I have a couple friends that go through this. One has schizophrenia and the other borderline personality disorder. Some ways they handle this is -

1. call their psychiatrist for medication check up. Sometimes when people have been on the same medication for a while thier body builds up a tollerance so the dosage or type of medication needs needs changing.

2. they have made out an emergency list. They asked friends, neighbors and acquaintences if they can call them in an emergency because they live alone. When that person says yes they write that persons name phone number and address down on paper, on the paper too are a list of things that helps to calm them for example a song, a bath, getting a soda from the fridge... Then when these feelings hit they just go down the list.

3. Call their therapy agencys after hours number or their therapists voicemail. Sometimes just hearing their therapist voice helps. I personally have called SKR's voicemail every night when ever I woke up from a nightmare in panic and just hearing her say her voicemail greeting was enough to get me back into reality enough to follow my emergency list for my panic attacks.

4. I have also given them the number of a local hot line service. I have used hot line services for over 20 years and have never been turned away. Sometimes they can only stay on for a few minutes because they are in the middle of an active suicide and helping the police, other times they have stayed on the phone with me for hours and hours. Some nights I end up calling them more than once. when that happens they transfer my call to the on call therapist so that the lines are free for more callers but I get the help I need also. They also now use the hot line number and have had great experiences using it.