after

[ChaosCat]

have you taken care of your physical wounds? yes

what had happened just before? It wasn't about what happened just before... there were a lot of things all day that lead to it, but right before I had been talking to C and he was ignoring me to watch tv


what were you thinking and feeling? From earlier in the day I was feeling frustrated, alone, abandoned, angry, hopeless, but in that moment I just felt really insignificant.


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? the opportunity was there. it was not a good one, but enough of one that I took advantage of it. being ignored by the one person I really hoped would help snap me out of this mood was the final straw.


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. bad stuff kept happening too fast for me to deal with it and decompress. I could have told C how I was feeling rather than just being hurt over something he didn't know he did


were there outside factors like drugs, alsohol, being off your meds, lack of sleep, etc? can you address those in the future? how? being off meds and lack of sleep. I can't address the meds right now. I just got dumped by my psychiatrist today. i can address the sleep issue though.


what other ways of coping did you try besides self-harm? how well did they work? Tried talking through this, talked to 4 people.


in retrospect, are there coping methods that you now realize might have helped? what were they? I don't know anything that would have helped in that moment.


name at least two things you will do to help yourself remember those coping methods if you end up in this situation again. I couldn't think of any. I am still pretty emotional.


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 still isn't all resolved. I am really scared to open up and resolve this because I am scared of alienating people.


are you likely to be in that emotional place again? how will you recognize it when you're in that situation? I recognized I was headed down. I will probobly be there again in the future. I stopped eating right, my nerves were so bad my hands shook, and I cried a lot today.


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.
Calling my therapist.
Being assertive in trying to get someone to listen to my needs.
Avoid the triggers that I can.



About Opportunities to SI
Opportunity to Self-Harm seems to be a common theme. Think about why opportunities are important to slips and learn why opportunity is important to you.



What made that opportunity more appealing than any other? It was the first real opportunity of the day.


Did you make an opportunity or was it there for the taking? I had to make it.


What would you have done if there was no opportunity, how would you have handled your urge? I would have called my therapist's pager.


If there had been no opportunity would your urge to self-harm have increased or decreased? Increased


What consitutes opportunity for you? Being alone? having new tools? waiting for the right feeling? Being alone and the right feeling.


If your opportunties were taken away, how would you feel?
Frustrated, trapped.

[sixtyfoothigh]

I think the three things you have committed to doing will help... especially the being more assertive in reaching out to other people.

There's also pages of coping strategies on BUS which might help... http://buslist.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=34500

Take care
S x