before

[amethyst]

1. how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?


I will feel shame. I will feel as if I have betrayed my recovery and hurt my inner child. I will feel disgusted with myself. I will question even more if I have the ability to make it through graduate school. I will feel the endorphin rush and I will crave the release again and again. It is a myth that I can cut myself "just this once."

what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation? A momentary relief and a [fake] sense of control. what it will take away is any real sense of myself as capable of deling with these awful stressors.

how do i want to feel about this in the long run? is hurting myself likely to get me closer to or farther from feeling that way? Like I didn't start my new career with self-destruction

if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then? EXACTLY! COULDN"T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF! THis is a never-ending cycle that will keep me in extreme misery, pain, chaos and deprivation.

what is something i could do now instead of hurting myself? how will it change the situation i'm in? how long will that change last, and what will i do then? I can put away the things on my bed, put away the veggies I just roasted, brush my teeth and go to bed!

how will i feel tomorrow if i hurt myself? how will i feel tomorrow if i do the other thing i came up with? Terrible about myself and panicky. Also, craving the SI because of the physiological response involved. I will still feel terrible and panicky, but the physiological craving will not be there, and therefore, I will also feel grateful.

what do i really want to do right now? how can i best honor the self-protective instinct that has me wanting to self-injure right now?
I can take all of the actions needed to help me feel that school will be okay. This involves studying most of the day tomorrow. Dragging my butt to a meeting in my 12-setp program, calling at least one friend from NYC. calling my dad. Doing the laundry. Organizing my food for the first 1/2 of the school week so that I have healthy choices when the chaos starts back on Monday. Also, going to talk with the disability services coordinator... she said that I was allowed to check in if I was feeling overwhelmed about anything-- not just my learning disability and I trust her. Also, writing out all of my stressors so that I can go in to see my T on Friday with a list in hand so that I can talk to her clearly.


urges aren't necessarily the enemy. they happen for reasons, and they're an expression of a desire to stay alive and stay sane and keep coping. remember that. Okay. I will try to remember that, thanks!

[han]

Sounds like you were able to use the urge as a prompt to think about what is causing the stress and problem solve to make a list of things that would better help you deal with that stress which is great

Hope you managed to get some sleep and feel able to take some of the steps you identified today

han x