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?
  ~It probably won't change. Or at least, it will change, but only in the fact that now I'll have cuts to hide instead of not having that. And that would be difficult. But I might feel better.
• what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
  ~It will hopefully make me feel better and maybe calmer. But I will have to explain to my SO that I did it, and that will be bad. I will also have to start counting again, which also sucks, as I'm nearing 2 years without SI at all.
• 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 like even though I suck at confrontation and conflict, at least I don't have to hurt myself to "gear up" for it. So it will get me farther from that goal.
• if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
  ~It may last as long as the night. Or maybe not even two hours' worth, I don't know. I would have to hurt myself again at that point to try and attain more relief, and it would become a never-ending cycle.
• 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 don't know. Cuz probably listening to Deadstar Assembly is not helping. I don't know what will help. I tried doing homework, but I can't concentrate worth shit. I guess a big thing that helps is the fact that my implement is in my room, and there is no way in hell I'm going back there before I have to!
• 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 beyond awful and shitty, like I'm a stupid little girl who can't do anything right. Probably still shitty, but not as much.
• 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 be safe. Really and truly safe. And I can't because I don't FEEL safe around my roommates. At all. I feel like a hunted animal who needs to go hide and cower in a burrow.


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?
  ~Because I have another stupid "let's all gang up on Sarah" meeting coming up in like...an hour and a half. And I can't stand it. I can't stand having to just sit there and realize how much they apparently hate me. And now I have to try and be assertive. And it SUCKS!!
• Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
  ~Yes, the last meeting. And the meeting before that. Just tried not to cry. I felt unbelievably awful and hurt and pissed off.
• What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
  ~Wrote some of my feelings down. Acknowledged them. Acknowledged I hate this. A lot.
• How do I feel right now?
  ~Terrified and anxious and unsafe.
• How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
  ~Hopefully numb. Or numb-ish.
• How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
  ~Probably awful and disappointed in myself.
• Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
  ~Learn how to be more assertive. Or move out.
• Do I need to hurt myself?
  ~Trying not to still.