Mediating With Your Mental Health In Mind Series – Part 2
09.18.2020
By Raheena Dahya, TFMS Roster Mediator
This series is designed to provide you with some tips and activities you can do to help manage your mental health while going through the family law process.
Call a Distress Line
There are multiple distress lines through which you can speak with either a professional or peer-counselor. Sometimes it’s useful to talk out your feelings, or just the circumstance that’s triggering your anxiety/depression with another person. These lines are a great way to connect with someone who is there to listen to you and support you.
Distress Centre of Greater Toronto
Phone: 416-408-4357
Text: 45645
Web: www.dcogt.com
You can also find a distress line that meets your needs, whether they be bereavement, suicide, or crisis in nature here.
Understand Your Fear Responses
When we feel stress, our body is responding to a potential threat. Perceived threats trigger one of four fear / stress responses: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
In any given situation, your brain chooses what it believes to be the most appropriate response should be and you instinctively react accordingly. There is a catch: your brain cannot differentiate between the threat of, say, a sabertooth tiger about to attack you and some other form of threat, say, an upsetting e-mail from your boss.
As a result, we respond to stressors with one of our four fear responses. Once you can recognize the different fear responses, it will be easier for you to understand when you are feeling them, which in turn will help you manage your stress and responses in a more effective manner.
You can learn about all four types of fear response here.
Access Mental Health Supports Online
You can access the Wellness Together Canada Portal here: https://ca.portal.gs/
Use an Anxiety Plan
You can check out Anxiety Canada’s Anxiety Plans for adults or teens and children here.
