Before: 24/05/07

[Stripe]

Before You Self-Harm
write down the shadow that's hiding behind the urge. look at it. ask yourself:

• how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?
  
  If I hurt myself it will distract me from all the difficult thoughts in my head right now.
• what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation?
  
  It will give me a break, and help me cope better tonight, but it might be the last straw in the decision and I might have to return to IP.
• 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 feel proud that I quit SI, hurting myself would make that harder.
• if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then?
  
  It really depends, if I cut badly, probably a few hours, otherwise less.
• 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?
  
  There is nothing else I can really do to change the situation
• 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 if I hurt myself I will feel crap, but there is nothing I can do to change the situation.
• 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 really want to end it all but that is not an option, maybe excersise would help if I could walk.

More Before Questions To Answer

• Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?
  
  Finding out that he is not being taken to court for SA
• Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
  
  I have not been here before
• What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
  
  Talked to people a bit. I need to see if one of two friends I can really rely on comes online on msn and really talk this through
• How do I feel right now?
  
  Right now I feel shameful, alone, scared, upset, angry, tearful, hurt, shaky, jumpy anxious, worried.
• How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
  
  Painful, relieved, human
• How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
  
  Pretty crap I guess
• Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
  
  I hope this will never happen again
• Do I need to hurt myself?

I think so, yes

[LBC]

Hi accused.victim

I read about your situation in your post on main...like others said, I feel that you absolutely did the right thing, and that you were failed by a system that was supposed to protect you. The fact that you tried to answer the questions in the face of what must be a whole lot of terribly overwhelming feelings makes me really admire you.

You said that you needed to hurt yourself. I don't know if you actually did or not...but if you did, I hope you don't feel badly over it. These questions aren't meant to make you feel guilty if you do choose to self-harm after answering them...they're a tool for self-understanding.

What *I* took from your post is this is that things (understandably) seem like too much, and that you really need self-harm to cope right now. I've been there myself; sometimes it really seems like there's no other option. I feel like I gained some understanding of yourg urges; did you? Then it was definitely worth answering thequestions, whatever you decided to do afterward.

If it's a choice between you deciding to end it all or to self-harm...much better to self-harm. I'm glad that you can see that to end it all would not be a good choice.

Take gentle care.

[Stripe]

Thanks.

It has made me think, and even though I did self-harm, I self-harmed after thinking about it, so far less deeply than I would otherwise, because it wasn't an impulse thing
*wanders off to fill in an after*