Before

[Something Else]

Before You Self-Harm

• How will this situation or feeling change if I hurt myself?
  I'll feel something other than the suffocating depression. Maybe it'll help get me moving, make me feel more alive again.
  
  
• What will hurting myself bring to the situation? What will it take away from the situation?
  It'll bring sensation, relief. It'll take away my opportunity to deal with how I'm feeling through less destructive means. It'll also break my commitment to get through Lent minus alcohol and SI.
  
  
• 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?
  In the long run, I want to be able to deal with waves of depression without hurting myself. Hurting myself will help me with the immediate situation, and help me feel better, but it won't help me become better at coping with feeling bad, instead of just running from my feelings.
  
  
• If hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? What will I do then?
  It might help for the rest of the evening, until bed time. It might even make me feel better enough to exercise some, which would bring longer-lasting relief.
  
  
• 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 what else I could do. Tough it out? Drink? Cry? I can't think of any other solutions.
  
  
• 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 bad if I hurt myself, but not terribly bad. I'll feel a lot worse if I drink. I don't know how much of an option toughing it out is; if I managed, I might feel proud of myself, but the way it's been going lately, I'll feel like shit tomorrow no matter what I do.
  
  
• 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 know. I think I'll wait a bit, take a walk around my house. If I can't make myself feel any better, then I'll probably SI.

[plantt]

what do you generally do to distract?
have you done latchhook & listened to music & all?
how long is it till you could go to bed? if you went as early as possible?

i believe you can do this.... as hard & painful as it might be right now...

[Something Else]

Distractions tend to work better for me for anxiety than depression. If I tried latchhook right now, I'd just stare at it for minutes at a time, having difficulty moving, and it would probably make me feel worse, more disconnected. And I can't listen to music when I feel like this - it also makes me feel worse.

I lifted weights for a few minutes, which got enough blood circulating to help for a bit. I could probably go to bed in around an hour. I have wait until my dad gets home from church, to ask him something.

I'm not sure yet. But I think I might make it. Maybe I'll do some crunches; if I can manage it, it'll help. The thing with depression is that just moving can be so hard.

[plantt]

what could you try doing differently?
depression can make it seemingly impossible to move.
not physically impossible. just seems as if.
an hour is short comparatively

[Something Else]

Thanks for the replies and encouragement. I made it; I'll be going to bed in a few minutes. It helped to have someone believe that I could make it without SI. I was about to give up.

[plantt]

hope things look better in the morning
feel free to pm whenever
glad you made it through the night