Do you use coping methods (healthy ones...
) in combination or just on their own?
In combination - like there are some that you have to put in place before the urge to SI arrives, like counting days, carrying around lists of questions or strategies or phone numbers, keeping SI stuff inaccessible. And also when the urge hits, I might listen to suitable music while writing about how I feel or scribbling on myself in red or whatever.
Name something that helps you to cope beginning with the letter 'A'.
Answering the
Listening to Urges questions and
Kharre's questions.
I also find Animals and being Asleep are good!
Do you see coping ideas as ways to banish feelings/urges or as a way to process/deal with how you're feeling?
That's interesting. Some of the strategies, like the questions and stuff, do help me to process how I'm feeling, but I find that while they give me understanding they don't necessarily make it hurt less. Sometimes things like writing on myself in red work better by dissipating some of the self-hate. But anything that causes me to delay SI is of some help.
What's your favourite coping thing?
Stroking a cat is the best, only I don't always have one

Posting on BUS is next

If I can't do that, then a warm drink and some music.
When you're walking and you're nervous/anxious what do you do to cope with that?
Um, I talk to myself

Like, I mutter under my breath "It's alright, it's ok, sshh you're alright - no! she needs to cut herself! - no I don't, shut up, it's ok..." I don't say it out loud, but my lips move, so I suppose people in the street think I'm mad.
Describe how you could cope with one piece of paper and one art material of your choice.
Nice question!

I'd ask for a
red ballpoint pen and write words on my skin with that. Then I'd tear the paper into a square shape and carefully make an origami bird.
Do you try to view situations from a different perspective before trying to find something to help you cope? If you do, can you give an example of how you turned it around?
Hmm, well sometimes I fill in a "Thought Challenge Worksheet", which gives me a different perspective. It doesn't seem to make me feel better though, it just changes the feeling from "I'm evil" (say) to something less irrational but still hurtful like "I'm nasty to others".
Have you ever made an emergency book or box? If not, would you like to?
I've made an
emergency tape. I'd like to make a box, one day I'll get round to it.
If I gave you £10 what coping things would you most like to buy?
A really big cuddly toy, big enough to hug properly. I have a panda like that at my mum's, am a bit too embarrassed to ask to take it though
Do you have a portable coping things to put in your bag? If so, what do you have?
I have lots of lists! Coping strategies (not the
vast list but a smaller subset that I'm most likely to use), thought challenge worksheets, the two lists of questions to answer, a list of phone numbers, my list of reasons for wanting to stop SI. If I know I might be in a difficult situation, I also take my emergency tapes and walkman, or a small cuddly toy.

Thanks for this post, Limestone, it's a very imaginative way to look at how I cope.
