after...

[zombiepeople]

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


what had happened just before?
I took a sleeping pill and was trying to sleep, but failing

what were you thinking and feeling?
I was having a lot of flashbacks to some really bad things that happened a couple years back and I got really depressed and couldn't deal with it.

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?
It was a good oppertunity, I was alone. I just couldnt' get my mind off of what was in my mind.


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. I didn't think I was going to have a problem that night. I had been talking to a friend about some abuse we had both went through when we were younger and it brought back a lot of bad memories. After I took my sleeping pill, I should have put on some music or something to sleep, but I really didn't think it was going to be that bad.

were there outside factors like drugs, alsohol, being off your meds, lack of sleep, etc? can you address those in the future? how?
Probably lack of sleep and frustration at the fact that i couldn't sleep well and I was in an unfamiliar place.


what other ways of coping did you try besides self-harm? how well did they work?
I tried getting on the computer and playing games, but it didn't work so well.


in retrospect, are there coping methods that you now realize might have helped? what were they?
I could have tried listening to music or drawing or something like that.


name at least two things you will do to help yourself remember those coping methods if you end up in this situation again.
listen to music, write/draw

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? I still feel bad about it, but i'll talk to my therapist in a couple days and hopefully she'll help me figure this out better.


are you likely to be in that emotional place again? how will you recognize it when you're in that situation?
Yeah, i'm probably gonna be there again, but maybe if I catch myself having these memories, i'll be able to do something to catch myself before i hurt myself.


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.
listening to music, writing, drawing

[caged bird]

hey, hope you don't mind me replying.

it sounds lie you had a very tough situation to deal with and were really unprepared for it this time, it's good that you can recognise some of the things that you can perhaps do instead next time, and well done on trying with things like being on the computer too - even if they didn't work this time, teaching yourself to use distractions is a relaly positive thing.

I often find that 'opportunity' os one of the worst things for me, next time when you start to feel bad could you call a friend perhaps, just to chat about meaningless things if you don't want to talk about how you're feeling, sometimes it just helps to have someone else 'there'