bus

After:

Questions to Answer After A Slip
slips are chances to learn. you figure out what stresses are still too hard for you and you can work on how you'll deal with them next time you run into them. so instead of beating yourself up, take action.

• have you taken care of your physical wounds? if not, go do that now. we'll wait.
  Yes, it was yesterday but I wanted time to reflect... Plus this is also intended to try to act for a before, or at least a distraction and an incentive to try before if needed tonight
• what had happened just before?
  Nothing specific, just a lot of drama, build up of a lot of things
• what were you thinking and feeling?
  Felt like I have no control over anything in my life, but knowing that without other people interfering I would just hide away
• why did you end up hurting yourself then instead of some other time? was there an event that was the final straw? what was it?
  melt down... Felt like it was a long time coming
• how did the situation get to the final straw stage? trace it back through the events that led up to the last event. look for some point at which you could have made a different decision and not arrived at the final straw.
  I can't see where I could have made a difference. apart from.... See next question...
• were there outside factors like drugs, alsohol, being off your meds, lack of sleep, etc? can you address those in the future? how?
  I keep forgetting to take my meds, I must get better at that. Also had a major busy weekend (which I enjoyed at the time), but with other situations at home it was a hard jolt to reality
• what other ways of coping did you try besides self-harm? how well did they work?
  Nothing really... Just really felt I needed it. It's been on my mind for a long long time
• in retrospect, are there coping methods that you now realize might have helped? what were they?
  I could have tried reading, just laying in bed and reading instead of focusing on my internal things
• name at least two things you will do to help yourself remember those coping methods if you end up in this situation again.
  No answer to this, because I'm wanting/needing it again right now
• how do you feel about the situation that led to self-harm now? is it resolved? if not, what are some steps you might take toward resolution?
  All I can do is try and get more time to myself. but external factors are almost impossible to get away from right now
• are you likely to be in that emotional place again? how will you recognize it when you're in that situation?
  In it already
• what will you try before you resort to self-harm if you're in that situation again? list three specific things you will commit to trying. Sorry, I can't answer this

About Opportunities to SI
Opportunity to Self-Harm seems to be a common theme. Think about why opportunities are important to slips and learn why opportunity is important to you.

• What made that opportunity more appealing than any other?
  Thinking about it for a long time... That's all
• Did you make an opportunity or was it there for the taking?
  kinda both. I can always make the opportunity, just yesterday, I did
• What would you have done if there was no opportunity, how would you have handled your urge?
• If there had been no opportunity would your urge to self-harm have increased or decreased? probably decreased short term
• What consitutes opportunity for you? Being alone? having new tools? waiting for the right feeling? the feeling, and having waited and resisted for too long
• If your opportunties were taken away, how would you feel? I would make opportunities if I found myself in the space I found myself in last night

After You Beat an Urge
How do you beat your urges? Examine how you beat the last one so it can help you beat the next one.

Couldn't answer the rest, sorry

Paws wrote:[*]were there outside factors like drugs, alsohol, being off your meds, lack of sleep, etc? can you address those in the future? how?
I keep forgetting to take my meds, I must get better at that. Also had a major busy weekend (which I enjoyed at the time), but with other situations at home it was a hard jolt to reality

[*]what other ways of coping did you try besides self-harm? how well did they work?
Nothing really... Just really felt I needed it. It's been on my mind for a long long time

I mainly wanted to comment on these two questions... I hope that is okay.

On the med front, I am with you. I constantly forget my morning meds, but sometimes I remember them at a point when I could still take them, time wise, but then choose not to at that point. I know from my experience, sometimes it is not really forgetting as it is not wanting to take them and purposely or subconsciously pushing it out of my mind. I'm not saying this is what you are doing, just pointing out that it is a possible thing to happen. Maybe you could examine if there is a reason why you are forgetting the meds... do you want to take them? are they inconvenient? (I take morning and evening meds, and purposely moved as many to the night as I could. The only morning meds are a twice a day med and one that has to be taken in the am, can't be taken at night.) do you feel that you don't necessarily need the meds? (similar to what some with bipolar do, they feel good and stop taking the meds) Are you choosing to not take them because of drinking and don't want to mix alcohol with the meds? Just throwing some ideas, that I know from my experience, out there to think on.

The other thing I wanted to mention was want vs. need. I use to believe that I needed SI or I needed to drink or use. It was repeatedly told to me the difference between need and want. A need is something that we must have to survive. I would argue that if I didn't SI then I would begin to feel SU, and in essence, that I did need it. I believed that at the time, but slowly, I was able to acknowledge that I would not cease to exist without SI. Not trying to preach or anything but maybe consider the wording. In the before questions, the last question is something like "do you need to SI right now?" I honestly cannot say yes. I don't need to. I really, really want to, but I don't need to.

Hope this helps, and take care of yourself. Hope you are doing better, I know this post was a while ago.

Coffee