accompany fears that the stressful event will happen again.
         4. Negative beliefs about other people and their intentions – The mistrust can result in strained interpersonal relationships due to excessive caution and difficulties trusting others. Increased conflict can occur, such as more frequent disagreements with family members and coworkers.
         5. Efforts to avoid perceived danger – Following the event, people may become withdrawn, isolated, or disengaged from usual social activities.
         6. A negative belief about ourselves and the role we would have played in the event – While avoiding the perceived people may feel stricken with guilt and shame from the event, often blaming themselves for the results of the event.
         7. Dissociative symptoms – Detachment, Derealization, and Depersonalization.
         8. Changes to sleep patterns – Nightmares, sleep paralysis, early waking.
         9. Somatic discomfort – Headaches, nausea, and chest pain may occur and could require medical attention. Pre-existing medical conditions could be affected by the stress relating to the trauma.

Stress Responses

Following the exposure to trauma, our mind and body's normal survival instincts kick into overdrive, however, this can lead to our alarm system (Amygdala) getting stuck in the on position. As such, individuals can feel a perpetual fear for their survival which falls into four main reactionary categories: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn.

1. 1. 1. 1. Fight – Fight mode is a state of self-preservation at all costs. In this mode, the sense of danger can lead to explosive anger, aggression, and emotional outbursts.
         2. Flight – Flight mode can be characterized as overwhelming feelings of panic and anxiety leading to an inability to relax due to the associated excessive worry. In this state, people can have a feeling of needing to control everything and be perfect, which can also lead them to remove or avoid distressing situations.
         3. Freeze – Freeze mode can happen when people are overwhelmed by the amount of distress which can lead them to dissociate from the present moment. People in this state can feel the need to isolate or hide from the world, can feel in a fog, and not know what to do about how to manage distressing situations.
         4. Fawn – Fawn mode often presents following trauma relating to abusive situations. To stay safe, people will often resort to people-pleasing due to the fear of potentially being hurt again. Fawn mode becomes an unhelpful coping strategy as it can lead people to be physically or emotionally exploited, potentially retraumatizing them.

Triggers

Some of the most intrusive trauma symptoms are triggers, which can lead to a cascade of follow-up symptoms. Triggers are incredibly intrusive as many people are unaware of all of their triggers. The human body is self-protective, which leads to the automatic reaction to any indicating cues of possible danger. The brain is very good at pattern recognition and can easily be primed by many factors, leading to a higher likelihood of trigger response.

A trigger is not remembering when we were in danger but a sudden and overwhelming feeling of being in immediate danger and the need to respond accordingly to return to safety. When experiencing a trigger response, people can feel a multitude of cascading symptoms:

1. • Anxiety/fear
   • Increased heart rate
   • Unsettled stomach
   • Shallow breathing/hyperventilation
   • Obsessive thoughts
   • Rapid and disproportionate reactions to events
   • Feeling uneasy
   • Hypertension
   • Muscle tensions, twitching, tics
   • A multitude of unhelpful thoughts

Post-Traumatic Growth and Resilience

While many people will experience one traumatic event in their lives, not everyone will have PTSD. Even with a diagnosis of PTSD, the narrative of their experience includes one of survival. Suffering from trauma is not equivalent to being flawed or weak. Trauma is a highly effective safety and survival tool, which can also be used as a springboard to finding and building resilience. With support and treatment, people are not only able to recover and survive, but they can also thrive in their lives. Post-traumatic growth (PTG) is a theory that suggests that people can grow past their trauma, by learning new tools and aspects of themselves following the trauma.

Building Resilience

We will encounter adversity, complex trials, and moments that test our strength during our lifetime. These are the times when everyone can show off their resilience and show off the ability to change direction, heal physically and emotionally, and make a difference in their lives and others. Resilience is not the ability to withstand everything that comes at us but the ability to be flexible and accommodate our needs to persevere through a difficult time.

While the idea of resilience is still being researched and reviewed, there are several things that you can do to try and help increase your resilience:

Failure as Feedback

Failure does not have to be the end; it can be the beginning of a new path that can help guide us to a successful future. We can use the feedback we learned from the failure and the feedback we received from others and become stronger.

Self-Regulation

Our greatest ally is ourselves, even in the heat of extreme emotion, action, or agitation. When we are stressed and think there is nothing we can do, these helpful tips can help you manage your feelings and reactions to what is happening around you:

1. 1. 1. 1. Be mindful of what you feel – Identify the emotions if you can. Embrace them and use them as a strength, not as a flaw.
         2. Accept – Try to recognize that it is okay to be anxious or fearful. Our emotions make us who we are but can also make us stronger.
         3. Breathe – Remember to always breathe. Give yourself a short moment to breathe and reset so you can react to things as you need to.

Trust in Your Fireteam

In the most stressful of times, something that can make us strong is knowing that we have a great team behind us ready to help. Having faith and trust in the team behind us helps us to be stronger and have the resilience to continue forward.

Resilience can help defend and manage various mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety. Resilience can also help offset factors that increase the risk of mental health conditions, such as being bullied or previous trauma. Being resilient can vastly improve your coping ability if you have an existing mental health condition.

Where to Find Help

Trauma is very complex, and it is essential to seek help if symptoms progress. When working with trauma, it is crucial to find a professional versed in Trauma-informed care.

Trauma-informed care looks to:

• • • Realize the widespread impact of trauma and understand the paths to recovery
    • Recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma in patients, families, and staff
    • Integrate knowledge about trauma into policies, procedures, and practices
    • Actively avoid anything that could be re-traumatizing

To find a therapist, the following resources are available for support:

• • • https://www.psychologytoday.com/ 
    • https://www.nami.org/help
    • https://openpathcollective.org/
    • https://www.samaritans.org/

More Resources:

• Psychology Today: Resilience
• BetterUp: Emotional Regulation Skills
• APA: What is Trauma-Informed Care?
• APA: Recovering Emotionally From Disaster
• APA: The Legacy of Trauma
• APA: Trauma
• A Place of Hope: Treatment for Trauma & PTSD
• National Child Traumatic Stress Network
• Crisis Services: Trauma Support