before

[Maryel42]

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 feel calmer for a while and in control of my emotions. I'll stop feeling so urgy
• what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it
  
  take away from the situation?
  
  It takes away the constant awareness of wanting to SI. It lets me go from before to after, and I don't feel quite as much on edge wondering if I'll do it or not.
• 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 let go of the urges. I want to not have it, right there, like a missing tooth that I can't stop my tongue reaching for.
• if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long
  
  will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
  
  It will last an hour or so, I think, at best. Then the urges will come back. I don't know if it will be easier or worse when they do.
• 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 can brush my arms with a stiff brush. I can rub the bristles in my hand. I can use my fingernails backwards to simulate the pressure and not break skin. I can play with my tools, without using them. The last one, yes, it's very risky because it's right up against that line and it only takes a fraction of an instant to go over it. All of them are risky, but they do provide a similar release even if they aren't, to my head, really SI.
  
  It won't change the situation, but it will ease the pressure to give in and SI right now. It won't feel as good as SI, but the urge won't be as constantly in front of my mind.
• how will i feel tomorrow if i hurt myself? how will i feel
  
  tomorrow if i do the other thing i came up with?
  
  If I SI right now, I will feel resigned that I'll be more likely to do it again another day. If I don't, I'll still be urgy later tonight and tomorrow. If I SI I will have wounds to tend and depending on where I do them I'll have to explain them away the next time I see a doctor. Which is always a potential, anyway, and right now I don't feel like I can explain myself. I don't want to be in a position to have to explain the wounds, regardless.
• 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 disappear. I want to scrub my mind clean of intrusive thoughts, not just of SI but of the abuse. I want to stop second guessing and third guessing what I did back then, which is affecting how I cope with the right now, because those memories are still intruding all the time on my present life. If I stop having to push them out of my head all the time I will have more energy and ability to take care of myself in the present which will make me happier and less likely to have the urges in the first place.

So I think that the real reason for #1 is that I want to SI in order to quiet my mind and be able to push the memories and memory of emotions out of my body and mind.




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.

[treasure]

welcome to b&a, maryel42

i hope the questions were helpful.

those memories are still intruding all the time on my present life. If I stop having to push them out of my head all the time I will have more energy and ability to take care of myself in the present which will make me happier and less likely to have the urges in the first place.

i have been triggered by memories before, partly from feeling things from the past and partly from thinking negatively about myself. the feelings, i think, can be helped by talking about it, to someone trustworthy, as the sympathy and comfort lessens the hurts of the past. the negative thinking is a more slippery and harder thing to fight, but cbt stuff can help a bit - writing down all the thoughts and trying to reframe/rephrase them. while the thoughts might have tiny tiny bits of truth in them, they are negative, pulling my mood down and making it harder on myself unnecessarily. positive or neutral thoughts are not going to have the same emotional impact and can help some of the emotion dissipate and give the memories less power.

[Maryel42]

I want to say in reply, why.... although I know that you don't have the ultimate answer, and there may not even be one; why is it that the talking about it is never enough? I talk and talk and burn people out with the neverending talking. I can examine my thoughts and try to stop focusing on it and when I still need to talk about how much pain I'm in, it seems like my friends are so burned out by the subjects still being in me that they wonder why I cant just get over it for once.

In therapy I start feeling bad for the therapist that I stay stuck.

I know this goes beyond the scope of this board some, but maybe it will spark something for somebody else down the line. So I will say it. I used to feel that my circling back to the same intrusive thoughts was because there was something wrong with me. With how my brain is wired. Like maybe it's true that I'm just that messed up. But then there was a seriously traumatic event in my adult life that was treated appropriately, immediately, and I poured tthe same amount of energy into working through it that I have put into the other set of traumas. The newer event? I do not even think about it anymore. It has no power over me. I can look back and acknowledge it and that's all.

So I'm not just "that messed up".

I still want to know why. I still feel there's something wrong that maybe is underlying all the urges. That underlays all the rest of the sleepless nights and panic and body memories and all the rest.

I think this thread is another thing I will take to the t. Maybe not this week. But I will.

[Maryel42]

I was! Wasn't that lovely? That I ended up writing a really long email in the end, and sent it off to my t, and we talked about it some yesterday.

I think that this week may still have struggles with si. not today. Last night I had a really awesome meeting with my son's teachers, and I feel all floaty-excited because he's doing so well. And although his progress has nothing to do with me (my goodness, or worth as a parent, or lack of anything) I feel so excited about him. About his future. About his potential.

I'm still on a journey. Made it through a dark place and came out into the next bright one. I want to stay in the bright one as long as I possibly can.

[treasure]

Made it through a dark place and came out into the next bright one.

that's great to hear, mary
well done