 What if someone you're supporting and caring for working with is suicidal right now they're in crisis and The buck stops with you because you're there with them. What do you do? So the first thing is can you move to a place of safety? So that might be physically moving them away from the place from which they intend to take their own life Or it might be proactively moving them to a place that is safer So that might be a place where there are people often with safer when we've got people around us Or you might be proactively taking them somewhere like accident and emergency That's not always going to be possible and we can't always do that right away But that should be an aim that we have in mind is trying to move either away from danger or towards safety So that's a really nice aim to have Next don't leave them alone if someone's in crisis Do not leave them alone stick with them like glue if you need extra help call it to you or go to it with Do not ever leave this person alone as soon as you break that connection They are much much more at risk than if you stay with them. Have a better job. You might feel like you're doing of this Being there connecting with them is keeping them here and safer Okay, next and this is really tough They are in a state of overwhelm and crisis and we need to try and calm that down physiologically They will be like, you know everything's firing. They're very very anxious very very kind of high energy Lots of adrenaline running perhaps breathing is really kind of getting out of control You might be able to see and hear all this what you need to do is to try and calm things down And the first way of doing that is to start with yourself So you find yourself in this situation. Oh my goodness my friend my colleague my student is suicidal I'm panicking. I'm freaking out. My breathing is also going to speed up. I'm gonna get faster. Am I talking? It's gonna get larger and higher. Ah, okay You feel like that in here. We need to try and convey calm What the person who is suicidal needs right now is for you to be in control of this situation for you to be calm Okay, so we fake it We think about our breathing. We slow it down. We think about our speaking We slow it down. We use our slow low low talking So we slow down the speed. We lower the tone We lower the volume to make our sound calm and in control. We're looking here to be supportive assertive calm when we proactively try and think about our breathing and our movement and Inacting that calm and control and supportive body language and talking and breathing Actually, we begin to trick our own body and we will begin to calm a little as well But also we're able to do what we call co-regulation So actually they will begin to reflect our calm as well. It will take a while But it will begin to happen if on the other hand we're very anxious and very high energy They will bounce off that and this will make us both get more anxious. So try Best acting skills to be calm Yeah, see I'm so sometimes have to give yourself a bit of a talking to you, right? Okay Let's get this together. This is what they need me to do right now next Care out loud Let the person who you're with know that you care about them Know that you're here for them. Know that you're going to keep them safe Say out loud the things that you're doing Acknowledge that they matter to you that you want them to be okay This will begin To penetrate a little bit And help them start to question some of that narrative that might be going around and around and around in their head Don't worry if you feel like you're repeating yourself. Just continue to do this out loud Let them know exactly what you're thinking what you're doing remind them that you care Different people need different things in this situation, but generally for me I would be trying to keep that person connecting and communicating every interaction that they're having Is one that is strengthening the the need to stay to connect with me It's another few seconds when they're here with us and safe And we're giving their body just a little bit more time to overcome that crisis moment So try to keep them talking keep them connecting listen to what they have to say Sometimes it can be helpful to think about distracting them So you might try and think about different things get them talking about a different topic something really easy If it's someone you know and you know that they have something that they will often talk about at length Get them talking about that equally things like animals anything really any topic that comes to mind You might have a picture on your phone that you can share Or you might have a memory that you have in common with this person that you can begin to explore And it might feel really superficial these topics compared to the gravity of the situation right now But what we're looking to do is to try and remove ourselves from these very very difficult thoughts And feelings that are just too much for this person to bear right now and to think about anything else And to try to kind of diffuse this moment this feeling You're basically just trying to buy time So when someone is suicidal, they will only maintain this very very overwhelmed feeling for so long And gradually this crisis moment will begin to pass if we can just buy a minute at a time So it almost doesn't matter how you do it You could talk them through any kind of breathing or grounding technique that you're aware of Anything that you can bring to mind that helps you to continue to connect with them and keeps them talking Or focusing in on this connection with you whilst you perhaps wait for the situation to begin to feel more safe Or for other help to arrive or to get to a point where you can move to a place of safety or wait from harm After the crisis has passed Then it can be really really helpful to encourage the person that you were supporting to write a safety plan That might be something they do with you. It might be something they do with a trusted other It might be something they do on their own, but it's a really really helpful thing And you can use a safety plan if a moment like this to where to arise again to know how best to help them Because then they will have planned ahead for these moments a really great tool for suicide safety planning is staying safe dot net Which is an NHS funded website And you can either download a blank safety plan that you can complete Or you can actually complete the safety plan online and then print it out And it shares loads of different ideas for populating that plan So you don't have to start completely from nothing. So I'd really recommend that Be forgiving of yourself. You will not feel like you got this right But actually this is about muddling through about being brave about running towards that distress and keeping someone safe Just long enough That we're able then to move on and think about the medium and the long-term safety for them You're just getting through one minute at a time however you can Good luck I'd really love to hear your ideas and experience as well either of being helped Or of helping someone leave them in a comment down below lots of people will read the comments and use those ideas too So please add to what I've said with your own ideas I hope this was helpful Please do subscribe for new videos every Tuesday and friday and we'll see you again next time. Bye