Preventing Relapse: The Stoplight Method

Hi, everyone. My name is Rachel Havocost. I'm a writer and mental health advocate, and today I want to share with you a technique that I use to help prevent relapse. I have been through eating disorder treatment and therapy for depression, anxiety, and trauma, and one of the things that I often get really scared about is relapse. I get really nervous that the tools I'm using are not going to work or I'm going to get too unwell for the skills to be effective or that no matter how hard I try, I'm going to be stuck in certain patterns.

So to help with that fear, I have a system I learned in therapy called the stoplight system, which essentially is a way for me to have an idea of what are the symptoms that are an indicator of it's time for me to seek extra support so that I don't get into a place where I'm relapsing. So you can take a piece of paper or you can do this on your notes app, whatever feels good for you. And you basically write out green light, yellow light, and red light. So, green light are signs that I'm doing well, signs that I am healthy and thriving and life is stable.

Then we do yellow light. These are signs that maybe I'm slipping in some of my symptoms. Maybe these are signs that there's extra stressors in my life that I'm struggling to manage or navigate. And maybe I should seek a little extra support so that I don't get into the red light. And the red light are signs or symptoms that I am potentially approaching or already in a relapse, that I might need to be in a higher level of care support. And that I might really need to slow down and pause because I've gotten outside of the yellow zone and I'm now in a place of the red light zone.

So for me, in my eating disorder, the green light might be things like I'm eating all my meals, I have a loving relationship with my body, I'm listening to my body. I'm seeing my therapist according to schedule, I'm asking for help when I need it, and I'm sleeping well. Yellow light might be skipping a few meals, maybe canceling a therapist appointment now and again, maybe isolating a little bit when I'm starting to not feel very good. Red light might be I'm binging and purging, or I'm regularly skipping meals.

I'm over exercising, I'm not seeking support, canceling multiple therapy appointments, experiencing maybe depressive episodes or panic attacks. These are signs that I have gone outside of this place where it would be good for me to seek extra support, and I'm potentially in crisis or relapse. And again, if we get into the red light zone, there's no shame. Okay, this has happened to me before. It does not mean that we are bad or wrong. It just means, okay, I'm in a place where I really, really need some support now.

But I love this system because it allows me to know when I'm in this yellow place so that I can recognize certain signs and go, oh, okay, maybe this is a good time for me to add in a little extra support or book an extra therapy session or maybe take something off my plate. Because if not, I might end up over here and I'd like to stay in the green zone. So this is a great system that is really easy for each person to use individually. It's a really great thing to do with your therapist or with a partner or loved one so that they can also recognize these symptoms in you and that you can have a team to kind of help you navigate these things.

I hope you found this helpful. As always, please leave comments or questions on my videos and I will see you for the next one.