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I don't think I ever did one of these posts - they didn't really exist when I was at the height of my urges. However things have not been going well lately.

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 would slow everything down. It would somehow just stop the craziness - I know it is craziness in itself... I know that and I know it brings with it its own troubles... and I know the real problem here will not go away, but for a brief time everything would stop and there would be this calm. And I could breathe again - at least for a while... which would not be a long while, I know, but oh that calm, stopping the shaking, stopping the built up tension and anger and guilt... even for a few brief moments.


what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?

It will bring a calm. It will take away a shakiness and a deep deep hurt at least temporarily. But it will bring blood and wounds to clean and later it will bring calm. It will take away months of control and not doing this.


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 don't know. I don't want to feel anything about this. I want it all to go away. I don't think anything is going to get me there - not cutting and not doing nothing, not trying to talk it out... nothing. There doesn't seem to be any solution to this.


if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?

Umm, it will last literally about 2 minutes and then I am guessing I will just feel not much and then in a while... probably fewer months than the last time I will do it again and then want to do it again in even less time until like last time it will become almost a daily occurrence and then it will get out of hand just like it did last time.


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?

There isn't really much I could do that would help - I could take a bath I suppose, or read a book, or type on here (oh yeah, I'm doing that already), I could make a cup of tea except I have had too much of that recently, I could talk to my husband but that would probably make it worse, I could phone my mother but again that would probably make it worse, I could go to bed and try to sleep - if it worked it might be good, I could cry (maybe), I could just pretend that nothing is wrong (oh yeah, that is how I got back here in the first place - not a good idea)


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 awful regardless what I do. Too much has happened that has not involved self injury to get away from that whether I self injure now or not.


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 really want to get someone in particular to understand me and to love me. I want to hit that person and hurt them really really badly and then I want that person to hug me and hold me and tell me it is all ok and that they love me and they hate to see me so hurt. Of course it is unrealistic - of course no one would do that. I am asking for unconditional love - I am asking for someone to say: I know you can be really really awful, but I still love you and I am here for you and I will help you.


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.

I will not SI tonight - I have nothing to use to do so and have no energy to find something. I am deeply depressed at the moment and need to get help for it, but feel that no one so far has listened to me or understood. I know more than I did when this behaviour first started... a lot more... but somehow I cannot get the professionals or even the lay people close to me to understand. And it drives my frustration further.

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 bring calm and remove the anger that is not even explainable - everything is irritating me and it is better that irritation gets taken out on me than on my children or my husband or anyone else. Taking it out on them doesn't make anything better and often makes it worse even if what they are doing is not great and deserves something to be said - I just right now cannot say what needs to be saying without them thinking I hate them.

what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?

It will bring calm. I do not think it will take much away from it right now - things are deteriorating so fast now that it really would matter not much at all. Maybe in the far future it would matter, but in the here and now or even in the next few weeks it will not matter either way.


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 forget this. I wish I could forget everything actually. I wish I wasn't needed - I know I am unwanted, but I perform an awful lot of tasks that actually do have to get done even if no one ever notices. If I knew I wasn't needed then I could go away and stay away. Actually hurting myself is likely to get me closer to that - maybe not to feeling better, but getting closer to feeling less needed.

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 a few minutes. In fact the way I feel now I would have to hurt myself multiple times in one session to get the relief I am seeking. If I did then I would probably do it again sooner. And then again... and again and again.. until they locked me away and I know that is coming whether I cut myself or not because they know I am depressed and they know the tablets they have given me have not worked and I told them they would not - all they have done is make me pick up some weight. I am just as depressed (if not more so), just as bitter and angry and irritable.

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 cook supper, and put the kids to bed and keep living as though nothing is going wrong and keep losing my temper with me and everyone around me. This is what I have been doing and it is going on years now and it is not working. I have taken vitamins, changed diets, tried counselling, switched meds... I have done what I can and nothing is helping. Nothing is working and that is why I turn back to cutting - that maybe it will work because it did calm things before... but in the end it did not work either. So maybe nothing will work.

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 imagine that I would not care too much. I would probably do it again tomorrow or I would just shrug it off as part of a hellish life right now. If I do the other thing then I would feel the same - I would not care and life would just be the same. Neither would do much. It feels like there is no solution right now, nothing that can help.

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 feel better. I want to be able to cope with life.

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.

There is no one to help. This is deep depression. I have been through it before. Nothing helps - it can take 2 years to fix and then something else fixed it anyway, then it started again and again it was not the tablets that fixed it. And this time the people I need to help will not. They cannot and they will not.