bus

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?
  i'll feel calmer, the urge will have disappeared, i feel less angry, less anxious. i will have punished myself. the situation will not change.
• what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
  it will bring with it the feelings of guilt & failure. it'll take away the urges again for a bit. some of the pain. the anger. the panic.
• 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 like i don't need to turn to this method of coping when things get too bad. i want to feel like it doesn't have to be this way. SI'ing will obviously get me further and further away from this.
• if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
  the next few hours at least, it is all i want right now. until i need to talk to people again and the guilt and failure emotions will come drifting back, and all i will want to do, is do it 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?
  distractions, distractions. distractions. hide my tools. sleep. watch a film. listen to music. i would do this until the urges had surpassed.
• 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 more guilt. more failure. i will have broken a promise. if i distract myself, i will feel like i haven't punished myself.
• 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 to SI. i need to feel it. i need to punish myself.

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?
  i have resorted back to old habits again. i'm terrified, panicky and emotional. i can't cope and i just can't find a way to make it all disappear.
• Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
  i have been here many times before and each time, i've tried to distract myself awy from the thoughts, emotions and feelings. i felt the urges still, but they weren't as bad as they had been previously.
• What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
  answered these questions. hidden my tool. put a film on.
• How do I feel right now?
  panicky, angry, terrified, emotional, out of control, very on edge
• How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
  less panicky, less angry, calmer, in control, like i deserved it.
• How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
  after i will a sense of relief, a bit calmer, like i deserved it and had punished myself. tomorrow i will feel full of guilt about breaking a promise and like a failure.
• Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
  i can avoid it, because i have in the past and i can try to deal with things better.
• Do I need to hurt myself?
  no, but it doesn't stop me wanting to.

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

hey Ana, was gonna reply to this earlier but then people came in at work - sorry

i thin the thing i noticed most in your reply to the questions was the continuing theme of you feeling like you deserved it. has thre been a new trigger to make you feel like this, you've done a lot of good work over the last few years, when you had urges then and were distracting yourself or coping other ways did you feel like you deserved it then?

i thin you also highlighted the problems with resorting bac to SI, that it would get you further from the goal of ultimately being able to cope without it in your life,and also that it would be temporary and after you would feel bad (and it does feel bad when you loose lots of SI free time )

hope you're feeling a little better now,
take care of you

*k*

Hi Inner Child

It sounds like you're experiencing some very uncomfortable feelings...the panic, the fear...

Have you ever tried deep-breathing exercises to deal with panic?

Would journaling about your feelings help, just to get them "out of you"?

I know that when I'm feeling on edge like that, my favourite distractions are ones that force me to use my brain to do something - it gets me out of the "emotion" place. Sudoku or logic puzzles work well.

I hope you're feeling better today.

Hey Ana-

I hope doing the before questions has helped you a little bit. It sounds like you know that SI isn't going to help you much...even though it's very tempting. LBC gave you, the only thing I can suggest is perhaps going for a walk or just getting out in the fresh air. Sometimes that helps me out when I'm feeling the urge to SI.

take care.