have you taken care of your physiacl wounds? if not, go do that now. we'll wait.
Yes i have.
what had happened just before?
I feel like there wasn't a specific trigger. I had gone 6 and a half weeks without serious si (i never consider my scratching serious
) which was half a week longer then last time i'd stopped btw. But it was really hard and for the last week or two i was thinking about it all day, everyday. I would wake up wanting to si and go to sleep wanting to si. So Wednesday i woke up and just decided that i was going to do it. I was sick of fighting and figured that by doing it i could at least stop obsessing for a little while.what were you thinking and feeling
I was feeling really down and i guess like i said earlier i couldn't stop thinking about it. On Wednesday i just stopped caring. Alot of what has been bothering me is feeling bad about how i want something bad to happen to me so i can deserve comfort. I really want that comfort. And i feel bad that i may have hurt myself before to get that comfort. That morning i just decided that if i could hurt myself and not reach out for comfort then i could feel better about myself and maybe start killing that need.
why did you end up hurting yourself then instead of some other time? was there an event that was teh final straw? what was it?
I cannot honestly remember if there a "final straw" event. I don't feel like there was. I think all the pressure i had been feeling over the last little while just finally was too much. I guess maybe because i kept waking up feeling bad. I usually wake up feeling better and then get down gradually throughout the day. But because i woke up feeling like this i cannot think of any specific event.
how did the situation get to the final straw stage? trace it back through the events thatled up to the last event. look for some point at which you could have made a different decisiona nd not arrived at the final straw.
I guess i could have made a better effort to not be so obsessive about things for those last couple of weeks. I have a habit of dwelling on my bad feelings and not trying to distract myself so i guess i was just doing too much of that and that's what led up to waking up that morning and deciding to si. Since i can't identify a specific event i guess the point where i could have made a different decision was when i decided that morning or all throughout that day cuz i was on my way to work when i decided and didn't do it till later that night.
were there outside factors like drugs, alsohol, being off your meds, lack of sleep, etc? can you address those in the future? how?
Ummm...i don't think i was getting very much sleep but i never get very much sleep. I know i feel better when i sleep but i have a hard time going to bed cuz i get stuck going in circles in my head and talking to friends online and i don't want to stop. I am going to try to be better about that though. Make myself go to sleep by 12 on the nights i work in the morning.
what other ways of coping did you try besides self-harm? how well did they work?
Honestly i didn't try very many other ways. When i want to hurt myself other ways of coping or distraction like holding ice cubes or something don't really work well enough. I just tried to tell myself i was stupid for feeling this way.
in retrospect, are there coping methods that you now realize might have helped? what were they?
Hmmm. Not sure. Actually, taking a shower usually helps me and i haven't been doing enough of that. Ummm...i need to find some other way to express how i'm feeling but i really don't know how. I don't really like writing cuz i the thoughts come too quickly and i can't get them down and it just becomes really frustrating real fast.
name at least two things you will do to help yourself remember those coping methods if you end up in this situation again.
I know this is an important one but i couldn't really think of any coping methods. How about i promise that when i do i will come back and answer this question.
how do you feel about the situation that led to self-harm now? is it resolved? if not, what are some steps you might take toward resolution?
Well i guess the situation was me deciding not to care anymore and deciding to use a pretty bad method to kill a part of me that maybe shouldn't be killed. I feel confused about this situation and i don't really think it is resolved because i know the same feelings will come back. I think continuing to talk to and open up to my therapist is the best step towards resolving these feelings. (If only he weren't gone for a while:( )
are you likely to be in that emotional place again? how will you recognize it when you're in that situation?
I think i'm very likely to go there again. I can recognize it cuz i stop caring about myself. I stop showering
and i keep saying to myself over and over how stupid i am. what will you try before you resort to self-harm if you're in that situation again? list three specific things you will commit to trying.
I will try taking a long hot shower. I will try to cry. That usually helps. I will try to type out how i'm feeling in my place or something. Yeah. Oh and i will hold my bear.
Wow it meant alot to me to type all that out. I felt like this time was really different then others because i felt more dead or numb then before. I really didn't care about the consequences. Kinda scared me.
Oh and i wanted to say that i feel like i should have been helping others here before i post but i've been reading and haven't had the energy to respond. But i'm feeling a little better now so i'll try to come back soon and contribute something. Thanks everyone.
~alegria
