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

I will feel calmer and safer.

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

It will bring familiarity. It will bring guilt, and worry for how others will re-act.

It may take away some feelings of self-hate.


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 safe. I know that makes no sense though.

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

Probably a couple of hours at the most. But I think if I can feel safe just now, it's worth whatever feelings I will feel later.


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 watch a DVD, read a book, listen to music, but that won't have the same effect as SI, and probably won't help at all.


how will i feel tomorrow if i hurt myself? how will i feel tomorrow if i do the other thing i came up with?

If I hurt myself, I will feel guilty and dissappointed, yet possibly relieved, for I won't have to try and beat urges any more.


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 don't understand what this question means.


Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?

I honestly don't know what the trigger was. I just feel scared, self-hate and alone.


Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?

I hurt myself. I felt safe, and relieved.


What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?

I have done nothing. I could go back to bed, listen to music etc.


How do I feel right now?

Alone, and scared.


How will I feel when I am hurting myself?

Scared, yet safe.


How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?

Immediately after, I will feel safe, and relieved.
Tomorrow, I will feel scared, yet possibly still relieved.


Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?


Do I need to hurt myself?

I don't need to, I just want to.

It may take away some feelings of self-hate.

Can you explain to me why it will help you with those feelings? Can you think of another way to take away some of those feelings, maybe by being nice to yourself, treating yourself to a bath or anything? Because to me, SI seems to reinforce the self-hate, even if it makes you feel better about yourself initially (because you've punished yourself?), it is taking away any self value to treat your body in that way. Does that make sense, and does it apply to you? (it might not of course, but thats the way it appears to me)

I won't have to try and beat urges any more.

I know how hard it can be to have the energy to keep fighting them, but unless you plan to keep doing this all your life, at some point you're gonna have to start fighting them. Its not easy, I know, but the longer you can resist them, the easier it gets.

I hope you made it through, if not, maybe think about what you'll do next time you're feeling like this?

Take care, Andi x

Wandering wrote:

It may take away some feelings of self-hate.

Can you explain to me why it will help you with those feelings? Can you think of another way to take away some of those feelings, maybe by being nice to yourself, treating yourself to a bath or anything? Because to me, SI seems to reinforce the self-hate, even if it makes you feel better about yourself initially (because you've punished yourself?), it is taking away any self value to treat your body in that way. Does that make sense, and does it apply to you? (it might not of course, but thats the way it appears to me)

I thought, once I had SI'd, I would just feel pain, and upset, instead of self-hate, which are feelings I would prefer to feel.

You were right, once I had SI'd, I did just feel more self-hate.

I won't have to try and beat urges any more.

I know how hard it can be to have the energy to keep fighting them, but unless you plan to keep doing this all your life, at some point you're gonna have to start fighting them. Its not easy, I know, but the longer you can resist them, the easier it gets.

I understand that. I feel like half of me, though, doesn't want to stop. I know that sounds pathetic, I mean why would someone not want to stop? But half of me feels happy just now to go on coping with things like this.

I know I really want to stop this, and I don't want things to be like this, but during an urge I almost feel as though I would be happy to live my life like that.

Thankyou for your comments,
Rach
xx

Sorry to hear you didn't make it, such is life (((((((hugs)))))))) if ok.

I thought, once I had SI'd, I would just feel pain, and upset, instead of self-hate, which are feelings I would prefer to feel.

You were right, once I had SI'd, I did just feel more self-hate.

Maybe it would be a good idea to make a note of how it did make you feel, so in future you stand a better chance of remembering that it gave you bad feelings too? I know how easy it is to keep thinking SI will do something when you're really urgy, when in reality it doesn't.

I feel like half of me, though, doesn't want to stop. I know that sounds pathetic, I mean why would someone not want to stop? But half of me feels happy just now to go on coping with things like this.

It doesn't sound at all pathetic - that's right where I am now. And that's the hardest time to resist the urges, when you can't see a particularly good reason not to, it seems like its not a big issue. It might help to make a list of reasons to stop SIing, opposed to reasons to keep SIing - hopefully there'll be more against it (it did backfire for me nce when I came out with more reasons to keep doing it, but thats not usually the case!) Then next time you're in this situation, you have an overview of the reasons for and against - its easy to forget the reasons against when you're all triggered...

Rach, its not good that you ended up SIing, but try to see this as an opportunity to learn; one day you probably will be at a point where you want to stop wholeheartedly - if you've learnt what coping mechanisms do and don't work for you, then it will make it easier then

Take care of you, pm me any time
Andi x

Thankyou for the advice. I'll try the lists tomorrow.
Thankies,
Rach
xx