before (its been so long, but i can't stop myself)

[joanthegoat]

how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?

there will be some end to this anxiety that i'm feeling. i haven't cut in over a year. i miss the focused energy i have when i'm cutting. i miss understanding what i'm doing, and letting myself let go, lose control, for even a few short minutes. i need to let go like this, because i'm scared for how i will lost control if i don't. its getting scary and i need to let some steam off somehow.

what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?

i'm scared. i'm scared of losing control. i'm scared of what i might do to myself. cutting seems like the WAY lesser of two evils to me right now. i'm hurting, i'm upset. why? nothing happened. its everything that is building. i'm just sensing the tides, and they are getting too high for me to control them. this will lessen that feeling, and make coping in the near future a little more managable.

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 even know how i want to feel about this in the long run.. i mean part of me wishes this didn't help me. that it never helped me, that i didn't feel powerless without it. it kills me. but then there is another *very real* side of me who knows that there is something worse out there for me if i don't control my feelings somehow. i have to get a handle on myself somehow, and even if it means causing minor harm to myself, it is something i am willing to do in order to save myself in the long run. i truly feel that way. i have to lose control a little to win in the long run.

if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?

sometimes the relief lasts months--years. i just have to survive my immediate future. i can't even think about the long run right now. i can't live in fear of what i will do to myself in the long run. i trust that cutting myself now will help me survive for at least another 5 months

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?

i could sleep. i've gone straight to bed after work everyday for weeks. i'm tired of it. that's no way to live. i'd rather get it over with, cut myself and then have the relief to go out and live.

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 embarrassed. i will feel vulnerable and scared if i cut. i don't want to. i will have that ache in the spots where i cut that will remind me of how sick i feel. but at the same time, i will feel like i had some control over the powerlessness that pervades me. i have to have some control over my thoughts and actions. if i cut myself tonight, i can have that to think of when i feel scared of losing control again. i can think, "well you already lost control and here's what happened, you don't have to fight anymore, you can rest now." and that sounds odd, but it calms me.

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 can honor it by seeing it for what it is--a self protective instinct. i want to cut because i know it will help me tomorrow. i can handle a few cuts, but i'm just biding my time before i figure out what's really wrong with me. don't think i'm not struggling deeply to figure out why i feel like i need to do this. i'm working really hard and i have been for several years now. but what do i do in the meantime to cope? i'm between relying on cutting every single day just to make it, and being completely recovered. what do people in my shoes do? our coping has to be a mix of what was before and what comes after. so why should cutting be such a big deal to me?