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

It's eleven days since I last hit. I am having a bad morning, and there is this urge in the back of my head. It's been there all the time. But I don't get slowly building urges so this feels really alien.

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

The situation won't change. The feeling might get a bit better. I'm not used to urges like this, most of my SI is impulsive. This is like a kind of cold turkey thing.


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

It might bring some clarity, make me go a find the problem, or just do something else for a while. It will end my longest period SI-free is a very long while. I don't cope well with failure.

* 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 be able to cope with little hiccups like this, big ones come fairly easily but the devil is in the detail. SI will not help this. It's just running away from it, again. I really want to stop running and hiding from me. I know I'm not a good person, I've had a lot of praise for stuff I've done recently, from people who don't know me very well and don't know that I find praise really upsetting. I didn't do this stuff for the praise, I did it for the adrenaline and the buzz of knowing that other people were getting something out of it. Giving back to them what they have given me over the last two years. All this SI stuff just make the feelings of being wholly worthless that much worse. And it will continue to do so.

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

I don't think it will last very long. The relief when it's impulsive can last a few hours, but this feels really different. It feels inevitable and ongoing. I'm not trying to trade-up from impulse to this, I want rid of all of this. If I let this happen, I don't know what happens next. Urges are a really unfamiliar thing, unless they're the real blast-wave ones that overwhelm me before I know it.

* 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 can go for a walk. There's loads of this city I haven't seen, yet. I walked up to see the Clifton Bridge yesterday, it felt good and it really is spectacular. But I'm waiting for a work call, hopefully telling me that 2000 squids of back invoices are about to be paid and that the project is back on. No work is nice and relaxing, and stressful at the same time. Or I can just go and read, but I'm a bit wound up for that, and while it's pleasant, it is not a relaxing thing. Reading takes effort, it always has. Actually sitting down and writing this is quite helpful.

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

Tomorrow will start with changing my sig back to zero. I'll make myself do that much, and the day will go downhill from there. These last few days have been really great. There has been a moment that made me weep with joy. The first time I can say I've felt joy in many years, no wonder it made me cry. I dealt with the praise thing at LRP by going off to my tent to cry for a bit. Seems I'm doing a lot of that lately, but I'm not hurting myself, at least. I would like this to continue. If I walk I might miss my call, or end up having to delay it a day or so. I need some structure in my life, and I can't just go pushing things away.

* 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 want to hit. I want to cope. But I don't want to hit. I don't know what to do.


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?

My inevitable inability to deal with everyday stress.

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

Not really. This would all have been over by now, all done and gone.

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

I'm writing this and crying over it. But I need something else. I can go and do some housework, the stuff my housemates won't bother to do. It's all just a bit pointless, or so it feels.

* How do I feel right now?

Sad, depressed, frightened (of me?) jittery (but that's just my tremor acting up I think, and it's not mood-dependent) and lost.

* How will I feel when I am hurting myself?

Out of control, and frightened.

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

Relaxed and in control for a little while, then that will subside gradually until I'm back to my normal level. Tomorrow will feel like today. They'll probably be impulsive hits then too.

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

Life is the stressor, so the options are limited. I just want to be able to cope with the little things.

* Do I need to hurt myself?

I don't know. I hope not.



Remember you don't have to answer all the questions if you don't feel up to it.

Questions to Answer After A Slip
slips are chances to learn. you figure out what stresses are still too hard for you and you can work on how you'll deal with them next time you run into them. so instead of beating yourself up, take action.

I've been trying not to give in to the urge all day. But I think I beat it, and I had an impulsive one anyway. Just out of the blue, no warning. My eleven day si-free patch is over.


* have you taken care of your physical wounds? if not, go do that now. we'll wait.

No wounds. There are never any wounds, just headaches and some other head-related stuff. But not today. I didn't even hit that hard.

* what had happened just before?

I had written a complaint email about the National Rail site.

* what were you thinking and feeling?

Why does everything that works well get screwed up by people trying to improve it for people smarter than me who just can't take the trouble to find out how things are meant to work. Feeling angry and frustrated.

* why did you end up hurting yourself then instead of some other time? was there an event that was the final straw? what was it?

I've been fighting an urge all day. I had beaten it as far as I'm aware. This was an impulsive SI moment. I didn't even know it was there until it was over.

* how did the situation get to the final straw stage? trace it back through the events that led up to the last event. look for some point at which you could have made a different decision and not arrived at the final straw.

* were there outside factors like drugs, alcohol, being off your meds, lack of sleep, etc? can you address those in the future? how?

No.

* what other ways of coping did you try besides self-harm? how well did they work?

For the urge i'd tried sodoku (my "kill-or-cure" solution), and word games.

* in retrospect, are there coping methods that you now realize might have helped? what were they?

* name at least two things you will do to help yourself remember those coping methods if you end up in this situation again.

* how do you feel about the situation that led to self-harm now? is it resolved? if not, what are some steps you might take toward resolution?

It was already resolved, this was like some kind of thunderbolt, like a reminder that it's all still there and that there's no getting away from it. That frightens me.

* are you likely to be in that emotional place again? how will you recognize it when you're in that situation?

I will, because it's all the trivial little things that push me. The big stuff in my life I can just deal with. The devil is in the detail.

* what will you try before you resort to self-harm if you're in that situation again? list three specific things you will commit to trying.

If I have time: The ice-cube thing, exercise, make a cup of tea.



About Opportunities to SI
Opportunity to Self-Harm seems to be a common theme. Think about why opportunities are important to slips and learn why opportunity is important to you.


* What made that opportunity more appealing than any other?

There was no appeal, no choice, no warning.

* Did you make an opportunity or was it there for the taking?


* What would you have done if there was no opportunity, how would you have handled your urge?

This has happened out of nowhere in the middle of the street before now. Because it needs no tools, it can happen anywhere.

* If there had been no opportunity would your urge to self-harm have increased or decreased?

* What consitutes opportunity for you? Being alone? having new tools? waiting for the right feeling?

* If your opportunties were taken away, how would you feel?

Happy, if not euphoric. That's also a frightening thought.



After You Beat and Urge
How do you beat your urges? Examine how you beat the last one so it can help you beat the next one.


* Did I identify what feelings were leading me to want to SI?

Yes

* If Yes - What were they, and how did I figure them out?

General frustrations with life, and my especially lazy and messy housemates.

* What coping skills did I use to deal with these feelings?

Cooking early supper and reading and posting to bus.

* Were these coping skills the most effective I could have used?

I don't know.

* If No - What coping skills got me through?

* Why do I think they worked?

* How can I deal with these feelings more effectively next time, before the urge to SI sets in?

The urge thing is quite rare for me, unless it's coming on like a tsunami. This was the most warning I've ever had, I could actually do something and it felt empowering to know I had some control. And I think I beat it. But then the impulsive one, no warning, got me. Maybe it was the big urge just getting hidden for a while, but it was so sudden and all ove before I could even tell it was going on.


Remember you don't have to answer all the questions if you don't feel up to it.