Before

[sojourner_steph]

Before:

• what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
  
  It will do what I want right now - stop feeling things, be able to function, not want people.
  It will take away any long term things.
• 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?
  
  Further away
• if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
  
  Oh it definitely seems like the best option. All of my reasoning says so - it would make me able to function and do things. Do the assignment I need to have done. Actually function and not spend every day lying on my bed crying. It would make me stop wanting people.
  
  I won't give in to it and that frustrates me. Because stuff is worse for not giving in. Stuff hurts. And it sucks.
  
  I still probably won't give in.
• 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 don't know. Nothing. I've been feeling really crap for a week. I've done many things. Nothing makes me feel better.
• 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 want people. I want a friend to come and be here. And maybe talk about God and help me pray. I want to not be alone. I feel alone.
  
  Not going to do that.

More Before Questions To Answer

• Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?
  
  I feel crap. I've felt crap for ages.
• Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
  
  Yes. I don't know.
• What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
  
  Nothing "eases the discomfort". I do things to distract me from SI, but nothing makes me feel better.
• How do I feel right now?
  
  Crap
• How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
  
  Good
• How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
  
  Bad
• Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
  
  No. I don't know how - I'm "dealing with it" by not giving in to SI, but I hate having to live like this. Stuff is worse for not giving in to SI. I don't want to live like this.

[treasure]

hi steph

can i ask - why don't you want to want/need people?

i've been told many times that feelings pass and i don't quite believe it because they seem to stick around longer than i can handle, but it can help me sometimes to realise that feelings change and maybe they will pass. what sensations are in your body right now? if you check in again in a few mins are the sensations different? even if the feelings are still there, are they changing?

[sojourner_steph]

I want to not want people because I don't know if wanting people is wrong or not.

Because in a friendship when someone has mental health problems there needs to be boundaries and I try to put that in place and make sure that no-one will be hurt. I try to protect them. And I have to make sure it never gets anywhere close to me asking for too much from someone.

I hate that. It makes me feel even more like I'm something less than nothing - because I have to protect people from myself. It hurts.

[sojourner_steph]

I know feelings change - the past week I had a couple days where stuff was ok. But it's really hard again now. The majority of days for the past 4 months have been really hard.

I guess it is good to remember that feelings change because when I'm in it, it feels like it's going to be the same forever. But at the same time, things haven't changed very much over the past number of months and the constantness of things being hard is hard.