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tools to help you assess your urges before you give in to them, and to help you understand and learn from slips after they happen. by posting here, you're saying that you are serious about exploring the feelings behind your self-harm in depth, whether you're ready to stop hurting yourself or not. to request posting access, click usergroups above and join before and after.

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XclippedXwingsX
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Post by XclippedXwingsX » Wed Oct 13, 2004 11:25 pm

*I'm just feeling slightly triggered right now because of something I just saw on TV... Dammit I knew I shouldn't've watched it. So Stupid*

how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?
The annoying voice that tells me to cut will go away but I know I'll feel guilty about slipping, which only leads to more cutting until I'm satisified which never happened.

what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
It'll take away the stress and the urges and all my emotions away... But I know by hurting myself the horrible dark cloud of feeling guilty will come with SIing.

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 don't feel to good about it... Cutting will only help for a short while. Farther away from the feeling but only for a short time.

if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
The relief may last about a day... I dunno. And as for the second question, I'd probably end up cutting again just to get the stress away. Just to breath...

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?
THere's a number of things I could do. Read a book, write poetry, write a story, listen to angry music, play guitar, sing my heart out in my room. By doing any of these better methods of coping I think I could get rid of the stress a lot better and it would be gone for a longer period of time.

how will i feel tomorrow if i hurt myself? how will i feel tomorrow if i do the other thing i came up with?
Guilty, completely guilty because I'm a perfectionist and that means I'll loose all my SI Free days and not to mention my friends would flip out. I'd also feel disappointed that I couldn't do something better and that I'm letting every lkittle problem in life get to me. If I tried something differnt other than SIing I believe I'd feel a little better about myself. My self eestem is pretty fragile and I think knowing that I got through this would give me a boost - even if it's just a slight one.

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 really don't want to SI - I never really ever wanted to - I just end up giving into the annoying voice that tells me it's ok to do it... I'm not quite sure, but I really don't want to cut even though the urges are still here... :-?

*You don't have to reply - you can if you want to. I just needed to get this all out before I do something I regret. I doubt I'll do anything but I just thought answering these questions would help get my urges sorted out and maybe the urges would die down a bit*

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Post by littlethings » Wed Oct 13, 2004 11:34 pm

I think it's great you are so strong about quitting & it sounds like you have a lot of other coping mechanisms that you know will help.

If you feel comfortable, do you think you can discuss what it was about what was on TV that triggered you? If you can work that out, it might help you understand how to help with a similar urge later.

JoAnna

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Post by XclippedXwingsX » Thu Oct 14, 2004 12:54 am

Well the thing that was on tv was this whole story about anorexia. I'm a former anorexic and well my family was watching it and I happened to walk in when they were showing the girls struggling to eat and so skinny. I got scared. Because I realized that was me at one point in my life and it just triggered me at the moment I heard one of the girls talking about cutting herself when she would eat... She even showed her tools. ANd I was stupid enough to watch it, my parents didn't know since I was in the hallway. She showed her scars and cuts and I felt triggered... That stupid TV show! Gah! Not to mention school's been adding stress every single day...

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Post by littlethings » Thu Oct 14, 2004 3:38 am

Wow, that really does sound like it would be hard to deal with. What's important isn't that you made the choice to watch the tv show, but that you made the choice to fight the urges it triggered. And that was the right choice :)

JoAnna

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Post by XclippedXwingsX » Thu Oct 14, 2004 11:55 pm

Thank you JoAnna. My urges are gone now and I didn't cut, thankfully. I think as time goes on my strength to fight my urges get higher. I mean... I've been battling and loosing... but at the same time I win some. You can't win every battle, but this one I've won. And I'm proud.

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:star: No Flaws When You're Pretending :star:
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