REEL Crisis Guide: Navigating the Moment of Crisis
A Note Before You Begin: This publication touches on sensitive topics such as self harm and suicidal ideation. If your child or loved one is in immediate danger, is threatening to harm themselves or others, or you believe their safety is at risk, please call 911 or seek emergency medical assistance right away. You can also call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for immediate support and guidance. This guide is designed to help families navigate mental health crises, but it cannot replace emergency services, medical care, or professional mental health support when urgent intervention is needed. |
A Note from REEL: Why a Crisis Handbook?
Research indicates that those who are neurodivergent are more likely to experience mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression. The statistics can be daunting:
66% of autistic people report having an anxiety disorder and 53% report having depression (Jadav & Bal, 2022).
Autistic learners who have been identified as gifted are 5x more likely to experience suicidal ideation than gifted peers who are not autistic (Casten et al., 2023).
By the time ADHD students are in their teen years, 1 in 4 experience co-occurring depression (CDC, 2024).
Dyslexic middle and high school students reported anxiety at a rate of 23.9%, compared with 2.8% among a control group, representing an 8.5-fold increase in risk (Giovagnoli et al., 2020).
These aren’t just statistics to us. All too frequently we hear from members of our REEL community that their child is in crisis. And they are often overwhelmed and panicked because whether the crisis has been slowly building or came as a shocking surprise, the family is thrust into a whole new world that they typically aren’t prepared for. Medical jargon. Mental health options. A complex ecosystem of follow-on supports. All of these can feel completely foreign.
We partnered with two leaders in the field who families in our community have turned to in times of crisis - Joanna Lilley and Shayna Abraham - with decades of experience between them helping families learn how to navigate this unfamiliar and confusing terrain. They’ve put together this handbook to support families to walk through the moment of crisis with their beloved child more effectively. While we continue to work to create a neurodiversity-affirming world that recognizes, appreciates, encourages, and empowers our uniquely wired children, teens, and young adults, we stand strong together in our support of one another on the sometimes winding and difficult journey.
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