After...

[Glockenspiel]

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

It was just a scratch. But it was enough to get me calmed down.

what had happened just before?

I was vacuuming.

what were you thinking and feeling?

A lot of things. Mainly that even if I cut nothing would change as far as the world being a lousy place filled with lousy people. I was vacuuming to try to cope and I realized that right after I finished vacuuming, I would feel the same as before. In other words, hopeless.

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?

Because I convinced myself that it didn’t matter whether or not that I did and I wanted the experience. And to feel the calm afterwards. There was no final straw. It felt like a good thing to do, so I did it.

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.

There was no final straw.

were there outside factors like drugs, alcohol, 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?

I was doing housework. It worked ok. After I cut, I went back to doing the housework and felt a lot better.

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

No.

name at least two things you will do to help yourself remember those coping methods if you end up in this situation again.

Being as there were none, this question is not applicable.

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?

Well, I’m thinking clearer now. I’m thinking that there are some things I can do that are worth while, even if I can’t do everything I want to, due to lack of time, money, being able to control others.

are you likely to be in that emotional place again? how will you recognize it when you're in that situation?

Yes. My head will start to feel like it’s going to explode.

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.

Contacting people.
Writing.
Hitting my wrist with a rubber band

(None of these things will make me as calm as I am now, but at least two of them will be somewhat productive, which isn’t a bad thing, even if the sun is going to burn out 4 billion years from now)

About Opportunities to SI
Opportunity to Self-Harm seems to be a common theme. Think about why opportunities are important to slips and learn why opportunity is important to you.

What made that opportunity more appealing than any other?

I realized that nobody was really watching me.

Did you make an opportunity or was it there for the taking?

There for the taking.


What would you have done if there was no opportunity, how would you have handled your urge?

I would have probably tried like hell to distract myself.

If there had been no opportunity would your urge to self-harm have increased or decreased?

Increase for a while, and then maybe decreased.

What consitutes opportunity for you? Being alone? having new tools? waiting for the right feeling?

Being alone

If your opportunties were taken away, how would you feel?

Like my head was going to explode.

[LBC]

Hi Glockenspiel

Do you need some more ideas for distractions? There's a big list of distractions in Sourcebook.

I find that when I need a distraction, I need something that's going to get me "out of my head", or at least get my thoughts going in a different directions. Doing Sudoku helps - puts me in a more logical, less emotional space.

Hope you're doing okay. Take gentle care.

[Glockenspiel]

Thanks. I'll check the Sourcebook list of distractions out.

I'm feeling really good this morning. Really calm. Like this is the feeling that I've wanted to feel ever since I reached the age of consciousness 37 years ago.

That's what scares me.