bus

• how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?
• what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
• 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?
• if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
• 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?
• how will i feel tomorrow if i hurt myself? how will i feel tomorrow if i do the other thing i came up with?
• 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?

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.

More Before Questions To Answer

• Before
• Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?
  
  Working on stuff last night. I tried to work out a mind-map/ plan of things I can do to work on things. And I replied to an email my friend sent me talking about that stuff too (and sent her the mind-map plan thing I came up with). It was good. It was good to work stuff out that far. But it took a lot! It's a good thing to work on things, but sometimes it's too much - it's hard and it hurts. This morning I'm feeling - I don't know - tired - both physically and emotionally, and just like this is too much, (and a little bit scared about stuff I wrote in my email to my friend, scared that I said stuff wrong or something). It's hard working on stuff, because it makes me feel - and the more I let myself feel, the more I want to SI. . . I'm also just feeling stuff which is just . . . normal for me I guess. . . like stuff is hard a lot of the time - mornings seem to be harder for some reason a little bit too, just in general - that's part of the reason why I kept on pushing myself to work on things last night (and stayed up until 1 in the morning doing it ), because I could do it then, and I knew that if I left it until the morning, I wouldn't be able to.
• Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
  
  Probably. Or similar. . . I don't know. . . How did I deal with it - well I made a list last night of ways I deal with SI stuff (as part of my working stuff out) . . .
  
  Distraction type stuff I do - Reading, Make something for someone, Do something for someone - like helping my friend clean her house, be around other people, exercise.
  
  Stuff I can do to "work on" self-harm stuff - Answer before/after questions here, Write - either journaling or to a person, learn new ways to work on it
  
  That stuff works sometimes. . . It helps sometimes. . .
• What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
  
  I've been reading a book. And now I'm posting on here. I think I need to do stuff which gets me away from thinking about stuff for a bit - like I need a break, because working on stuff is overwhelming. . .
  
  So - I could do more of the distraction stuff I wrote above - I don't think there's anyone who I can ask to spend time with right now - so not the "people" stuff. . . I could try listening to music and making creative things for people.
• How do I feel right now?
  
  Overwhelmed, Like this is too much, Like I can't think, And it just hurts . . . . . . . . This is different to what I've felt other times, like I'm not upset and crying and like that - I'm just . . . . broken. . . and I can't think.
• How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
  
  You know, this is good - reading that question, I'm thinking - I'm not going to SI, I'm not going to give into it. I don't want it anymore. I want to fight it.
  
  I want to SI because I feel like it would make me feel better. . . I wonder if it would get me out of this state of not being able to think. . . It would feel good when I was doing it, because . . . I don't know, looking at it, I don't know -I just keep on imagining the action . . .
  
  This feeling is different though from some stuff I've experienced before. I don't want to SI because I'm feeling too much. . . I don't know how it's different . . . but it is. . . SI is my immediate reaction to anything, but I wonder if it would even help with what I'm feeling right now.
• How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
  
  Worse. It would make me feel worse. . . It might be different though - like it would make me feel worse, but it would be something concrete rather than what I feel right now which is something which I don't understand.
• Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
  
  No. Not if I'm going to be trying to work on things over the next few months like I plan to. It's going to be hard. It's going to hurt. I can't avoid that.
  
  How to deal with it - try, take it slowly, take breaks from working on stuff and let myself try and get away from the overwhelmingness of it for a bit and then come back and try again . . . . I don't what else.
• Do I need to hurt myself?

No. I'm not going to

(I forgot the first half of the q's - so I'm doing them second )

• how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?
  
  Like I said above, it might change it from this thing I don't understand to something more concrete. Which is what I want . . . but it wouldn't last - this stuff I feel, it being hard to work on stuff isn't going to go away.
• what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
  
  It would take me further away from my goal of working on stuff, of not SIing. . .
• 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?
  
  as above
• if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
  
  It wouldn't last. And I'm not going to. I feel like it, but I'm not going to.
• 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?
  
  Distraction stuff I said above. The problem is that that stuff doesn't last either . . . . . I wonder if I just need to learn to let myself feel stuff and not feel like I need to stop it. This is going to be hard and this is going to hurt, but maybe I need to learn to just let myself feel stuff.
• 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 - I would feel disappointed, and it's not what I want. If I do other stuff - I'll probably feel the same as I feel right now.
• 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 went and read the post on this again, because I wasn't sure what it meant . . . . I'm still not sure how to answer it exactly . . . . . . but . . . . hmmm . . . no, I don't know, I'm going to keep on thinking on that.

hi sojourner_steph


i think it's normal for working on stuff to be difficult and then have a weird period of time where you can't focus and feel pretty low. it might help to plan in advance what you might do - ie. tomorrow i will email so-and-so about difficult topics, spend 10 mins playing with a pet, then go have a bath.

i'm glad the questions brought some clarity that helped you realise you didn't want to si.

Thank you. I appreciated your reply and that helped. And I'm going to try planning in advance what I might do like you suggested.