Before

[sojourner_steph]

Before:

Before You Self-Harm
write down the shadow that's hiding behind the urge. look at it. ask yourself:

• how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?
  
  It will make it worse
• what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
  
  It would make me feel better but then would make everything worse
• 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?
  
  No
• if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
  
  
  Not long. I would want to SI 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?
  
  Write on BUS - which I've just done answering a question below - where I gave in and described what was upsetting me even though I'm ashamed of it.
• 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'll feel like crap either way. Stuff hurts and it's not going to stop hurting. If I SI I will feel worse.
• 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?

urges aren't necessarily the enemy. they happen for reasons, and they're an expression of a desire to stay alive and stay sane and keep coping. remember that.

More Before Questions To Answer

• Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?
  
  Feeling stuff hurts. I've been crying a lot the past 2 days and woke up this morning crying about it all again. But it's all stuff I don't want to write about. REL stuff and other stuff.
• Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
  
  Sort of. I deal with REL stuff every week. Normally I cry for a day and then get over it. This time it's not and it hurts more. Partly because I told someone IRL that REL stuff hurt - I didn't say too much - I really thought that I kept it vague and basic and I didn't go into much detail so that I wouldn't be asking too much from them. Well - I didn't even ask anything from anyone actually - I wrote on Facebook - in another language so not many people would understand - and someone saw it and told someone else who misunderstood me and I really really don't think her misunderstanding me was my fault because her response had nothing to do with what I wrote in the first place - but I'm blaming myself for it. And it's wrong and bad. And I made her worry. And I took up people's time. And that's what I do - if I have contact with people I hurt them - if I say anything about how anything is upsetting me - then people get worried and it takes up their time and it's asking something from someone. This sucks. It hurts. And I'm ashamed - I didn't want to write on BUS because I'm ashamed that I said anything about something being wrong to someone IRL. I'm ashamed that I didn't just deal with it myself. And REL stuff still hurts - but on top of feeling that, now I also feel guilty, and ashamed because someone IRL knows something and because they misunderstood me. I want to justify myself by saying that I was careful - that I didn't say too much - that pretty much all I said was that REL stuff hurt - but - I feel like I failed - I messed up - because I told someone IRL something. And I feel like telling anyone IRL anything is wrong. And I'm ashamed of it. I also realise that some of my thinking is wrong - but it's very complicated and something which is going to take me time to work out. . . . For now - I feel - upset, and guilty, and ashamed - and feeling those feelings makes me want to SI.
• What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
  
  I've cried - a lot. I've clarified my friend's misunderstanding. . . I distracted myself half the day yesterday by cleaning my friend's house.
• How do I feel right now?
  
  Bad. It hurts. And I'm upset.
• How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
  
  Better
• How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
  
  Worse
• Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
  
  I don't know. Honestly - my answer right now is "not talk to people" - get better at dealing with things myself - because then I would only have to deal with stuff hurting and I wouldn't have to deal with feeling guilty and ashamed for telling people that I'm upset. But I also know that that's not what I want long term, it's not what I actually believe, just a belief in living out of at the moment. For now though - yeah - that would help - I've got through REL stuff hurting without turning to SI a lot. Feeling guilty for asking something from someone is making this so much worse. So - try to get through things alone. . . It sucks though - all I wanted was to not have to cry alone.
• Do I need to hurt myself?

I want to. I really really want to. I want to SI and then delete this because then I don't have to feel ashamed for telling BUS people that I told someone IRL that I was upset. I don't need to. I never need to. Writing on here now - made me stop and think about it for half an hour which makes me less likely to give in. It also surprised me about how much I actually recognised my own feelings, which I think is a good thing. So this helped for now.

[sojourner_steph]

I gave in and SId

[treasure]

hi.

i think it's a good thing to answer the q's for a short delay to si or a way of understanding your feelings, and that benefit is not removed if you do end up si-ing. i hope you don't delete your post.

the guilt and sadness sounds intense and overwhelming. even if talking to other people is not an option at the moment, are there other things you can do? some random ideas - would it help to get into bed? would it help to do something creative to channel your feelings into something?

[sojourner_steph]

Thank you. It helps to have someone reply. I appreciate it.

[NobodyToYou]

As horrible as it feels, I'm pretty sure it is not actually WRONG to talk to people and admit that things aren't good. (At least I hope it isn't because I have been doing it. My friends think it is a good thing and that I ought to be talking more, and I'm trying to trust that their view of things is clearer than mine. Plus they are the ones I am asking something from, so they are probably the ones who are best qualified to say whether I'm asking too much or not.)

I do understand that it can stir up some really difficult feelings though. Are there things that can help you handle those feelings of shame or distress better?

I don't know if it would help you or not, but for me, I have found it very helpful to get some reassurance (that it was ok to talk, that I hadn't hurt anyone or strained any relationships, that people weren't thinking badly of me, etc) in written form, because I have been reading it over and over and over. I would never be able to make myself ask for reassurance that often, but having an email that I can keep going back to has helped a lot.

[sojourner_steph]

Thanks NTY. That helped. I don't have much to say now (or maybe I do, but I just can't write it right now), but I'm going to come back to thinking (and writing) about this stuff later. But thank you.