what to do if someone has a mental breakdown and ends up in jail

Being in prison can be a very hard feel. The surroundings, the rules and regulations and lack of personal control can all have an impact on your mental health. This guide gives you practical means to await later your mental wellness in a prison setting.

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"I also had to understand and have that I was in prison considering of my ain deportment and consequences. The effect was a prison sentence. Yet, fifty-fifty though I am a prisoner, I tin can notwithstanding achieve and brand a success of my life."

Mental health is well-nigh the way yous think and feel and your power to deal with ups and downs.

Looking afterwards your mental health in prison can assistance you:

Cope better with life in the prison environment
Brand positive changes to improve your wellbeing
Build improve support networks with family unit, other inmates and professionals who can help.

Everyone'southward mental health fluctuates. Nosotros all have times when nosotros feel down, stressed or frightened. Virtually of the time these feelings pass, just sometimes they develop into a more than serious problem.

Self-impairment is a serious trouble in prison. Although the statistics for self-harm are higher for women than men in prison, if self-impairment is an issue for yous, you lot can ask for back up from the mental health squad.

"Jail tin exist scary, the unfamiliar environs, the loud noises, a routine that revolves around time…."

At that place are lots of factors that affect our mental wellness. Two areas that have a huge affect on your mental health are bereavement and substance abuse.

Bereavement and loss while in prison

Prison staff tell us that they are aware that when a prisoner experiences a bereavement, not enough is done.

Ane of the greatest hardships of prison is missing out on family unit events and the most difficult tin can be the death and funeral of a loved one.

There are a number of special licences that may be possible for you to access in social club to visit a dying relative or attend a funeral. Please ask staff to come across if you are able to utilise for such a licence. Alternatively, you may be able to nourish a funeral or visit a dying relative under escort. This ways having a minimum of 2 officers with you and may include the apply of restraints if the gamble assessment says that information technology'south necessary.

If you do experience a bereavement, you lot should exist offered pastoral intendance from the chaplain who can support you during this difficult time. Information technology'south important to request that the chaplain visits you lot again if that will be helpful.

Sharing the news with people y'all trust is important, whether this means talking to officers, prisoners, Listeners or calling the Samaritans. Endeavor non to canteen upwards the news, as that is likely to crusade more harm than practiced.
If you are struggling after a bereavement y'all should inquire for support.

For further information you can contact the Prison house Reform Trust.

Substance abuse

It has been widely documented that at that place are many drugs circulating in prisons. This represents challenges both if y'all are someone who has regularly used drugs in the by or someone who hasn't used drugs before. One fashion of thinking about this is that you are likely to feel a bang-up deal worse afterward taking drugs, compared to before. The synthetic marijuana drug, Spice or K2, is extremely addictive and has horrendous side furnishings such as vomiting and seizures.

The condition of drugs is complex in the prison system. If you are able to, it is all-time to say "no" and keep maxim "no" to drugs.

For further information for yous and/or your family unit & friends the following organisations may exist of help:

Adfam - works to back up families impacted by drugs and alcohol; supporting people through information, prison visitors' centres, and outreach piece of work.

Alcoholics Bearding - the national organisation for people who take problems with alcohol or are addicted. Yous can phone their confidential helpline on 0845 769 7555.

Release – offer specialist services concerning drugs and the provides free and confidential communication to drug users, their families and friends, and others about legal issues relating to drugs. Their helpline number is 0856 4500 215.

Frank - Frank offers free, confidential advice, 24 hours a day. You lot can phone them on 0300 123 6600. You lot can talk to Frank in 120 languages.

The post-obit data describes x tips for looking after your mental health in prison that take come from prisoners themselves too as researchers working in prison house.

Tip 1: Take intendance of yourself

"I take no-one. No-ane sits with me or talks to me on the wing."

When people feel distressing or depressed they tin neglect themselves. Keeping regular hygiene routines such as washing, shaving, wearing clean clothes is often the offset thing to go when nosotros are struggling with our mental health.

Prisoners tell the states that information technology'due south hard to get motivated to take care of their appearance when they feel low. Being unkempt and uncared for can affect how other people call back of us and atomic number 82 to an even stronger sense of isolation.

Building a regular hygiene routine tin can help bring consistency to life in a prison house environment. Showering and shaving everyday are uncomplicated goals that brand a big deviation to our self-esteem. These can go a long fashion to protecting ourselves from being overwhelmed by poor mental health.

The same matter goes for eating a salubrious balanced diet. Choosing what you lot swallow may exist one of the few things that you accept control over in prison, then make the most of information technology:

Eat 3 regular meals a day even when it's the last thing you feel like doing
Drink plenty of water
Include lots of different types of fruit and vegetables
Choose a 'Healthy Choice' at least one time a twenty-four hours
Eat fewer high carbohydrate foods

A diet that'due south proficient for your physical health is also good for your mental health. If you would like to find out more near Nutrient and Mood

Tip ii: A problem shared is a problem halved

"When I starting time came to prison I was scared and I didn't know which way to plow, who I could trust, what I had to do, no one helped me. I felt lost."

Request for back up and aid in a new situation is not a sign of weakness. Finding out most routines, rules and what's available to brand life easier in prison is very important for your wellbeing. It may be surprising that for many prisoners, fourth dimension in prison is the first opportunity they have had to turn their lives around, ameliorate their health and access the services they need.

Talking about personal thoughts and feelings isn't easy. Prisoners tell united states of america that finding someone they trust to talk to can be difficult. Talking about feelings can be hard so it may be useful to plan what you want to say in accelerate. Talk to Health Care, the Chaplain or Wing Staff to support yous.

"I had a problem and I shared it with these guys final calendar week and we all talked about the different means of dealing with it. That was actually useful."

Talking tin be a fashion to cope with a problem you accept been carrying in your head for a while. In many prisons in that location are prisoners who have been trained as Listeners and they offer a confidential service. Talking to someone who is experiencing the same situation can help you to feel less isolated and feeling listened to can assistance you feel more supported.

"Now I ain't saying I am cured and life is great, considering information technology is far from information technology but I know in that location is support and if you are feeling low or think what's the point anymore- don't suffer in silence. Speak to a listener, Clergyman or support mentor because these people are at that place whenever you need them. So if it is early hours and you demand to talk, remember to press your bell and enquire for a listener."

Tip 3: Become active

"Keeping yourself busy is key. I feel amend when I am decorated."

Regular physical activity and do can help your physical and mental health.

Researchers take establish that even moderate practise in a prison setting has a positive upshot on mental health and is effective in reducing the take a chance of depression^one .

You might want to visit the gym and practice facilities. It doesn't accept to be sports-related practise though – it could be gardening or fauna husbandry. Anything that gets you moving can make yous feel better.

If y'all are slightly older, observe out if the prison offers any special 'Wellman' programmes to help y'all manage weight and blood pressure as well as whatever long term health conditions.

Sometimes prisoners have to spend upwards to 23 hours a day in their cells, so learning individual exercises that can be carried out in limited spaces tin exist helpful.

Set yourself achievable goals such as getting a little fitter or losing some weight. Working towards goals (see tip 7) tin aid yous to focus and achieving them can help to improve your self-esteem.

"I am going to the gym and have joined the outdoor walking club. I still set goals in relation to the gym."

At that place are useful booklets and videos available that tell you more near the benefits of exercise and help you create a unproblematic exercise routine. Ask your prison library if they can access them for yous, for instance: How to look after your mental wellness using practise.

Tip four: Learn something new

"At present I am learning to read and write so I can transport a alphabetic character to my married woman in my own handwriting."

The one thing that prisoners have is time. This time can be taken upwardly with worry or feeling angry. It can also provide the opportunity to learn a new skill or develop an interest.

Learning can help build confidence and a sense of cocky-worth. Learning can be skillful for our wellbeing, peculiarly when it'south something that you want to exercise and comes at a stage when you are ready to benefit from it.

In that location may exist more opportunities to learn new skills in prison than you might look. This might be cooking in the kitchen or gardening. Some prisons accept peer mentoring schemes and then you could become a peer mentor or recollect virtually career development. Yous could likewise improve reading or writing and gain some qualifications. Or you could go a listener or mentor.

Learning something new or developing a skill can take you away from your electric current environs. This tin accept a positive impact on your mental health.

"Since being in here I have done my Art GCSE and Art A level. Before I came in hither I couldn't read or write and so I was so chuffed with the A* at GCSE."

Tip 5: Remember more than positively

"I am quite a negative person but now I look on the bright side. I am here (in prison house) for six years, six months but I am not hither every bit long as others. That is the way I expect at it."

In hard situations, your thoughts are more probable to exist negative. This can lead to feeling anxious, guilty or angry. This negative thinking can get habitual, specially when life is challenging. Over time this can lead to depression or go a barrier to making changes and improvements to our lives.

Information technology's important to claiming negative thoughts to maintain our mental health. Developing a more positive thinking habit takes time just can brand a difference to the fashion you feel and behave.

The following can aid yous to alter negative thought patterns to become more than positive:

Become more self-aware – Try to place and understand where the negative thoughts come up from. This might be directly from being in prison house just it is besides likely that they are a result of past experiences.

Get more than self-disciplined – Be aware of when you have negative thoughts and how they impact on you. Try to make a positive decision to make a change to amend things.

Reframe things in a more positive way – Positive statements tin encourage us to cope in difficult circumstances. Endeavor to build up a listing of positive phrases that you can use. Here are some ideas from other prisoners:

I am worth more than I think
I have survived before, I will survive now
There is always a point
I can learn from this
I tin laugh
I don't need to blitz, I can accept things slowly

Get more focused on solutions – When things get difficult, it's helpful to focus on the solution and not the problem. Be aware that in that location are some things you tin command and some things you can't. Try not to focus too much on the things that you accept no control over. An case one prisoner gave was that rather than getting upset by a lockdown preventing him from going to the gym, he used the time to exercise a conditioning in his cell instead.

Living Life to the Full has lots of actually useful worksheets to assistance y'all work with these issues. Ask the prison house library or Healthcare if they can print some for you to utilize.

Tip 6: Think about reducing stress through meditation, mindfulness and relaxation

"In prison house y'all have a lot of time behind the door..."

Inquiry has shown that regular meditation tin help reduce stress levels in prisoners^two, particularly if stress has been maintained over a long catamenia of fourth dimension.

"Mindfulness is a fashion of paying attending to the nowadays moment, using techniques like meditation, breathing and yoga. It helps us get more aware of our thoughts and feelings so that, instead of being overwhelmed past them, we're better able to manage them."ⁱⁱⁱ

Mindfulness is a simple practice to larn that has too been shown to have positive benefits in combating stress, anxiety and depression equally well as concrete issues such as loftier blood force per unit area and chronic pain.

You can practice mindfulness lone or in a grouping. At that place are several courses run by trained mindfulness coaches in some prisons now, simply in that location are also books and audio courses available. Cheque your prison library or inquire the Health Care team.

Here is a one-infinitesimal mindfulness animate exercise yous tin practise anywhere at any time:

Take a minute to find your breathing. Exhale naturally and notice the fourth dimension between each exhale in and out. When your mind wanders, merely gently bring it back to the breathing. You tin continue for longer than one minute if you want to.

If you lot find mindfulness hard, you can likewise use relaxation techniques to reduce stress. These can help to:

slow your middle rate downwardly
brand your breathing slower and deeper
relax muscles
lower blood force per unit area
increase blood flow to the encephalon

These concrete responses will besides help you to feel calmer and less anxious or agitated. You can practise relaxation in a grouping or alone. The Mental Health Foundation has a useful booklet, "How to expect later your mental health using Mindfulness", which the prison house library or Healthcare could download for yous.

Tip 7. Brainstorm to make plans

"I at present depict pictures for other inmates so that they can ship it to their loved ones in their letters, for their kids or for birthdays."

Setting goals may seem impossible in prison, simply achieving small things can brand a real difference to your wellbeing. Having a goal to work towards can build your sense of cocky-worth and confidence. Here are some examples of goals beneath that prisoners have set up. These may depend on what's available in the prison house:

To look after myself and shower every day
To learn a language
To get a Listener
To maintain my chore in the garden
To control my anger
To write a letter every week to my family and friends
To nourish art classes and learn how to draw.
To learn how to play guitar

Having a articulate sense of what you lot want to achieve can requite you a focus in prison. Goal-setting links well with positive thinking and existence solution-focused.

Showtime practising with a 'Quick Win' goal, something you can achieve inside the next calendar week or so. This will help you lot understand what motivates yous and will also aid build your conviction. For example, this could be cleaning your teeth at the same times each day.

During this time, think about one or two bigger goals that y'all would similar to achieve in the medium term and longer term. You should endeavor and make these SMART goals:

S - Brand information technology Specific - What do you desire to do?

Yard - Make it Measurable - How volition you know when you have completed your goal? How can you lot measure information technology? Is it possible to get information technology washed?

A - Make information technology Attainable - How can the goal be completed? What steps will yous accept?

R- Get in Relevant – Tin can you explain why this goal of import to you?

T - Make it Time-jump – It can be helpful to set yourself a time limit to complete the goal.

Suspension these down into smaller 'step-by-pace' goals. Past breaking your bigger goal into smaller doable steps makes it more manageable and helps you to see the progress y'all're making. If you want, let people know what you are hoping to accomplish and accept their encouragement and support.

"Get back to the married woman and kids and never look dorsum. I want to be acrimony gratuitous and learn to read."

Tip viii: Try to go along in touch

"I couldn't believe how hard it was for my family and all I did was worry about them, being away from them fabricated me sink into a nighttime place. But they are the ones who made me strong"

Maintaining contact with friends and loved ones outside of prison can be very difficult. You may experience that they don't want anything to do with you or that you take let them down just it is important for you (and them) to keep communication lines open up. Maintaining regular contact with people in the exterior customs can help you survive the mean solar day to day stress of being in prison house. It keeps yous in impact with the outside world and can inspire you lot to work towards a different life in the time to come.

Research recognises that regular contact with family unit and friends can play an important office in helping prisoners through their sentence, including improving mental wellbeing for both prisoners and their families.⁴

Find out about visiting times and the application process for visitors as shortly as y'all tin. Establishing regular visits tin can requite you lot something to look forward to. Prisons frequently set up family visit days to aid go on prisoners and their children in affect. Charities such equally Barnardo's work with prisons in the UK to support prisoners' families to maintain good contact with each other.

Call up that your family may find information technology hard to get to visit for all sorts of reasons, such as altitude and cost of travel. It is important to respect and understand what they might be going through. Find out if your prison offers family support services and do make apply of them.

It is still possible to accept regular visitors even if y'all accept lost contact with your family or accept no family and friends that tin can visit. The National Association of Prison house Visitors has volunteers who will visit regularly. The aim of the association is to extend the hand of friendship and promote the value of friendship. They assist prisoners keep a link with the outside and a sense of belonging to community. Here is a quote from their website:

"Having a visitor means a lot. Information technology means that someone from outside is bothered enough well-nigh me to come and visit."

Tip 9: Aim to build more positive relationships

"I have no-one. No-one sits with me or talks to me on the wing."

Being 'within' means living closely with lots of unlike types of people, for example, other prisoners and prison officers. This can be very stressful and intimidating. Even though it's a crowded and noisy environment with little privacy, it can be very lonely and isolating.

Having good relationships tin help our concrete and mental health. A supporting relationship enhances our wellbeing and can be a buffer from the negative effects of stress in our lives.^v

A positive human relationship needs time and attention given to it. If you lot want someone to be at that place for you and to listen to y'all, then you need to do the same in return.

An important place to beginning is edifice a positive relationship with yourself. Being kind to yourself regularly is one of the best things you can practice for your mental wellbeing. For example, having personal time to do something y'all cull similar reading, meditating or drawing.
We have already mentioned the value of keeping in contact with family unit and friends and how that can keep you connected to the world exterior.
Other inmates can be a valuable source of peer back up. They understand what you are going through and may accept useful tips that tin help you to survive day to day. 1 way of connecting with other similar-minded prisoners is to join a form or activity that interests y'all:

"Now I am friends with Toby and Derek…we can communicate with each other because they accept been on the same course. Nosotros accept formed a mini-membership club considering nosotros have some things in mutual with other people who have been on the form."

You may not be able to have a friendship with the prison staff but if you lot can connect positively with the staff and professionals it can bring benefits of back up and guidance when you need information technology.

Being around positive people can brand us happier. Every bit, our wellbeing can be negatively afflicted by harmful relationships, leaving us unhappy. Hither are some features of positive and negative relationships:

Good Relationship : Caring, Kind, Listening, Supportive, Equal

A Good Plenty Relationship: Realistic, But enough, Steady, Informative, A compromise

Poor Relationship: Ignoring, Distant, Stressful, Patronising, Blaming, Critical, Controlling, Manipulative, Draining

"I am a highly distressed person so I canteen it upwards a lot, and so it was skilful to talk in a group. I continue talking to people now."

Tip ten: Doing good does yous skillful

"It makes me experience better that people recognise me for my artwork"

It'southward true that doing good feels good just this is actually backed upward by research.^vi

Beingness a part of a social network leads to a feeling of belonging. Contiguous activities such as volunteering can help reduce loneliness and isolation.

Helping others in need, especially those who are less fortunate than yourself, tin provide a real sense of perspective. This tin enable you to stop focusing on what you feel you are missing, and help you lot to feel more positive.

Existence kind tin can better confidence, happiness and optimism. It tin can too contribute to a more positive community. There are too physical benefits such every bit; reducing stress, decreasing feelings of anger and hostility, and studies testify that helping others tin can even help us live longer!

Information technology may seem hard to retrieve of ways of doing good whilst in prison house so hither are some suggestions:

Connect with a clemency or helping organisation, peradventure you lot could become a Listener, Healthcare Champion or peer supporter
Teach another inmate a skill that you accept, for example, model-making, playing guitar, literacy
Spend time with someone who is going through difficulties

"People helped me with what to practise and what to say. And by advising me it gave me forcefulness to respond and claiming. This has helped me and people stopped picking on me."

Write to family unit or friends to tell them yous love them
Send a thank-you note to someone who has helped

Regular small acts of kindness tin can positively change your attitude to life. You may also discover a new direction like the prisoner in this quote below:

"I want to work with the homeless - I used to run pubs and now I want to run a café for the homeless, where people can drop in and keep warm."

Useful Information

Mental Health Foundation offers data on mental health, mental wellness problems, self-help and how to get help.

The Samaritans provides emotional support 24 hours a twenty-four hour period.
Telephone 116 123

Prisoners Advice Service offers costless legal communication and support to adult prisoners throughout England and Wales.
Prisoners Advice Service, PO Box 46199, London EC1M 4XA

Prison Reform Trust has an Advice Team who can provide information on prison house rules and life inside prison house.
FREEPOST ND6125 London EC1B 1PN
Their gratuitous information line is open 3.30pm-5.30pm on Mon and Thursday, and 10.30am-12.30pm on Wednesday. The number is 0808 802 0060 and does not need to be put on your pin.

¹Battaglia, C et al (2015) Participation in nine month physical exercise programme enhances psychological wellbeing in a prison house population. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health 25, 343-354

²Nidich, Southward et al (2016) Reduced trauma symptoms and perceived stress in male prison house inmates through the transcendental meditation programme: A randomized controlled trial. The Permanente Journal/Perm 2016 Autumn(iv); 16-007 Accessed online: http//dx.doi.org/10.7812/TPP/16-007

³Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your heed to face stress, hurting and disease. New York: Deli.

^ivHairston, CF (1991)Family Ties, During Imprisonment: Important to Whom and for What? Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. 18(ane) 87-104

⁵Brooke C, Collins Northward. (2014)A theoretical perspective on thriving through relationships. Personality and Psychology Review (19) 113-147.

⁶Robotham D, et al. (2012) Doing Skillful? Altruism and wellbeing in an age of austerity. Mental Health Foundation

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Source: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publications/how-look-after-your-mental-health-prison