bus

Before:

Before You Self-Harm
write down the shadow that's hiding behind the urge. look at it. ask yourself:

• how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself? slow things down a bit
• what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation? slow my thoughts/emotions down. I'll take away a short break from racing thoughts and maybe centered for a few seconds, but also some guilt
• 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? I need to calm down and just clear my head. I don't know.
• if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then? it will last less than a minute. I'd like to say I'd move on, but probably would do more.
• 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? go to where I am now in the forest, listen to everything, hike around, surf bus website.
  Hopefully get my thoughts under control.
• how will i feel tomorrow if i hurt myself? how will i feel tomorrow if i do the other thing i came up with? I'd feel angry at myself. Other, I'd feel like I made it one more day
• 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?

just walk away from everything. I can best honor it by surfing here until things pass or keep hiking deeper


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.

More Before Questions To Answer

• Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point? just overloaded, can't process things
• Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then? yes. Same things I'm doing now.
• What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me? Spent time playing bus games as a distraction, called a hotline, went to the woods. I don't know
• How do I feel right now? Feeling a little better, more numbish I guess, less thinking
• How will I feel when I am hurting myself? Like everything else has just stopped for a bit
• How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning? probably the same or worse. Like a failure
• Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future? can't avoid it, trying to handle it better, just stuck right now
• Do I need to hurt myself?

I don't Need to, I might want to, but I don't Need to right at this moment


Remember you don't have to answer all the questions if you don't feel up to it.