Warning Signs Worksheet: Map Your Early Signs of Crisis and What to Do About Them

About this tool

A mental-health crisis rarely arrives all at once. Most often there are early signs: changes in thinking, mood, sleep, behavior, or how you relate to others, that build over hours or days before things reach a peak. Learning to recognize your own warning signs gives you something precious, which is time. Time to use a coping skill, reach out to someone, contact a professional, or get to safety, all of it far easier early than late.

These signs are personal. For one person the first flag is barely sleeping and racing thoughts. For another it is withdrawing from everyone, skipping meals, or a quiet sense of hopelessness. Some signs are easier for the people around you to spot than for you, which is why it helps to ask someone you trust what they notice in you. Writing it all down turns a vague unease into a clear, actionable map.

This worksheet pairs your warning signs with a plan, so the two live together. When you are struggling, decision-making gets harder, and a plan you wrote when calm can carry you through. It is closely related to a full safety plan, and if you have any thoughts of harming yourself, please use the safety plan tool and reach out for help now, using the crisis lines below.

Everything you write stays in your browser and is never uploaded or stored. The PDF is generated on your own device, so you can keep it private, save it to your phone, or share it with someone you trust or a professional.

The idea of mapping personal warning signs comes from safety planning research. Barbara Stanley and Gregory Brown's safety planning intervention, developed to help people at risk of suicide, lists identifying your own early warning signs as the first step, because recognizing the earliest signals is what makes every later step in a plan possible (Stanley & Brown, 2012). The Wellness Recovery Action Plan, created by Mary Ellen Copeland in 1997, builds on the same idea: a personal list of early warning signs paired with a written response plan that you write for yourself while calm.

There is no score to interpret here. What matters is whether your list feels true to your own experience and whether the plan next to each sign is something you could actually do on a hard day. Read it back a week after writing it and ask whether it still fits. Many people find their warning signs shift over time, so it helps to revisit and update this worksheet every few months, or after any crisis, near miss, or big change in your life.

If your warning signs are becoming more frequent, more intense, or harder to interrupt on your own, that is a sign to bring this worksheet to a professional rather than manage it alone. A therapist can help you understand the patterns underneath your signs and build a fuller plan with you; you can search the Psychology.com therapist directory to find one. If you ever have thoughts of harming yourself, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, any time, day or night.

Reviewed by Michael Callans, MSW
Reviewed for accuracy, safe framing, and inclusion of crisis resources.

References

1. Stanley B, Brown GK. Safety planning intervention: a brief intervention to mitigate suicide risk. Cogn Behav Pract. 2012;19(2):256-264.
2. Copeland ME. Wellness Recovery Action Plan. Peach Press; 1997.
3. 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Warning Signs Worksheet FAQ