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 relieved, be ble to concentrate more, have some sense of calm and composure
• what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
  it will tae away the validation of my feelings, but right now i don't want them validated, they're too dangerous to let out it will bring coping to the situation, it will be punishment for the things i think
• 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 the thoughts to go away, but i don't know how to make that happen. hurting myself will take me further from that in the long run becasue it'll just add to the thoughts in my head, but temporarily it'll bring relief
• 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 know if it's my best option, i've had this window open for about an hour now, trying to decided if i want to be answering before questions or after ones
• 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?
  more distractions, and more distractions, i *could* call cmht, but i'm reluctant to, i don't know what i'd say if i did, i could leave the house but then i'm not near any distractions and judging on yesterday i end up feeling worse
• 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... bad, i'll feel bad either way, if i dont i'll feel bad becasue i'm still a horrible person, if i do i'll feel bad for screwing up
• 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 really want to cry lots, i want someone to come nad be with me and mae things o, i want someone to notice that i'm hurting, that i'm hopeless and that i'm struggling so so much

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?
  thoughts, so much stuff in my head, some of them too bad to even say out loud, stuff that i don't want to acknowledge, other things that have been brought up recently, feelings of belonging, of people caring, or hiding my life, or screwing things up
• Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
  i don't think i've ever been *here* before, usually i distract, i answer questions here, i try as much as possible to eep going. i remind myself that i'm a life after mod and that i shouldn't be having problems like this, that it's time i was ok, that i can do this but i can't
• What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
  distractions, places, have had lunch, listened to music, watched out my window for a bit, more distractions, job applications,
  i could talk to someone but the only person i'd talk to i can't at the moment, and i could call cmht but i don't want to/don't know how to - what to say. i'm not sure which it is
• How do I feel right now?
  hurt
  invalidated,
  stupid
  useless
  bad
  nasty
  mean
  frightened
  empty
• How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
  relieved, punished, satisfied
• How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
  guilty, useless, failure
• Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
  i don't know, i could deal with it better, i would talk to D in the future, just not now, now is a bad time for him, and i hope that this stressor will never be around again, i hope things won't crash like this again, but i suspect they will
• Do I need to hurt myself?
  *sighs* i hate this question, there's never a *need* as such, but an urge, a desperation for this to stop, for the thoughts and feelings to go away - i don't know

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

I know you're hurting.
And I hope you can get through this.

Just being a mod, whatever board doesn't mean you have to be perfect, or beat this, again, you have to want to.
Is repressing the right idea? Or do you need to work through the pain of facing up to this?

Hope you make it through