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All four numbers
Kids Help Phone 1-800-668-6868 Text CONNECT to 686868 Hope for Wellness 1-855-242-3310
In British Columbia BC Mental Health Support Line 310-6789 1-800-SUICIDE 1-800-784-2433 KUU-US 1-800-588-8717
Equipped With Agency

Everybody has a middle

What your middle is, what it is like to be too far up or too far down, and what helps with each.

Everybody has a middle. When you are in your middle you can think and feel at the same time, and people can reach you.

Too far up, and too far down

Too far up

Too far up is fast. Everything at once, too loud, and thinking stops working.

Too far down

Too far down is flat. Foggy, quiet, and hard to find words.

They are opposite, so they need opposite things. Up needs slowing down. Down needs waking up. That is why one thing that helps will not help with both.

Your middle is not the same as happy. It is how much you can hold today, and some days it is smaller. That is not you being bad at it.

Things that help

Pick from the group that matches where you are. That choice is the hard part, and it is most of the skill.

When you are too far up

  • Blow out slowly, like you are blowing out candles. Longer going out than coming in. Five of those.
  • Push your feet into the floor as hard as you can. Then let go.
  • Find five things you can see, and say them out loud.

When you are too far down

  • Stand up and shake your hands out. Count to ten while you do it.
  • Get something cold to drink and hold it. Notice it going down.
  • Pick one small thing and do that. Not the whole thing. One bit of it.

Any time at all

  • Say what the weather is like inside you. Stormy, sunny, foggy, flat.
  • Put the worry in a box. Write it or draw it, then shut the lid.
  • Catch the thought. Check it — is that a fact, or is it a worry? Then choose a truer one.

Telling somebody

You do not have to explain it

You can say “I feel weird and I do not know why.” That is a whole sentence and it is enough to start with.

Pick the person, not the moment

It does not have to be right now, and it does not have to be the person who is closest. It has to be somebody who listens.

If nobody is there, the numbers at the top of this page are for you

Kids Help Phone is for young people and you can text it. You do not have to be in trouble to use it, and nobody has to know.

There is a game about this. It is a town where everybody has weather, and you walk around and work out who needs something.