- how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?
It will bring relief, I will no longer feel as on edge. I will feel able to take care of myself again. I will feel in control. - what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
It will bring: relief, control, calm. An end to the anxiety and an end to waiting for the slip to happen.
It will take away:
Two weeks without cutting. - 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 want to be able to take care of myself without cutting. I want to feel in control and love myself. I want to feel strong and face my life. Hurting myself will help me feel in control, but in the end it will only deepen my feelings of shame and isolation. - if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
The relief will last me through the night, but breaking my 2 week record will most likely lead me back into harming myself as I will need to continue doing it to continue to feel better. - 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 can lie on the couch and watch television until I fall asleep. I can journal if the tv isn't distracting enough. I will see how I feel in the morning, and go for a walk once it's light enough if I need to. - 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 hurt myself I will feel ashamed tomorrow, and will most likely isolate myself - which will place me at a very vulnerable place for relapse, as I've just left an eating disorder treatment centre and am trying to make the transition back to normal life. If I avoid hurting myself, tomorrow I might be able to focus on how I was able to take care of myself, which might make me feel better and more capable of making it through this transition without slipping in either the eating disorder or the self harm.
More Before Questions To Answer
- Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?
I feel the need to hurt myself, because I am feeling very vulnerable and lost right now and self-injury is something familiar that helps me feel in control of myself and safe, and capable of taking care of myself. This has been building up since I finished an eating disorder treatment program last Saturday. I feel lost and directionless, as my life moved on without me while I was gone and now I need to build a new one. - Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
I've not really been in this position before. - What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
I have attended a support group for the first time tonight, as well as called two friends, went to visit the second friend, and made sure I ate dinner. I plan on parking myself in front of the television, as I think I could watch until I fall asleep, in hopes that I'll feel better tomorrow. - How do I feel right now?
tired, anxious, lonely. Angry at myself, a little. - How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
I will feel relief, and the anxiety will ease. Even the loneliness will ease, I will be able to numb myself from everything. - How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
I will feel better tonight, but tomorrow I will probably feel ashamed, angry at myself, upset that I couldn't hang on to recovery. I would probably isolate. It would endanger my recovery from the eating disorder. - Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
I don't know how to avoid this, and I think just getting through tonight and making some plans for the future in the morning is the best thing to do. - Do I need to hurt myself?
No, I don't.
