before

[NobodyToYou]

how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?
Nothing will change, except that the feelings will stop for a bit. I won't feel the emptiness for a while.

what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
It will bring a bit of space from the feelings (which include sadness, emptiness, exhaustion, irritation, disgust, and other mixed up things) and a few minutes of peace. It will add a sense of guilt...It will take away a bit of my ability to resist SI. It will take away the few SI free days that I have right now. It will also take a bit of my hope that I will be able to quit.

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 want to feel better...in the short term, SI could do that. In the long term, it can't. I want to be better at handling my feelings and have a way to get through them to more positive emotions. But I don't know if such a way even exists...I know SI is not it. That is a temporary fix, but has bad side effects.

if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
It doesn't...although is some ways it seems like the only option other than just staying the way I am now. And I don't know how long I can do this...but I know I can last a while longer if I try hard enough. I don't know how long the relief from SI would last, but it wouldn't be long enough...because eventually I would regret it and be back in this same situation again and still not have the skills to handle it well.

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?
Nothing changes the situation. The only option I see right now is sleeping for a bit to try to escape from myself (thoughts and feelings...). That won't last for too long, but it might be a minute of rest. After that...I don't know what to do. I have many ways to delay SI...and I have been using them. But the feelings never get resolved, and eventually I get too tired of trying to fight the urges. I don't know what I need to do...

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 will feel bad tomorrow, but for a while I will feel better. Then the urges will come back and I will feel guilty. If I sleep...tomorrow, I will feel just like I do now. And spend all day tomorrow dealing with the same feelings and urges...

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 want to feel better. But I am not sure there is anything that will get me there...even SI doesn't get me there very long. But it would for a few minutes...Right now I am going to try to distract myself and do what I can to make myself feel better without using SI.

[plantt]

have you checked into getting books & such that will give ideas of how to deal with emotions?
sorry si is seeming like such an appealing option right now. that sucks.

[NobodyToYou]

no, I haven't had the time or energy to find the books yet...the papers have been eating all my time. I need to do that...I wonder what my local library has and if anything would be useful. I can't order anything right now without having it shipped to my parent's house, and that is not such a good idea. They would probably figure out something was wrong if a book showed up...Have to see what I can find.
Could any of you that read this send me titles of useful books? Don't want stuff just about SI (fiction or whatever...) unless it helps with dealing with emotions. I think more workbooks or if your T has a favorite book...those are what I am looking for.
I will also go dig around old threads, cause I am pretty sure there have been threads on this.

[plantt]

i gave you the titles of 2 workbooks in your place. maybe find excuses for having books based on si? or keep them in your backpack or such & read them when you're out?

[NobodyToYou]

need to work on it...will put it on my to do list.
I think I am going to need something to help since I will be losing my T shortly. Not happy about that. But I think the workbooks could be helpful...