BCMM – Online Group Support Meeting on Mondays at 7:00 EST to join us!
Join and engage in our online Google meetings each Monday. Meetings are held on Mondays at 7:00 p.m. EST. We welcome all to join in, listen, share, and leave informed with hope and directions for your journey. This is a safe space. “No recording of any kind is allowed”. Please share this with others and invite another Returning Citizen to join. Let’s grow our community.
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August 31, 2026: WHEN EVERYTHING FEELS URGENT
Learning to Tell the Difference Between a Real Emergency and a PICS Response
After years of incarceration, urgency can become a way of life.
A door slams. Somebody raises their voice. An officer calls your name. Something changes unexpectedly. Someone approaches you differently than usual. You learn very quickly that ignoring what is happening around you can have consequences.
So you pay attention.
You react quickly.
You anticipate problems before they happen.
And sometimes you learn to treat situations as urgent because, in prison, waiting to see what happens may not always feel safe.
Then you come home.
The environment changes—but the response doesn’t necessarily change with it.
A supervisor sends a message saying, “Can you come see me?”
A family member doesn’t answer the phone.
A bill arrives unexpectedly.
Someone’s tone sounds different.
Plans suddenly change.
You make a mistake at work.
Someone says, “We need to talk.”
And almost immediately, your mind can start preparing for the worst.
What’s wrong?
What happened?
What do I need to do?
How do I fix this?
Is something about to happen to me?
Sometimes there really is a problem that needs our attention.
But sometimes what feels like an emergency is actually our nervous system responding to uncertainty.
Learning to recognize the difference can be an important part of recovering from Post-Incarceration Syndrome (PICS).
Why This Topic Matters
Many returning citizens become very good at identifying potential problems.
That ability may have helped us survive incarceration.
But after release, constantly operating with a sense of urgency can become exhausting.
We may react before we have all the information.
We may assume the worst.
We may become frustrated when other people aren’t moving as quickly as we think they should.
We may feel compelled to immediately solve problems that could actually wait.
Or we may spend hours worrying about something that hasn’t even happened.
The goal isn’t to stop paying attention.
The goal is to learn a new question:
Does this situation require an immediate response—or does my nervous system simply want one?
That pause can change everything.
How This Can Connect With the Five PICS Challenges
PTSD:
Hypervigilance can keep the body prepared for danger even when there is no immediate threat. A relatively ordinary situation can trigger a much larger physical or emotional response.
Institutionalization:
Prison teaches us to respond to bells, counts, commands, schedules and authority immediately. After release, we may still feel uncomfortable when things are uncertain or outside a predictable structure.
Antisocial Personality Traits:
When we believe something threatening is happening, distrust, defensiveness or confrontation may become our first response rather than curiosity or communication.
Social Sensory Deprivation Syndrome:
Long periods of isolation or restricted social interaction can make certain environments, conversations and interpersonal situations feel overwhelming. That overload itself can create a sense of urgency.
Substance Use Disorder:
Constant stress and emotional activation can create a powerful desire for immediate relief. If we don’t develop healthier ways to regulate ourselves, old coping mechanisms can begin looking attractive again.
The Heart of the Topic: Urgency Is a Feeling, Not Always a Fact
This distinction is important.
Something can feel urgent without actually being urgent.
That doesn’t mean the feeling isn’t real.
It means we don’t necessarily have to obey it.
Consider receiving a text:
“Call me when you get a chance.”
One person might simply think:
“Okay, I’ll call them later.”
A person whose nervous system has spent years anticipating problems might immediately think:
“What happened?”
“Is somebody hurt?”
“Did I do something?”
“Why didn’t they just tell me what they wanted?”
Nothing has actually happened yet.
But internally, the body may already be responding to an emergency.
That’s where recovery gives us another option.
Pause before creating the rest of the story.
The Three-Question Pause
When something suddenly feels urgent, try asking yourself:
1. What do I actually know?
Separate facts from assumptions.
“My supervisor asked to speak with me.”
That’s the fact.
“I’m about to get fired.”
That’s a prediction.
2. Is anyone in immediate danger?
If somebody’s physical safety, health or well-being is genuinely threatened, immediate action may be appropriate.
If not, you probably have enough time to think.
3. What happens if I wait five minutes?
Sometimes five minutes is enough for the body to settle and the thinking part of the brain to catch up.
Take a walk.
Drink some water.
Breathe.
Call someone you trust.
Write down what actually happened.
Then decide what response the situation requires.
Don’t Solve Problems That Haven’t Happened Yet
PICS can sometimes push us into preparing for outcomes before we know whether those outcomes are real.
We rehearse arguments.
We prepare defenses.
We imagine consequences.
We decide what somebody meant.
We may even become angry about conversations that haven’t happened.
That consumes enormous emotional energy.
Preparation can be healthy.
Catastrophizing isn’t preparation.
One prepares us for reality.
The other can make us suffer through an event that may never happen.
Discussion Questions
What kinds of situations make you immediately feel like something is wrong?
When something unexpected happens, do you tend to react immediately, shut down, become angry, isolate, or try to fix everything?
Did incarceration teach you to anticipate problems before they happened?
Have you ever discovered that something you worried about for hours turned out to be much smaller than you expected?
How does your body tell you that you’re becoming activated—tight chest, faster heartbeat, racing thoughts, irritability, pacing, difficulty concentrating?
Who is someone you can contact when you’re unsure whether you’re responding to the present situation or an old survival response?
What would change if you gave yourself permission to say, “I don’t have enough information yet”?
Practical Recovery Tools
Name What Is Happening
Tell yourself:
“I feel urgency right now.”
Notice the difference between saying “This is an emergency” and “My body is experiencing this as an emergency.”
Separate Facts From Predictions
Write two columns:
What I Know
What I Think Might Happen
Seeing the difference on paper can slow down catastrophic thinking.
Use the Five-Minute Rule
Unless immediate safety is involved, give yourself five minutes before sending the text, making the phone call, confronting somebody or making a major decision.
Ask Instead of Assume
Instead of deciding what somebody meant, ask.
“When you said that, what did you mean?”
“Is there something I need to be concerned about?”
“Can you give me a little more information?”
Communication can prevent hours of unnecessary internal conflict.
Use Your Support System Before the Crisis
Don’t wait until you’re completely overwhelmed.
Sometimes a five-minute conversation with someone you trust can prevent five hours of internal struggle.
Closing Reflection
One of the hardest parts of returning home can be realizing that some of the instincts that once protected us don’t automatically know that the environment has changed.
Our bodies remember.
Our minds remember.
Our survival responses remember.
That doesn’t make those responses useless.
It means we have to learn when to use them.
Recovery from PICS isn’t about becoming less aware.
It isn’t about becoming careless.
And it isn’t about ignoring genuine danger.
It’s about developing enough awareness to recognize:
Everything that gets my attention does not deserve my alarm.
Sometimes something needs to be handled immediately.
Sometimes it needs to be handled tomorrow.
And sometimes nothing needs to be handled at all.
Sometimes we simply need more information.
There is strength in learning the difference.
Before I react, I can pause. Before I assume, I can ask. Before I prepare for the worst, I can find out what is actually happening.
You don’t need to prepare or share. Listening is participation.
Link to meeting: https://breakingchainsmendingminds.com/support-group-live-video-chat/
Post-Peer Group Survey: https://forms.gle/3wEUG3MmCCwyrKMc8