Before

[noldo]

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 pressure will be hopefully less and I will feel calmer.

what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?

%

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 don't care that much about cutting, my arms are messed up anyway. so yeah, hurting myself would be more or less okay. My mind changes every few minutes regarding that point.

if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?

Depends on how deep I cut and if there are any triggers coming up. If I cut quite deep and there aren't any bad triggers it might last some weeks, even months. Then the struggle starts anew.

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?

Mainly distracting myself with tv and internet. The feelings won't change that much but when I hold on till I'm too tired I will have made it today. Regarding the changing of the situation - I have no idea how to change it in a longterm way. The change lasts only till the next day most times.

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 relieved that the struggle is finally over and I get some reprieve and if I do the other thing the struggle will go on.

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 don't know - I feel like cutting is the only thing which will help for more than just some hours or a day.

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 don't really know why I feel the need to hurt myself. Maybe because I'm dealing with some important things I don't have a lot influence to and feel helpless.

Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?

I kinda have been here before and I dealt with it how I'm dealing with it now... distracting myself... that helped for some time but the next day I started struggling again.

What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?

So far, it just am distracting myself with tv and bus and I don't really know what else to do...

How do I feel right now?

Right now I feel tense, tired and urgy.

How will I feel when I am hurting myself?

More relaxed but it would also suck to go to the hospital and deal with docs and getting stitches...

How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?

More relaxed and better when I would have been done with getting stit
ches. Tomorrow it might suck a bit since I will see my parents and the boy I'm tutoring and I would need to hide it. Though I don't mind that too much since hiding wouldn't be that bad.

Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?

I don't really know what stressor that was and don't know how to deal with it better in the future.

Do I need to hurt myself?

I really don't want right now and will try everything possible not to cut this night.

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