Answering After Questions

[kurdt_kobain]

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

*nods* see, i take care of it now. i've started taking care of all of them since i got a few infections.

what had happened just before?

I cut earlier--about 3:10 in the morning. Then I got up around 1:00 pm and showered, went to the bookstore and read a little. I read a Bright Red Scream and that book by SAFE and the entire time I felt so bad for all the stories of all the abused people...and I was like...wtf do I have to whine about? I'm such a pity whore. I'm just trying to justify being upset about...nothing.

what were you thinking and feeling?

static-y. i felt miserable, like everyone hated me. alone, lonely, like no one cares about me. abandoned, for no rational reason. miserable. like a little five year old girl and i just want to be taken care of. and selfish, utterly selfish, for wanting someone to help me. and then i tried to do debate cases and realized that i'm gonna suck at UNM and i just...fuck...i started crying and i didn't want to si and then i was shaking and i hadn't eaten all day and then i was shaking and tripping and falling down and then i couldn't breath and i didn't want to si but i did, a little, to make the panick go down and it did but i didn't si enough because i was still shaky and i feel horrible.

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?

I didn't want to, I was crying and shaking and not making any sound and I just hate myself so badly for being upset. I really really really should stop being such a shitty, fucked up whore. I just...I can't think of anything good about myself. And everyone else has legitimate reasons to be upset and I'm so worthless, so fucking needy and attention seeking and I'm just a piece of shit.

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 dunno. I realized that I couldn't focus on my work. That I was disappointing everyone. That I am a failure.

were there outside factors like drugs, alsohol, being off your meds, lack of sleep, etc? can you address those in the future? how?

I hadn't ate all day. Still hadn't. I think I might have had a panic attack cause I couldn't breathe for a while. I was shaking. I had lost a little bit of blood when I first cut, so maybe that was it? i should probably take medication again. all i do now is si and od. that's my life--slowly killing myself. i don't want to be like this. i want to be a good person.

what other ways of coping did you try besides self-harm? how well did they work?

I tried to clean the kitchen, but that made me cry harder because then i thought that my dad didn't love me cause i don't clean up and he always yells at me and i'm not good enough. then he came in and was like "you're moving so fast" and i was, i wasn't slowing down, and he was like "what's wrong" and that made me feel worse cause i can't tell him cause he'll make fun of me or say "you need help" or something and i'm disappointing him cause i'm fucked up and ruining his marriage and so i just said "nothing nothing" and went upstairs and sied.

in retrospect, are there coping methods that you now realize might have helped? what were they?

Maybe I could have talked to someone, but that would have made it worse. I feel like such an attention whore, such a whiner, such a burden. I really don't know how to cope any other way. I don't know how. I don't do it. I just SI. I just OD. I just hurt myself with anything around. And I can't stop and I dunno why. I don't know what else to do. I'm 16--17 in two weeks--and I've been SIing on and off since I was 7 or 8. And I don't know how NOT to. I don't know how to cope any other way. I hate this. I want to stop. I swear, I really, really want to stop. But I can't. I hate my scars. I hate it. I hate not being okay. I hate feeling this way...but I can't stop. I tried really hard. I said Okay Megan You're Not Gonna Cut but I did anyway. And then I cried harder afterwards even though I felt a lot less panicked. And then I updated my ipod and started shaking so badly and I almost passed out.

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?

Umm...I'm gonna go on medication. Lots of it. I'm going to write my cases, make them good. I'm going to school early and work on debate and get out of my house. I'm going to...fuck...When I'm 18 I'm gonna tell my T that I still SI. She's new--she thinks I stopped two years ago. So in about a year, I can tell her that I still do it...and then maybe she can help. But I gotta wait till I'm 18 cause of that legal shit...fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

are you likely to be in that emotional place again? how will you recognize it when you're in that situation?
Yes. I always know. I'm even aware that I'm being irrational. I'm aware that I've just, for no reason, decided that everyone hates me. It's like they just surface and take over and suddenly I can't cope at all...I don't know how to deal with it though.

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.

I'll listen to HAPPY music. I'll color a picture in the coloring book my friends bought me as a joke. I'll write one good thing about myself...maybe. That's really hard; I really don't think anything good about myself. Ever. Even when I'm happy, it seems misplaced, undeserved. When I do well, I think that they'll figure out that I'm just a failure after all. Like I fake it. When I'm smiling, I figure that I don't deserve it. I really...I feel lost and gone.

I have no one IRL who I can talk to about SI.
I have no one IRL who I can talk to about how I'm feeling.

I mean, I could but I'd feel like a burden. I'd feel like they don't want to hear; like an attention whore.

I'm not okay. I'm really not okay. I want to be okay...I swear I don't want to be like this...but I don't know what to do.

pleasepleasepleaseplease

[tattybluetrees]

Hi, Kurdt. It sounds like you're in a really horrible place right now, and I'm sorry for that. I don't kknow if anything I can say will be very helpful, but there are a few things which came to mind. It seemed from your post and the way that you wrote that you're going very fast, and that your thoughts are spinning out of control a bit (if I'm completely wrong about this then ignore me). Is there anything you could do to slow yourself down a bit? You said:

then he came in and was like "you're moving so fast" and i was, i wasn't slowing down, and he was like "what's wrong" and that made me feel worse cause i can't tell him cause he'll make fun of me or say "you need help" or something and i'm disappointing him cause i'm fucked up and ruining his marriage and so i just said "nothing nothing" and went upstairs and sied.

Is there anything you could have done then just to slow yourself down? Maybe a few brathing excersices or just trying to walk along the corridor from the top of your stairs to your bedroom (is there is a corridor) as slowly as you can? All the strategies you have suggested seem very good but they also sound a bit... exhausting to me. It's okay just to stop for a while. That doesn't make you a faliure- everyone needs a rest and some time just to breathe and think and be. I know it's not easy, and it is something that I have been struggliing with a lot, which is maybe why it comes to mind for me.

i felt miserable [...] like a little five year old girl and i just want to be taken care of.

That's a really hard feeling to cope with. Is there anything you could do to take care of yourself? I know it's not as good as someone else taking care of you, but the little girl deserves to be honoured and protected, and it's okay for you to do that for yourself. Is that something you feel you could practice a bit? Maybe make a list of nice ccomforting things you could do? Again, I might be completely wrong. These are just my thoughts & suggestions.

And everyone else has legitimate reasons to be upset and I'm so worthless, so fucking needy and attention seeking and I'm just a piece of shit.

Kurdt, you don't need a "legitimate reason" for feeling this way. The fact that you do feel this way is reason enough; your feelings are completely valid, all feelings are. You're not attention seeking for wanting someone to help & take care of you. Everyone wants that, even people who don't have any of the difficulties that lots of people here have.

I hadn't ate all day. Still hadn't. I think I might have had a panic attack cause I couldn't breathe for a while.

Not eating makes things worse. It took me years to work that out. I still forget it as soon as I am upset. Anyway, I'm sure you know all that.

If you can't talk to your therapist about SI (and I understand and respect that you feel you can't) could you maybe tell her that you think you're having panic attacks? I don't get them so I don't know what you do about them, but I know that there are fairly simple strategies that you can use to deal with them.

Umm...I'm gonna go on medication. Lots of it. I'm going to write my cases, make them good. I'm going to school early and work on debate and get out of my house. I'm going to...fuck...When I'm 18 I'm gonna tell my T that I still SI.

These all sound like really good aims, but they're quite long term. Is there anything smaller you could do next time? Anything little that you can do right now today that might make a change, however small, in how things are?

I'm sorry if what I have said has been too intrusive, of if I'm completely off the mark. I hope things get better for you soon. It sounds like you are in a very bad place, and I wish that I could do something better to help you.

Take care of yourself.

Tatty