Before

[NobodyToYou]

how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?
The situation won't change. The feelings will...I will be more relaxed. I will feel like I have more "balance" so I can face the rest of my day. I won't feel so tense.

what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
It will bring relief from bad feelings. It will take away some of my determination not to cut. It will take away some self respect. It will make it harder to talk to my T later today.

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 want to feel anything about this in the long run. I just want the feelings to go away. I want it to have never happened.

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 for...an hour? Long enough for me to get on with my day and move on to other responsibilities and concerns. I will either get in a better mood, or cut again later.

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 am writing this. I could study. I could work on my paperwork. Nothing will change the situation, it can't really be changed, it is in the past.

how will i feel tomorrow if i hurt myself? how will i feel tomorrow if i do the other thing i came up with?
Tomorrow? By tomorrow it won't matter. I will have so many other things that will effect how I feel by tomorrow.

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 cut!!!! But I don't want to...I am urging pretty badly right now. I don't know if I can get through this fast enough to handle the next stress that is coming without cutting. Self protective instinct...I guess just try to take care of my emotions now rather than putting them off or trying to shut them down by cutting.

[NobodyToYou]

Time for the After.

have you taken care of your physiacl wounds? if not, go do that now. we'll wait.
enough

what had happened just before?
Something happened at work that upset me. I know, mentally, that I didn't do anything wrong. But I felt like I did...My supervisor was not upset with me, he thinks I did fine. But I didn't feel fine.

what were you thinking and feeling?
I felt like I should have handled the situation better or done something differently, even though I can't think of anything I could have done better...I guess I felt like I was inadequate to meet the need, so I failed. Even if no one could have done it better, I didn't do it well enough. I was trying not to be upset by the situation...I did manage to tell my supervisor I was feeling tense (he asked how I was) but I should have gone back and talked to him again. I almost did, cause he probably could have reassured me that I did ok, but I didn't go back to talk to him.

why did you end up hurting yourself then instead of some other time? was there an event that was teh final straw? what was it?
Yes, I was trying to help someone and they got upset and walked out. I couldn't help them well enough...I talked briefly to my supervisor to let him know what happened, and then I filled out a Before. But I wonder if I had already decided I was going to cut before I filled out the Before. I don't think I tried hard enough not to...I did go sit in a quiet room for a bit, but it made me more upset instead of less.

how did the situation get to the final straw stage? trace it back through the events thatled up to the last event. look for some point at which you could have made a different decisiona nd not arrived at the final straw.
I should have gone back to talk to my supervisor again when I started to get more upset. I probably should have slowed down some...I think I cut because I wasn't taking time to process anything, just trying to make it go away.

were there outside factors like drugs, alsohol, being off your meds, lack of sleep, etc? can you address those in the future? how?
no

what other ways of coping did you try besides self-harm? how well did they work?
Sat in quiet room for a couple minutes...didn't help, made me feel worse. I wrote a Before...I don't know if that helped or not. It at least delayed me a bit...I didn't get any profound insight from it (yet).

in retrospect, are there coping methods that you now realize might have helped? what were they?
Should have talked to supervisor!

name at least two things you will do to help yourself remember those coping methods if you end up in this situation again.
I will remember how miserable I have been feeling today...I felt like I had failed before, but after cutting, I REALLY feel like a failure. I think anything that will help me avoid this would probably be a good idea.

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?
I think it is resolved, except that I still kinda feel like a failure. I know I did all I could for this person...so why do I still feel so bad? Why can't I tell myself that it was enough?

are you likely to be in that emotional place again? how will you recognize it when you're in that situation?
Oh, I hope not! Eventually I probably will be...I guess the overwhelming sense of failure, even when I know it doesn't make sense.

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.
If I am still here, I will talk to my supervisor. In other settings, I think I just need to slow down and try to tolerate the feelings longer. I expect if I had just waited long enough, I would have started to feel better. And I if I didn't feel better, I could have cut later and it wouldn't have really hurt anything to wait. So I need to slow down and not react so impulsively.

[Tiarin]

that does sound like a difficult situation. i think it's a good insight that you do better when you slow down, rather than just acting on the spot. (i can relate a lot to that!)

I know I did all I could for this person...so why do I still feel so bad? Why can't I tell myself that it was enough?

i think those are important questions. you sound like you have some high expectations for yourself. maybe it would be worth looking at them a bit more, thinking about questions like— what do you expect you should be able to do? where did you get those expectations? what does it mean to you when you don't live up to them; what are the emotions and thoughts that go along with that?

take care of yourself. i'm sorry things have been tough.

dragonfly