after

[demidivine]

have you taken care of your physiacl wounds? if not, go do that now. we'll wait.
yes, sort of. as much as is possible in this humidity and dirt - i'm being careful.

what had happened just before?
i had gone home half an hour early, with this in mind. i had worked hard all day finishing a report. i had got frustrated with myself a few times.

what were you thinking and feeling?
i was thinking, do i really want to do this? is this one of the times when i do it when i don't really want to? i don't think it is. i don't really think i was thinking that much. i haven't done much thinking lately.

i was feeling relatively calm, like this was an inevitable outcome of the last two weeks.

why did you end up hurting yourself then instead of some other time? was there an event that was the final straw? what was it?
i don't think there was a final straw, it was something i had to do. it was a convenient time. a culmination of frustrations, my most immediate work was finished, and i was alone.

i've been quite lonely, tired, lost and confused lately, all the usual. nothing new. i am quite dull, generally.

how did the situation get to the final straw stage? trace it back through the events that led up to the last event. look for some point at which you could have made a different decision and not arrived at the final straw.
i think it's been two weeks of building up, of not having anyone to talk to, not hearing from my boyfriend, being confused about relationships with people here, being overworked and then overtired, starving myself, and mentally punishing myself. i make myself worse.

i don't know how i could have changed this.

were there outside factors like drugs, alsohol, being off your meds, lack of sleep, etc? can you address those in the future? how?
a bit of lack of sleep - but its so hot here, i have trouble changing that. i'm trying to stop drinking alcohol because it's too hot, and my body can't cope with the amount i usually try to get down me.

what other ways of coping did you try besides self-harm? how well did they work?
i tried emailing kit, but he never replied. i tried distracting myself, with bus, work and going out, but as i am not a social animal the latter failed. i admit to not really trying to cope. i don't have the time before it gets dark in the evenings to go for walks, and this city is so polluted that it makes me feel ill anyway. my days in the week consist of work and partying. which isn't good for me. but i can't think of alternatives.

in retrospect, are there coping methods that you now realize might have helped? what were they?
i don't know. i don't know whether i really care, either. i'm sorry.

name at least two things you will do to help yourself remember those coping methods if you end up in this situation again.
i don't know.

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?
it's still there - i'm feeling a lot better around people, which is a direct consequence of cutting, but the emotions are still there and the frustration with having to make bad, see-through excuses and covering up with plasters is making the emotions stick around.

i don't know what i can do to make them go away. i think i need to go home, or go for a change of scene, or wait for lou to come out so i have someone to talk to about how i'm feeling - but its her holiday, and she's just split up with her long-term boyfriend, so i shouldn't really give her my crap to think about either.

are you likely to be in that emotional place again? how will you recognize it when you're in that situation?
yes. i think i am still in the situation, this has just relieved some of the emotions for a while, or just happened because that's what i needed to do.

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'll try to write down the emotions in my diary
draw a picture or two
do some meditation.


i'm sorry i've been so useless. i'm having trouble at the moment just putting my feelings out, into words, or at least acknowledging i have feelings. i am watching myself try to deny my emotions, calling them stupid and made up and small and silly. and when i put them in words, they seem even more so. i don't know.

[plantt]

what's caring got to do with it?
behavior isn't dependent on caring. a lot of things in life simply need done. regardless of whether or not we want to do them or care about them.
even those who have very firm reasons to stop si... those who very much care & want to... i know many of them have times they don't care either. it's not usually a 100% consistent thing.

[demidivine]

hi, mab and plantt. thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

i do agree with what you said, mab, about feeling like i needed to SI because it'd been a while and i'd lose validity otherwise. but i think it was more than that, because i didn't really have anything else to help me explain or examine my emotions, and because i didn't want to examine my emotions - i haven't wanted to lately, and i don't know why. i suppose, now i think about it, cutting was a way to avoid having to analyse these emotions that i don't want to be bothered with, through my usual and familiar route. it made the situation feel more normal.


i dont think my self-abuse - in the form of bad eating, overtiredness, etc. - isn't all consciously inflicted, it's just now become what i do. i've almost become proud of the fact that i'm able to eat less than when i was in england, because the heat has sapped my hunger. you're right, though, that i allow myself to fall into this.

i think if i consciously attempted to take more care of myself, i could get my head in order enough to understand myself better. i know that i'll try to do this next term at uni, because i am very conscious and afraid of what i will try to do with myself and to myself next year. but now - when i'm not working on something hugely important to me, but that i just find interesting, and when i'm doing something so abstract in a different country with entirely different people, my usual way of working, and any pretensions to taking care of myself like that, have fallen apart for some reason, and i just don't want to be bothered with that aspect of me. it can run on, i don't want to be bothered with it now.

i do think looking at the reasons for SI will lead to understanding slightly how i'm feeling at the moment. i just don't understand why i don't want to be aware of my emotions.


i don't know whether i'm ready to stop yet, either. to be honest, i don't want to say "i'm stopping SIing" - i want to say, i'm sorting my head out. i want the SI to stay as a symptom that will fade as the problems are solved, or at least understood and allowed for.

i think i may need to make a list of smaller things i can work on. i'll try that in my place. thanks for the good idea, mab. you are an utter star for providing me with the means to think through all this. i make slightly more sense to me now.

and plantt, i entirely understand the caring/not caring thing. i just don't see why i'm blanking my emotions out, and what they really are. it's odd.