Before

[Chis]

Before You Self-Harm

how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?
I will feel "released" for a period of time. I will have had my punishment for being me. Thus in the long end it won't change anything.

what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation? It will give me relief and calmness as well as punishment and it will take what it gave.

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? Most likely not, no.

if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then? The duration of the "effect" of the SI depends. Sometimes it lasts for a day or two, other times it lasts for a few hours for me. After that I will try to cope in other ways like I always do, and hopefully succeed.

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? Well i've used several coping methods, i don't have anything to read, can't sleep so I don't know anything else atm.

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 I will most likely feel ashamed of myself, and again like a failure (evil circle).

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 don't know to be honest...
Well what I want is to sleep, but I can't. And I want to see my brother but it is troublesome.

urges aren't necessarily the enemy. they happen for reasons, and they're an expression of a desire to stay alive and stay sane and keep coping. remember that.

More Before Questions To Answer

Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?
I hate myself
I am nothing compared to my friends
I am in a dream like state and I want to feel more real

Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
I have been here before, and that time I cut myself as well. And it worked for some time. I felt real then.

What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
I have tried several coping methods (won't list them here).
I don't know what else to do now.

How do I feel right now?
Tired
Inadequate
Worthless

How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
More real
I will feel like i've gotten what I deserve

How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
I will feel relieved and things will be "ok" for some time. Tomorrow morning I don't know. I can't look into the future.

Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
Well I try. And it is working to some extent. The time between each cut is increasing.

Do I need to hurt myself?
As I feel right now, yes indeed.

[caged bird]

hey chis,

I hope writing some of the answers to before gave you a bit of a chance to get some perspective on how you were feeling, How do you feel about it now?

It seems, from what you've written, that a lot of your urges and reasons for being allowed to SI are centred around feeling that you deserve punishment, do you know why this is?

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? Well i've used several coping methods, i don't have anything to read, can't sleep so I don't know anything else atm.

have you tried the scarily vast list of coping strategies - that's full of useful other things that you can do when you run out of ideas or when the things that you usually use don't work.

You mentioned the evil circle too, do you think perhaps if you can not SI then that will help towards breaking it, so in the long run you don't feel the need to SI?

I'm glad to hear that you're trying to avoid stressors and that the time between your SI is increasing

take care

*k*

[Chis]

Thanks for the reply K!

Well I have terrible self-esteem and I feel like I am worthless, thus deserves punishment for every mistake I do. Or everything that I do wrong, say wrong, etc. That is the reason I believe I deserve punishment at least.

I have tried some of them, but I have not made my way through the whole list

Well if I can stop SI'ing for a while, that might help break the circle yes. Haven't looked at it like that, i'll try it out if i'm able to!

[caged bird]

yeah i'm not suggesting that stopping will make it all better just like that, and i now it's not easy, just sometimes it's another way to look at it.

with regards to feeling worthless and the self punishment thing (i stole this from someone else that i read a couple of days back) can you try looking at it that feeling low and bad about yourself is maybe punishment enough, or that if it's becasue something has gone wrong the consequences of it going bad are enough punishment rather than you having to add to it by hurting yourself

[Chis]

I will try that the next time. Thanks a lot for the suggestions k!