before

[butterflydust]

how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?
I think I would feel better in the short term, just with that release it gives you. In the longterm I guess I know that it will make things worse. And it won't really help the actual situation at all.


what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
it will bring immediate release. and... i don't know, i just want to do it. so it will satisfy that. it will take away my mental health, the recovery i'm supposed to be doing, and my friends' trust in me if they find out, or my trust in myself if i don't tell them.


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 feel like i am a capable human being who doesn't need these old coping strategies and can deal with emotion, even in excess, without resorting to them. obviously SI won't help this feeling come.


if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
not very long. a day or two. then i'll feel guilty, and angry, and upset, and worried, and like i'm falling back into it, and confused.


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 talk to my friends. i could wait until tomorrow when the room lottery happens. i can study my hardest for the tests. waiting for the lottery will make my anxiety worse, but i think it's probably the best option. studying for the tests rather than feeling defeated and SI-ing will probably yield a lot more positive tangible results than SI-ing would.


how will i feel tomorrow if i hurt myself? how will i feel tomorrow if i do the other thing i came up with?
first question, ashamed, guilty, frustrated, scared. second question, still really really anxious, but at least not ashamed.

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 let it go. i want to be able to study instead of feeling so overwhelmed. i guess i can try to talk to a friend about it. i can write on myself and take a shower.



Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?
i'm so stressed out about the dorm's housing lottery, and all of this housing stuff has a huge amount of power to hurt me right now, and that scares me, how vulnerable i am to it, and how worried i am about it. also, i am very overwhelmed by my tests this week. i just don't know where or how to start studying for them. i feel like my failure is inevitable. and i don't know what to do.

Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
yes. i waited it out. i wrote study plans. i talked to friends. i guess i felt like i was mostly dealing with the situation. like i keep spilling over, and these things just keep shoveling enough of the mess out to keep from flooding.


What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
trying to study, writing study plans, talking a little to people about it. i can write more detailed hour by hour plans. i can try to let go of the housing lottery. i can accept my vulnerability.


How do I feel right now?
scared, anxious, happy, way too emotional


How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
focused, released


How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
first question, probably extremely numb, and happier just from numbness. tomorrow things will probably be worse if i SI.


Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
hmm... school... i can't really avoid it. but i guess there are better ways to deal with it, and there are a lot of people around me that are dealing with it pretty effectively, so i can learn from them.


Do I need to hurt myself?
no, i don't. i just want to right now. but i know that if i were in my usual state of mind (aka medicated) i wouldn't. i'm just triggered by stuff. i guess that wanting to do it is not enough of a reason to throw my recovery away.[/b]