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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?
  situation won't change. unfortunately I can't really do anyhting about 'the situation' which is part of the problem with how i'm feeling. the feeling will be lessened if i hurt myself, it'll give me some control of the situation that i don't know how to get any other way.
• what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
  it'll bring me control ad peace of mind (temporarily) but it'll take away my ability to cope healthily and probably blank out some of my feelings which would be nice right now becasue i'm hurting a LOT but in the long run it's not going to make it any asier to live a 'normal' life with feelings.
• 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 just not care (although i don't know how feasbale that is) i'd like the situation to change, and hurting myself isn't going to fix that becasue it'll create new cuts/scars that i'll have to explain away if the situation does/were to change and i don't want to have to do that. I want to feel like i was able to cope and that in the future i could cope with something similar so it's less difficult to take risks, hurting myself will stop me being able to achieve that (or certianly make it harder)
• if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
  I know it'll be temporary, and then i'll feel even worse for giving in and loosing 2 1/2 yrs. I know it'll be short term and then i either have to go back to dealing withthese crappy feelings or i have to keep hurting myself to keep it blocked out- neither sound like good options.
• 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 need to go for a run but I want to try and get some work done forst (although i'm not getting very far with my units) I think running might help it's usually a good way tohelp balance myself and i think my lack of that over the last few days along with eting unhealthily and hirmones have also helped unbalance things right now. I need to keep busy and keep my mind off him, except i'm finding that *really* hard to do and i'm not sure what other distractions i can utilize.
• 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'll feel bad either way becasue this is a crappy situation where i've been hurt by someone and it's justified and ok for me to feel hurt even if my response is a little extreme compared to most people's. if i hurt myself i'll feel even worse tomorrow though becasue i'll have another thing to be annoyed at myself with becasue i'll have given in and screwed up everyhting i've been working so hard towards.
• 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 do want to cut, and cry. mostly though i want to tell J how really angry i am at him for screwing with my head like this and then just leaving me to pick up the pieces. i want to plead with him to reconsider the idea of us just being friends and to go back to the point where he said he wanted to give this a try as a relationship. i can't do most of those things though. i've cried lots, i'm not going to cut, and i tried to arrange to see him tonight so i could tell him how annoyed i was with him but he's busy. i think i might need him to know to make things better though.

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've been having a bit of a 'thing' with a guy i know. he's been really lovely, flattered me, been kind and gentle, i've fallen for him and trusted him and he's told me several lies, but msotly he's decided that it's bad timing becasue he's just come out of a relationship (which he neglected to mention at the start) and that he just wants to be friends for now. mostly this situation has come babout becasue he told me he couldn't commit, i settled for ebing friends and was fine, and then he changed his mind and said he wanted more, i got my hopes up again and then he changed his mind back. i'm annoyed at myself for being gullible and believeing him and i'm annoyed at him for playing me.
• Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
  I've never been here before (well situation wise) and that's part of the problem, i really have no concept of how to deal with this properly. that said i have dealt with urges before (although not ones this strong for quite a while) I need to keep busy and active and talk to my friends that i do trust about how hurt i am.
• What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
  i've been doing unhelathy things so far like comfort eating (which i know won't help in the long run) I've cried lots, I've tried to talk to him but not been able to. last week i got really drunk which didn't help much. i have friends that i can call if things get any worse.
• How do I feel right now?
  angry, frustrated, disappointed, disillusioned, hurt, scared, overwhelmed.
• How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
  angry, numb, vindicated
• How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
  relieved, calm, focused, tomorrow i'll feel low, disappointed in myself, weak, useless and worse.
• Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
  I can avoid it, but i've been doing that for the last 10/15 years, i took a chance this time and it backfired. I don't know if i want to keep avoiding it now or if this is an ok reaction and i should keep trying. i feel like i want to rebuild my walls, but i have to re-kill off the hope that he fostered first which is hard to do. i can learn to cope better with rejection, and i think over time i will but because of what a big deal *this* situation was to me i'm not sure that i could deal with it better
• Do I need to hurt myself?
  no. i'd defineitly like to though. and i do thinkthat temporarily it would make me feel better which would be a nice reprive from how crappy i feel right now. i won't hurt myself though becasue i have too much to loose by doing so.