before

[half/hearted]

how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?
It might make the suicide urge go away, or abate, or make this depression fade somehow.

what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
It will bring a sense of control and a feeling that I can actually do something to get away from the pain.

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 get through it with strength and grace. Grace is beyond reach, but at least I could get through with strength. Hurting myself would be getting through with weakness.

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. I haven't hurt myself in so long, I don't remember how long the relief lasts. It might last an hour, it might last a day. I'm just not sure. And when the pain comes back...I'll probably just hurt myself again.

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?
All I can think of is to do what I did when I was fifteen: listen to My Chemical Romance and rest. But I have to work tomorrow. I honestly don't know how long this relief will last.

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 horrible about it. I might be more depressed than I am now. But if I just listen to my music and rest, maybe I'll feel a little proud of myself.

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?
What do I really want? I want to cut, that's what I want.

Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?
My birthday. I really hate my birthday because when I was fifteen, I promised myself that I would commit suicide on my eighteenth birthday. That birthday came and went. I'm about to turn twenty-two and I want to kill myself on Thursday.

Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
I don't remember. It's been so long.

What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
I've been listening to music that used to cheer me up (My Chemical Romance). I can write or draw, but I don't have the energy.

How do I feel right now?
I am in so much emotional pain that I feel like I might drop dead from just the pain.

How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
Numb. Completely numb. Everything will go away for five minutes.

How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
Five minutes later, I will regret it hugely. Tomorrow morning, I will feel sick with guilt.

Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
I can't avoid my birthday. It comes every year, whether I want it to or not.

Do I need to hurt myself?
Yes. No. I don't know.