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tools to help you assess your urges before you give in to them, and to help you understand and learn from slips after they happen. by posting here, you're saying that you are serious about exploring the feelings behind your self-harm in depth, whether you're ready to stop hurting yourself or not. to request posting access, click usergroups above and join before and after.

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morning-glory
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Post by morning-glory » Thu Jun 14, 2007 5:42 am

How will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself?

I'm not sure if the situation will change if I hurt myself. The feeling I know will because I'll feel like I got what I deserved for doing a poor job on my work lately.


What will hurting myself bring to the situation? What will it take away from the situation?

Hurting myself right now would bring a lot of shame because I won't be si free anymore for 6 monthes and I would have be careful about people not seeing my wounds again. It would also make me feel relieved for a while and less guilty about doing a poor job on my school work and other stuff.

However it would take away my freedom to not hide anything but would also passify my urges at least for a while.

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 just want to feel like I'm somewhere familar and safe again. I want to feel organized and on top of things again and not stupid and scatter-brained. In the past si always made me feel like I was more on- top of things though I don't know if I was or not. I got better grades in school when I sied and I worked harder.

Right now it seems to me that si would improve my organization and ability to focus right now though I know in the long run it would just distract me from what I really want to accomplish in the future.


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 probably last through tomorrow at most and then I know I will feel like I have to si again. I know if I give in now I am going to put myself at greater risk of falling into a bad relapse again.

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 go to bed now and sleep and ask for suggestions on the board on how to manage my time better and get organized. If I do that I will get to the root of my problems right now rather then just ignoring them and not doing anything to solve them.

If I do follow through on my plan to ask for help the changes I work to make should cause a significant decrease in the number of urges to si that I have in the future and help me to eventually catch up in life and school.

How will i feel tomorrow if i hurt myself? how will i feel tomorrow if i do the other thing i came up with?

I will feel deeply disappointed in myself and angery if I hurt myself right now. I will feel ashamed, relieved and more negative about myself then I did in the first place.

If I don't hurt myself and ask for help I will probably be frustrated about my slow progress but still proud of myself that I made it and stronger.


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 don't want to si right now even though the urge is strong to. I can honor the self-protective instinct best right now by asking for help and support in getting organized and for encouragement.



More Before Questions To Answer



Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?

I feel so overwhelmed by all the tasks I have to do at school and home right now and my fincial situation. Since I quit si my grades have dropped and I've been having a hard time figuring out other ways besides si to overcome my tendency to procrastinate, panic and over focus on things.

I feel less organized, lonely and disappointed in myself. So many things have changed for me this year and I just feel overwhelmed by them. I've been trying so hard to live a balenced life but I don't feel like I'm making any progress and I'm discouraged. I'm trying to gain weight but can't, I'm getting C's in school, my schedule feels over packed and I'm at a loss as to how to take care of myself and yet be a good friend and family member at the same time.

In short I feel like I'm a failure and that the only way I'll ever be successful is if I'm a workaholic and if I si.

Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?

I've felt like si before but never really for this reason so I'm not really sure how to deal with it effectively yet. :-? Last time I felt a little bit this way I tried to organize myself and read some health books to give me some ideas on how to start taking care of myself.


What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?

I've come here and wrote how I'm feeling in a journal. I've tried to get more organized on my own and set up a schedule. The only other two things I can think of to do are go to bed and ask for help here on BUS.

How do I feel right now?

Sad, discouraged, frustrated and hopeless.

How will I feel when I am hurting myself?

Enraged, sad, discouraged, hopeless and worthless.

How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
Worthless, depressed, disappointed, discouraged, angery, ashamed and frustrated maybe even su.

Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?

I can try and get more on top of things and try and allow myself more room to make mistakes.

Do I need to hurt myself?

No
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LBC
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Post by LBC » Fri Jun 15, 2007 1:01 am

Hi morning-glory

How did you do after answering the questions? Were you able to ask for help anywhere on bus?

I can relate to feeling overwhelmed, disorganized, and out-of-balance. I have a lot of trouble keeping things organized in my life. Putting new routines in place to keep things from getting overwhelming *is* a slow process, but even the littlest things make a *big* difference. For instance.

- Developing the small habit of always putting my keys in the same place when I walk through the door has made leaving each morning *much* less traumatic...so much less time wasted now that I can always find my keys.

- Every piece of paper that comes into the house goes into a box in the living room, that I clean out periodically...probably not as often as I should, but if I really can't find something that I need, at least I know that it's not been thrown out - it's probably just not been filed yet.

Little things make a big difference.

As for feeling overwhelmed by your life...is everything that's on your schedule right now absolutely necessary for you do? It sounds like you may be spreading yourself a little thin...and being quite hard on yourself when you can't live up to your high expectations of yourself. Is there someone in your life (a t, a friend, teacher or guidance counselor) who could help you examine these things objectively?

Take gentle care.

:1paw:
If you believe everyone is the future
If you believe that nothing ever goes wrong
If you believe that deep down inside you're really falling apart
Know that everybody's weak and everyone can be strong. - Sloan

You always have a choice.

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