The situation itself won't change, that change has to come from action and response to that action. The feeling would change by allowing me to completely disconnect from the overwhelming sense of too much emotional input at one time.
[*]what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
It would bring about a temporary sense of peace within my mind, a respite from all the swirling emotions and thoughts that feed the emotions. It would take away my belief in myself that I can make it through tough times by using effective coping skills, and it would take away my approximately 16 months of si free time.
[*]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 that I am growing and moving forward in my abilities to deal with stressful situations in a manner that allows me to be able to look back at it and be able to see positives in how I dealt with things rather than disappointment. Harming myself would take me further away from that.
[*]if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
I'm not sure how long the relief would last. As to what I would do then, perhaps by that point I would have some answers to questions that I've put out there so I would potentially be better able to cope with what is going on.
[*]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'm running out of ideas on that. I've played silly games online, talked to a friend on the phone, taken myself out for coffee so I was surrounded by people. If I resist the urge to give into shopping for si tools that may help. So far the change isn't lasting which is why I'm considering the si'ing option.
[*]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 be disappointed with myself because I am working towards removing si as part of my unhealthy coping skills. I would probably be indifferent if I do other things I've come up with.
[*]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?[/list]
I want to cry, I want someone to hold me and accept that I am feeling hurt and angry. I want to have a fit complaining about the unfairness of things. I want to run away from it all and pretend that it doesn't matter.
To best honor the self-protective instinct I could acknowledge that the situations are causing me to have a wide range of emotions and attempt to allow myself to just feel those emotions. Unfortunately that is what I am just starting to work on with my T and don't have the skills to do yet.
[*]Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
This is not a stressor I can avoid unless I decide to remove myself from the life of a child which I am not willing to do. I am working towards trying to figure out better ways of dealing with it in the future because I expect this type of situation to occur again sometime in the future.
[*]Do I need to hurt myself?
It's not that I need to, I now know this. It is a want, a feeling of wanting to get rid of everything that is going on for me, move away from it in some manner and as the others aren't working my mind is more often turning back to this as an option.
