After

[WhaleCounter]

Questions to Answer After A Slip

· have you taken care of your physical wounds? if not, go do that now. we'll wait.
· what had happened just before?
My husband sent me an e-mail telling me he will start divorce proceedings next month and that it would be helpful if I could move out of our house by then.
· what were you thinking and feeling?
I can’t believe our marriage is over. I don’t want to live without him. I don’t want to move on with my life, even though I know that I have to. I wish he would love me and be with me.
· 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 has been an awful 24 hours, and this email was the final straw. I have tried letting myself cry it out, tried writing about it. I tried distracting myself my cleaning the house.
· were there outside factors like drugs, alsohol, being off your meds, lack of sleep, etc? can you address those in the future? how?
N/A
· what other ways of coping did you try besides self-harm? how well did they work?
As said above, I tried a variety of things. They do help, but honestly it is just so much pain, so much grief, I felt like I was drowning.
· in retrospect, are there coping methods that you now realize might have helped? what were they?
I could have called someone, but no one knows that I SI except my T, and I didn’t want to call her on the weekend…I don’t feel comfortable telling my friends and family, but I know I could at least call them and be distracted by conversation.
· name at least two things you will do to help yourself remember those coping methods if you end up in this situation again.
I am going to post a sign in my room with my coping methods listed. I will also email myself this post so that I can remember ways in which I can help myself.
· 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 enormous amounts of sadness and pain. It is not resolved and it feels like it never will be. I am going to therapy tomorrow and will discuss more in detail. I will also need to work on my low self-esteem and tendency towards self-hate when things go wrong for me.
· are you likely to be in that emotional place again? how will you recognize it when you're in that situation?
Of course, I expect I will go through many more days of intense pain and grief. I will need to try harder to love and respect 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.
1. Writing in journal, 2. Call friend, 3. Exercise


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?
Because I knew it would focus all the emotional pain into one physical pain that I could attack and deal with.
· Did you make an opportunity or was it there for the taking?
The opportunity to SI is always there, so I guess I’d say that I made it an opportunity. Certainly no one suggested it, rather, I chose to let it be an option.
· What would you have done if there was no opportunity, how would you have handled your urge?
I should have tried using ice, since it can’t hurt me. I also could have tried harming something else like cutting up paper, to let myself cut but not hurt myself.
· If there had been no opportunity would your urge to self-harm have increased or decreased?
It may have decreased, but I honestly would have tried my hardest to find a way.
· What constitutes opportunity for you? Being alone? having new tools? waiting for the right feeling?
I suppose an opportunity to me is when I actually feel so low that I can’t motivate myself to want to live, to want to fight it off. That is when everything that I have worked so hard to accomplish, to learn from, and to endure becomes meaningless and I let the negative feelings take over me.
· If your opportunties were taken away, how would you feel?
A part of me would feel terrified, because I keep SI in my back pocket, so to speak, as a last ditch effort to feel better….But if I could never SI again, that could only be a good thing.

[balletomane]

I am sorry things are so rough right now. I am really impressed though by how you were able to answer these questions so constructively. I really like the idea of posting your coping methods in your room. I've found that really effective in the past. Given that things are so difficult right now, do you have extra support in place? What about plans to do nice things for yourself?

Take care.

[WhaleCounter]

Thanks balletomane. I am trying very hard to not forget everything I have learned about myself in therapy over the past year! It's always so hard, but I do have friends and family who have been very supportive. Also my therapist has been guide through all of this, which has been more than a lifesaver.
I am going to my friend's wedding this weekend. I've helped her plan a lot of it, so I am determined to go and have fun, and not let the fact that my marriage is over depress me too much.

Thanks again for the support, it is very nice to know people care.