Usually, I email and let her know I'm crashing. Hearing back is enough to hold me until I see her. When I've had an extra session, just having someone to touch base with was enough to relieve some of the pressure. Specifically what it looks like is that I'm taking a lot of risks and making rash, unsafe decisions, or that I feel I might. I don't let it get to the point of having a plan, and have let her know that when I say it's serious to me, it's serious, but that I'm not going to wait until it's level 9-1-1 to let her know I'm in trouble.

A lot of it, for me, is knowing my own signs and being the judge of when I'm in the danger zone. My therapist said the goal is to keep backing that up farther and farther (so, I guess, intervening sooner). In other words, she sees a value in tackling these things early on and not waiting until it's some red letter definition of a crisis. So much of it is being able to find a manageable level of worst so that I can get to a better place more consistently. Not sure if that makes sense...just trying to encourage you to reach out when it occurs to you and not wait. It's a really good discussion to have with your therapist, even when you are not sure how bad things are.