bus

how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?

I will feel calmer

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

it will make me calmer and if I am calm I will be able to react more logically and less emotionally

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 just want the feelings to go away. If I hurt myself it will be harder to forget them because I will have a visual/sensory reminder

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

I don't know how long the relief will last. What will I do then? I don't know.

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?

cry, scream, ignore my feelings, wash dishes, throw a brick through my computer monitor

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'll either feel stupid or nuetral about hurting myself. Usually I feel neutral but it's been a long time since I hurt myself so I'll probably feel somewhat defeated. Or worse I will feel relief that I am back to si-ing

if I do dishes I'll feel good. If I cry or scream I'll feel bad. If I throw a brick through the computer moniter I'll feel awful. If I can sucessfully push my feelings away I'll feel ok, a little numb maybe but basically fine.

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 have a self-protective instinct? Oh um...hmmm never thought of it like that before gah. the thing is if I wash dishes I still have room to think. It's a good sollution in as much as it gets me away from the computer and the discussions but it still leaves way too much room for thinking not to mention easy access to ways to injure myself. so I should probably come up with something else. Also there aren't that many dirty dishes in our house. Heck at this point there may not be that many dirty dishes in the world.

I have dirty dishes if you want them
No, really, you're welcome anytime...

You said that SI makes you feel calmer, and that is the desired result. Most of the other coping mechanisms were a way of expressing emotion- but not actually feeling calmer. Screaming or throwing things sort of works you up. That may not be what you want.

So what about coping mechanism designed to relax and calm you down so you can think logically? Have you tried any breathing techniques or meditation? I really like directed focus.

JoAnna

I've tried meditation in the past, I have a hard time doing it as a methood of calming down when I am already upset because I can't seem to stop thinking and clear my mind. (So I guess I'm not terribly good at meditating.)

I did take my anti-anxiety medicine which I hadn't today and that is helping somewhat.

Thank you for pointing that out about my other sollutions not being calming ones I hadn't noticed that.

I think what I need is something calming but at the same time something that keeps my attention. Like knitting or something. (I don't have the things on hand to knit so that's out for now but I'll pick some up asap because I remember knitting being calming in the past.)

I did some cleaning which helped momentarily. I'm going to answer the second set of questions.

Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?

Several conversations about the same subject.

Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?

Sort of. Not in exactly the same way but I've been upset because of discussing the same subject before. I felt upset, like I wasn't being understood, invalidated like something that I am trying very hard to believe about myself is being unintentionally invalidated.

What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?

I've come here to try and sort it out, I've talked to a couple friends about the discussion (not my wanting to S.I) but the discussions that are making me feel panicky and upset. I've done some cleaning. I've joked with the people I'm having the discussion with trying to lighten the mood for everyone.

How do I feel right now?

A little less panicky but still bad

How will I feel when I am hurting myself?

calm, relieved, focused

How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?

calmer but probably guilty. Tomorow, probably stupid.

Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?

I can try to avoid the subject as much as possible.

Do I need to hurt myself?

Well I suppose I don't need to. I'm not using SI as a way to avoid killng myself like I have in the past so I suppose that not SIing in this case is the lesser of two evils.

herebedragons wrote:I've tried meditation in the past, I have a hard time doing it as a methood of calming down when I am already upset because I can't seem to stop thinking and clear my mind. (So I guess I'm not terribly good at meditating.)

That doesn't mean your not good at meditating.

It's terribly hard. I've never been able to completely get my mind blank when I'm already upset. That's why I try to do things like simple breathing techniques or directed focus- there isn't that same 'pressure' to clear your mind (like if you think about how your mind isn't clear than you're failing at mediation...or if you're doing it right...or if your nose itches...bah, I hate that).

Anyway, I'm glad you remembered your anti-anxiety meds.

I also heartily recommend knitting. Love knitting. It's easy to tell when I'm urgey because I'll start cranking out scarves like no tomorrow.

JoAnna

the only wrong way to meditate is to not do it

I wonder if you could just get yourself to sit with it for a set period of time, regardless of if you feel like you're doing it wrong?

prox.
[the jayhawks]

Thanks for the replies, I tried to clear my head and ended up asleep which was actually a good thing, a nap helped a bit. I have a headache from keeping my jaw clenched so I'm going to try and relax a bit more.

I'm embarrassed that I got so worked up before. It's funny that I listed things such as crying or screaming or throwing things under other things I could do as I would not generally resort to any of them. I guess I need to work on coming up with better alternatives that I might actually use since coming up with alternatives I wouldn't use is rather self defeating. Still not feeling great but I don't imagine I will be doing any SI anytime soon.