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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?
  
  I will learn from my mistakes better.
• what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
  
  It will make me take a better look at my behavior and silence the voice that is telling I need to punish myself.
• 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 better. I don't know how or if this will effect that.
• 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. Probably til tommorrow morning. It seems to be about that long.
• 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 ignore it and get on with my day.
• 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 wil probably feel a bit stupid and guilty. If I dont do it then I will feel the same tommorrow as I do now.
• 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 stop being overwhelmed by things that happened so long ago. I want to be normal.


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?
  
  A massive incident last night, I acted like a complete idiot cause a song came on and triggered memories that made me shut off emotionally which led to a bigger incident with my gf cause I couldn't articulate myself to explain what was wrong.
• Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
  
  This is new.
• What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
  
  I've delayed everything, I have to go and deal with the world in an hour and I just dont want to. I want to hide away and pretend it doesn't exist and curl up in bed. But I have commitments that I can't get out of.
• How do I feel right now?
  
  Angry, frustrated, guilty, stupid and ill.
• How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
  
  Quiet. Calm.
• How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
  
  I will feel better, other wise it would be stupid to do it. I'll probably feel a little stupid and guilty tommorrow for doing it though.
• Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
  
  I can't really avoid the stressor without staying in my house where I can determine the music choices, which would be pretty boring long term. I think I've laid the ground work for dealing with it better by explaining myself to my gf a little better today.
• Do I need to hurt myself?

If I thought that I didn't then I wouldn't be answering these questions.