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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?
  It will make the emotions less intense, bring about some calm and some relief. It will give the feelings a physical outlet.
• What will hurting myself bring to the situation? What will it take away from the situation?
  Bring - calm, relief, make something shift,
  Take away - my long standing SI-free period, I'll feel like I'm less able to use healthy strategies.
• 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 be able to say I used healthy coping skills, and that it shows I'm making some sort of progress. I want to feel as if I dealt with the situation, as opposed to just giving in and numbing it.
• If hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? What will I do then?
  It has been so long, that I could get a few days relief out of it. But there is the a good chance I'll want to do it again (and have an excuse to), and the cycle begins. A cycle I've worked hard to break.
• 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 feeling fragile and overwhelmed - so I could try doing something to comfort/soothe myself (although I really don't *want* to comfort myself which is probably a sign that is what I *need*). I could try using my special foot lotion and massaging that in, or... um... I can google for self soothing ideas and see what that brings up, and I could end up getting sucked into web browsing. All else fails, I could cuddle up with my collection of teddies and try and sleep (I'm doubtful I can get to sleep though - so I could end up getting frustrated and more urgey as a result... it's a fine line).
• How will I feel tomorrow if I hurt myself? How will I feel tomorrow if I do the other things I came up with?
  If I SI - I'll probably feel like a failure and stupid, and possibly ashamed. It will give me another reason to hate myself.
  If I do something else - I know I won't acknowledge it properly (like I would if it were someone else), but at least I won't been beating myself up over it.
• 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?
  As I realized ^, I think the urge is telling me I want to find a way to make some of this emotional distress change, but also that I want to do something painful to myself. I want to inflict that pain on myself. But what I need is to be comforted and soothed. So, if I want to honour that part of me that is trying to protect me and give me what I need, I should try something self soothing. Its late which limits my options, but there has to be some useful ideas somewhere on the web that I could try.

And for once the questions give me some insight. Comments welcome as always though. I think I'll come back to this tomorrow, and see if I can figure anything else out, as the urges have been pretty constant these last few days.

hi jem,
you wrote that you felt fragile and overwhelmed - but that you felt like you needed punishment. can you fill in the thoughts or beliefs that changed one into the other?

if automatic thinking is a problem, sometimes it helps to do cbt exercises - write down what you are (or might be) thinking and feeling and then turn your negative thoughts into positive/helpful thoughts and again rate your feelings to see if they have changed.

you wrote that your thoughts/feelings towards another si-er would be different than how you would treat yourself. can you get around that somehow? maybe by involving caring people irl, or by writing yourself a letter that explains this, something to read when urgy or after you si?

i'm glad you found some insight, and hope that comforting/soothing helped you, if you used it.

Thank you for your questions treasure. They've got me thinking.

treasure wrote: you wrote that you felt fragile and overwhelmed - but that you felt like you needed punishment. can you fill in the thoughts or beliefs that changed one into the other?

I've been having a lot of problems with myself lately and the self hate is growing. The punishment thoughts tie into that. But emotionally I feel fragile and overwhelmed. I think its a case of wanting to shift the emotional state (fragile and overwhelmed) somehow and I know SI would at least help to do that, and I can punish myself in the process. Two birds, one stone, kind of senario.

treasure wrote:you wrote that your thoughts/feelings towards another si-er would be different than how you would treat yourself. can you get around that somehow? maybe by involving caring people irl, or by writing yourself a letter that explains this, something to read when urgy or after you si?

I've tried getting around this on so many occasions, and I can't see it changing any time soon. Its so ingrained in my mind to hate myself. To put myself down. I'm hoping that this new type of therapy I start on Wednesday might give me some ideas, but for the time being, I don't think I can approach this.

I might have to think about challenging the thoughts. Might need a brief CBT refresher. I've seen some around the internet.
I went looking on the web and got lost in cyber space, as I expected, but it kind of helped. It was productive browsing though, and it kept me distracted. Used the foot lotion that I had thought of, and ended up just crawling into bed after that. Had put enough space between me and the urges so I managed to sleep a bit.