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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?
The situation won't change, but I won't feel so overwhelmed by it. I will feel more relaxed, less tense.

what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
Bring short term relief, but also bring guilt

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 in control. If I hurt myself I won't feel like hurting someone else, I will be able to control myself.

if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
Probobly not the best option. I don't know how long it will last. I hadn't done it for 6 months and then I slipped and went to sleep soon after.

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?
Go watch TV, stay here on the boards and keep myself occupied. It won't change the situation, nothing will. After that I don't know what I would do, but hopefully by then the worst of the feelings would have passed.

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 will feel guilty, I will feel like I have to lie again to my doc. He keeps making me agree to call if I feel like this, but I never do and I feel like if I tell him and I didn't call then he will be pissed.
If I go watch tv or something I will probobly still feel like hurting myself tomorrow.

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 am trying to hold things together by hurting myself. Emotions are overwhelming and the defenses in place in my head are failing, and I don't have a safe place to face any of it right now.

Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?
my dad wont get off my back and his dislike of me re-enforces my hate of myself. if my own dad can't love me then I must not deserve it.

Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
I have been here before. many times. I get angry and sit and fume and think of ways to hurt my dad and I can keep myself from hurting him if I just hurt myself.

What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
Nothing. The urge is just getting stronger the longer I think about it and the more I look at the reasons the more valid they seem.

How do I feel right now?
Very on edge. anxious and ready to crawl out of my skin. I just want to get it over with.

How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
I won't feel anything emotionally. That is why I do it. I don't have to feel emotions. i feel more base things. it all becomes about the physical sensation and I can push out higher emotions.

How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
I will feel guilty, but I won't feel what I am feeling now.

Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
I can't avoid my parents. I live with them. I can probobly deal with it better in the future. I just don't know how yet.

Do I need to hurt myself?
I don't know if need is the right word, but there is still an overwhelming want to.

if it was a weekday i am feeling desperate enough I would actually call my doctor. but there is nobody i can see or talk to on the weekends. all i can do is call the crisis line and it sucks because i have actually called before and gotten the message everyone was busy and couldn't talk to anyone for at least half an hour.

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.

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

what had happened just before?
my dad was pissed at me about a bunch of little things.

what were you thinking and feeling?
that my dad hated me and i didn't deserve to be cared about if my dad doesn't even care about me

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?
it just all built up to be too much. i didnt hurt myself before when things like that happened because my dad would yell at me and then usually leave. he stayed when I wanted him gone

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.
It wasn't about a series of events over a short period of time. It was things building up for weeks.

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

what other ways of coping did you try besides self-harm? how well did they work?
Tried sitting and watching a cartoon to distract myself.

in retrospect, are there coping methods that you now realize might have helped? what were they?
Doing anything other than going into my room alone and closing the door

name at least two things you will do to help yourself remember those coping methods if you end up in this situation again.
i don't know

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?
The situation didn't change. I just don't feel like it is such a big deal anymore. I don't think it warranted action as drastic as what I did.

are you likely to be in that emotional place again? how will you recognize it when you're in that situation?
Very likely to be in that place again. I can see when I am in it. I can recognize when I am in it. that isn't the problem.

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.
Paging my therapist, calling my doctor, or calling the crisis line.

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?
i wasn't home alone, so if it went too far there was someone could have helped me, and i could go off into private and not be interrupted because I knew my dad was doing something else.

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

What would you have done if there was no opportunity, how would you have handled your urge?
I probobly would have sat here nervous and anxious waiting for an opportunity

If there had been no opportunity would your urge to self-harm have increased or decreased?
increased with time waiting for an opportunity

What consitutes opportunity for you? Being alone? having new tools? waiting for the right feeling?
I have to feel a certain way, be able to go somewhere private and not be interrupted with little or no risk of being caught at the time of doing it.

If your opportunties were taken away, how would you feel?
Trapped and desperate