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• how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?
  i will feel calm and be able to concentrate. i will feel stronger.
• what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
  it will bring more scars, possibly semi-visible cuts that i will feel self-conscious about ppl seeing. it will give me encouragement to stay awake and get to an appt. it will take away some pride in myself i might have for not cutting.
• 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 feel very pessimistic about the future and hurting myself is probably not going to make that feeling better or worse.
• if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
  the relief might last for most of today, or might last only an hr or so. if the latter, i would stay online like i want to and will probably be fine.
• 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 play a game online. then maybe go away from the computer to get a drink and something to eat. i could play a cd.
  all those things are to try and enjoy myself. they might not work but they will fill the next few min. after that maybe i will do some uni work, or look up some things online.
• 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 si then tomorrow i will feel in-control and careless maybe. i have a t appt tomorrow so it could make it harder to express myself (cos i choose to be self-destructive, i'd either say or imply "i like being self-destructive", OR i'd hide it, making most of what i say irrelevant.)
• 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 cope without si. i think i can. the self-protective instinct is protecting me from being hurt by caring about myself or my life... but not caring is (today anyway) not a good thing. i can honor that by being careful not to get hurt? or by reminding myself why i'm trying to run away.

Hi Treasure

I hope you're doing okay. Did answering the questions help?

treasure wrote:all those things are to try and enjoy myself. they might not work but they will fill the next few min.

This struck me. Sometimes, when I'm trying really hard to get through an urge, it becomes a matter of getting through five minutes at a time. I need something to get me through just five minutes. Then I tell myself I'll do it for five minutes more, or find something else to fill another five minutes, then another five minutes...

If you can ride the urge out that way, great! But if you can go for just five minutes longer than you did last time...that's still forward motion. Next time you can try to hold out for five minutes more...then five minutes more...

I don't know if that helps. I know it keeps me from going into "Oh-no-I'm-never-going-to-make-it!" thinking...takes some of the pressure off...

Take gentle care.

the questions did help yes. i'm quite positive now, though it might not last.

getting through 5 min at a time is something i do sometimes too, but i'm quite likely to tell myself i willl si in 5 or 10min so why not do it now instead? i probably need to be more subtle about the time limit, so it will work if i say "i will do A and if that doesn't work i will do B" etc.