after

[Spidey]

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

yes, i have.

* what had happened just before?

laid in bed to go to sleep and i panicked. i felt a sense of absolute and total disconnect from myself =/

* what were you thinking and feeling?

thinking: what the fuck / this makes absolutely no sense
feeling: desperate, at the end of my rope

* 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?

why'd i end up hurting myself then? it's convienent. everyone was asleep. nobody to barge in / intrude / call for me.

there wasn't an event that was the final straw. the feelings tide built too much.

* 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.

a lot of things have been hard lately emotionally and it all just came to a head. t here wasn't an event per se that made this happen. it was just building and building.

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

stress. i'm never any good with stress.

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

watched lots of lives, listened to music, ignored it. all but the lives were a stopgap, watching the double-decade tour dvd's actually took me out of my head and emotions for awhile.

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

:: shrugs :: probably not

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

1) i'll watch dvd's again
2) i'll work harder on my ignoring capabilities.

* 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?

it's not resolved. it probably won't be. and it's internal and unless you can change how i feel then...dunno.

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

i don't know.

* 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.

1) i'll stop thinking
2) more dvd's
3) not giving a damn

* What made that opportunity more appealing than any other?

nobody was going to annoy me; they were all sleeping

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

it was so there for the taking

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

i would have waited until one or i would have created one

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

increased

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

being alone
knowing that nothing is going to happen that i have to attend to right away

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

bereft

[LBC]

Hi Pink Spider

"work harder on my ignoring capabilities" struck me.

What are you ignoring? The urge? Or the emotions behind it?

Pain, physical or emotional, is unpleasant because it's supposed to let us know that something's wrong. It's protective.

The urge itself is an odd sort of protective instinct, is it not? (I think there's a post in here on this...honouring the self-protective instinct...): "I can't take this feeling anymore, do something about it."

Is it the ignoring capabilities that really need the work here? Is that a long-term solution to the emotion/stress factors going on right now?

(It's perfectly okay if it is, by the way. This is your process, and if ignoring is what you can do now...well, wherever you are, there you are, right?)

I hope you're doing okay today.

[Spidey]

Hi Pink Spider

"work harder on my ignoring capabilities" struck me.

What are you ignoring? The urge? Or the emotions behind it?

both. i ignore urges because i know nothing good can come out of them.

i ignore emotions because i do not believe that i am entitled to have them. if i have an emotion and it is negative i am a bad person.

Pain, physical or emotional, is unpleasant because it's supposed to let us know that something's wrong. It's protective.

but what do i do then?

The urge itself is an odd sort of protective instinct, is it not? (I think there's a post in here on this...honouring the self-protective instinct...): "I can't take this feeling anymore, do something about it."

Is it the ignoring capabilities that really need the work here? Is that a long-term solution to the emotion/stress factors going on right now?

(It's perfectly okay if it is, by the way. This is your process, and if ignoring is what you can do now...well, wherever you are, there you are, right?)

I hope you're doing okay today.

i couldn't take the feeling anymore, so i did something about it. yeah, it probably wasn't the best thing i could have done, but i had exhausted all other options.

about long-term solutions, i don't know. stress? yeah, i can learn to cope better with that, and learn how to unwind in non-self-destructive ways. but emotions? i don't know.