after

[tenar]

hi,
not sure if i should really post here anymore, was given access back in the days when i was committed to stopping...

this is an after post, but not after a slip. to call what i did a slip is to dignify it, make it sound like a struggle. i si regularly now, back in the old bad place, only this time i don't know why, the emotions are too far away.

i haven't posted here much, and i guess i'm asking a lot, but it would be great if someone could help me work through what i'm doing at the moment, because i don't understand it and it scares me.



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

what had happened just before?
i had got back from babysitting, throughout which i was considering si. i had emailed a friend, brushed my teeth.

what were you thinking and feeling?
thinking is fairly easy. i was thinking thoughts like what tool to use, where my box of si kit is, where some tissues were. practical thoughts, about getting the job done.

feeling is much harder. maybe a little trepidation? i'm scared of pain. and the rest of my feelings, i don't know, i can't touch them at all. i think there's unhappiness there, and inevitability. but also an awful lot of indifference, like it doesn't matter if i hurt myself, and so i might as well do so. this doesn't make a lot of sense to me as i write it. si never used to happen because i couldn't think of a good reason not to.

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?
no reason really, maybe a fair bit of time alone to put the thoughts firmly into my head. i had to si then, otherwise i wouldn't fit it in before going to bed.

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 could have just gone to bed, not si'd. there wasn't that burning compulsion or emotional pain that i used to associate with si. nothing so tangible as feelings. i could have decided not to do it, but i didn't. didn't see a point. i think to make a different decision i would have to care more about me, and what happens to me, i would have to think that what i do matters, that its real, that its not just something happening to someone else that i don't care much about. i have an abstract curiousity about my wounds, i'm far from myself and i remain far from myself after i've si'd, but at least there's something to look at.

were there outside factors like drugs, alsohol, being off your meds, lack of sleep, etc? can you address those in the future? how?
maybe lack of sleep? though i didn't notice it as a factor, but generally most things relate to lack of sleep. i'm not really sleeping well at all. not sure how to address this - so far sleeping pills simply aren't working, though will change type when i go back to doctor in a couple of weeks.

what other ways of coping did you try besides self-harm? how well did they work?
no coping methods. delaying methods, teethbrushing, emailing etc. but not coping methods. i don't feel i'm coping with anything, just self harming to fill the gaps in my inner monologue.

in retrospect, are there coping methods that you now realize might have helped? what were they?
i could have just gone to bed, with a book, tried not to think about it. it would have kept me away from it, but made the need more insistent, make it the chief thought buzzing in my head.

name at least two things you will do to help yourself remember those coping methods if you end up in this situation again.
this ones hard, this is the bit about caring about what i do to myself. but none of its real in my head, so none of it matters. i mean, i know its real and i don't feel detached from myself, it just doesn't seem to impact upon my life and my emotions, its just something to be done. so what can i do? i don't know. i will hereby make a commitment however spend at least half an hour with a novel before doing anything next time.

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?
not resolved,because the situation was this stupid loop i'm in, of self harming, of not caring, of pain so far away i can't touch it, not even sith si. its the unresolvability of it that is about the one thing that can actually make me feel emotions, hopelessness is about the one thing i can feel.

are you likely to be in that emotional place again? how will you recognize it when you're in that situation?
yes. normally i know i'm in that situation because its past 9pm. i'm as regular as clockwork. and its when i start thinking about the act of si, thats when i get into that place

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.
reading, hot milk in bed and trying to trap some feelings in language in my place






right, thats the questions answered, sorry i made a botch job of them. i'm just so confused right now, i can't fit my si into any of the regular reasons for doing it, its just something i do. and what if i didn't do it? well i'd have no justification i guess. no way of touching the weight that is holding me down. i can't feel the weight, not really, not in that intense emotional way, i'm just controlled by it, absolutely. social interactions, my summer work, my sleep patterns, my eating patterns, everything controlled by this weight, and si is the only way i know its there.


i'm looking for help, desperately. i need help finding out why i'm doing this, i need to find some words to explain my situation. only then can i look towards stopping. i can't pin down the stresses or the triggers at all, and till then i don't know how else to control them.
sorry this is a bit of an unconventional after, but anything would be amazing. know its beyond the scope and mods, please delete if its inappropriate, but if anyone has an insight or so it would be much appreciated

thank you so much
tenar

edited to add: from a bright red scream via http://www.buslist.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=502

"Repetitive self-mutilators hurt themselves chronically and develop a fixed identity around cutting. They come to believe that they are their symptoms, that there really is nothing but a void inside, and that if they were prevented from cutting they would fall apart, go crazy, disappear, cease to exist. Both episodic and repetitive self-injurers hurt themselves for the same reasons: to relieve tension, release anger, regain a sense of self-control, and terminate states of emotional deadness."

this sort of makes sense. as if i stopped cutting i would stop having a purpose or reason or excuse or need, i'd just fade out, subsumed by that awful weight that controls me.

my mind kind of closes down when i think like htis. sorry.

[balletomane]

Hi Tenar. There was a lot that you wrote that I can relate to, particularly the indifference toward self and attachment to SI as part of identity. I'm going to throw out some thoughts/questions and maybe something useful will come of it.

You mentioned that you don't care what you do to yourself. What sorts of caring things do you do for yourself? If you aren't used to taking care of yourself, maybe doing things like taking a long bath or going fo a walk will accustom you to taking care of yourself and that might carry over into trying to limit SI.

You also mentioned that your SI events usually occur around the same time. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like SI has become part of a routine. Is is possible that you are injuring out of habit or for the comfort of a familiar routine? Or to keep SI? When I was in therapy and my parents were putting a lot of pressure on me to quit cutting, I would cut just to be sure I still could, and as a way of validating my hurt. (I often fall into the trap of thinking "If I didn't cut, it really wasn't bad.")

Sorry if none of that was very helpful.

[tenar]

thanks balletomane.

i think your right, that SI is becoming part of my routine. Its got to the point where it feels wrong for me to have gone to bed without SIing. which is stupid, and totally against the point of the thing.

i do, in a way take care of myself. i'm a big bubble bath fan, i try to exercise even when i'm not training for sport. it doesn't feel much like taking care of myself though, more like damage limitation,the exercise is to keep myself together mentally, the baths are primarily to get clean. i moisturise daily, but so i don't turn in a lizard, use lots of perfume because i'm terrified of smelling.

not so god at doing nice things to me because they're nice things to do to me - whatever i do it turns into a functional thing, a thing i do something else. the one exception to this is the day after i self harm badly, where somehwo the functional things start to feel like looking after me.
only with self harm can i see myself as something to need looking after.

right, so how can i change, this is the important thing.

first of all,keep going with the looking after me things. they can't do any harm, and maybe i'll start to see them differently.

second, add something to my routine, instead of si. ok, any ideas on this would be welcome. i guess i'm looking for something to acknowledge the existence of the big horrible in my head, because that's pretty much what si is doing right now,i think, acknowledging that all isn't right, because i don't have words or even really feelings to say it. journalling isn't really my thing, apart from in place - they tend to make me deeper in my head, rather than help me feel better. suggestions would be lovely as i'm having trouble thinking of any

thanks for replying balletomane
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