Before to avoid after

tools to help you assess your urges before you give in to them, and to help you understand and learn from slips after they happen. by posting here, you're saying that you are serious about exploring the feelings behind your self-harm in depth, whether you're ready to stop hurting yourself or not. to request posting access, click usergroups above and join before and after.

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strmdncr
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Before to avoid after

Post by strmdncr » Thu Aug 08, 2013 7:09 am

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?
    The situation won't change. The feeling might go away for a while - not sure any longer if it would or if si'ing will no longer lead to that.
  • what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
    It brings about disappointment in myself and takes away a sense that I have grown from where I was before. It opens the door to allowing myself to give in again and avoid connecting to the responsibility I have to make a decision about whether or not to si.
  • 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 that I can manage to get through these situations in a way that leaves me feeling that I am okay with the decisions I made. If I end up giving into si urges then it means that I am not okay with something I done. If I am not okay with it then I need to look at why and determine what I want to do differently in the situation so I don't end up feeling that I want to si.
  • if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
    Not sure it really seems like the best option..just right now sort of feeling like perhaps the one that will work. I know that it doesn't..not really. Plus I don't want to give into urges after not having gone that route for as long as I have now.
  • 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'm currently distracting with various things. I am attempting to determine what it is that is really bothering me so that I can address the problem.
  • how will i feel tomorrow if i hurt myself? how will i feel tomorrow if i do the other thing i came up with?
    Disappointed if I do. If I don't then until I figure out what it is that is bothering me and how I want to address it or why I don't want to address it I am likely going to continue to feel this way for a bit yet.
  • 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?
    Good question and if I knew the answer to that I probably wouldn't be trying to figure out why I want to si in the first place.
A friend is someone who believes in you even when you've ceased to believe in yourself. (unknown)

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han
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Re: Before to avoid after

Post by han » Sat Aug 10, 2013 1:46 pm

Hey :)

Did you manage to figure out what was getting to you in the first place? Sounds like you were working hard with distractions while you tried to figure that out...

Sometimes if its not clear what's causing the feeling it's worth checking the basics... Have you eaten? Drunk enough water? Got some sleep? Had some fresh air/gentle exercise? Sometimes I can feel really bad but realise I've forgotten to have lunch or something - normally then if I eat the feels goes...

Let us know how you got on?

han x
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