Before

[Blake 1]

how will this situation or feeling change if i hurt myself? Nothing will change. I will just have cuts that will hurt and I will have to take care of them. If I cut I will feel really guilty and I will want to do it more and more.

what will hurting myself bring to the situation? what will it take away from the situation? Hurting myself will not bring anything positive to the situation, it will just make me more anxious because I will be afraid people will see my cuts/scars.

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 ok, I don’t want to be depressed or anxious anymore. I want to be *normal* and laugh at the things that everyone else finds funny and be able to smile at people when I walk past them and be all bright and cheery so people will like me too. Hurting myself will take me right back to the beginning again and I will have to start all over trying to quit SI.

if hurting myself seems like my best option right now, how long will the relief it brings last? what will i do then? Hurting myself will only bring me temporary relief and then I will be even more anxious than I was before. Then I will want to cut again and its just a sick cycle that gets harder and harder to break every time I cut.

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 could take a nap instead of hurting myself. Taking a nap won’t change the situation but it will make my headache go away and I will be able to think more clearly after I get some rest cause I can’t sleep well at night. If I take a nap then for the rest of the evening I will be more alert and able to do my studying for my test tomorrow which will reduce my anxiety over the test.

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 I will feel ashamed and depressed if I hurt myself. If I take a nap instead then I will feel better tomorrow because then I will be more rested and more able to handle things.

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 don’t really know what I want to do, its like I want to cut but at the same time I don’t want to cut because I don’t want the scars. I wish I could cry but I can’t right now. I just need to get everything out somehow, have some release which is usually my cutting. I realize that it makes no sense for me to hurt myself physically and cause more pain just because I feel all this pain inside me. I need to take care of myself and I want to eventually but just not right now. I don’t really feel ready to give up SI for good. I guess I still want it as a backup. I need to know that its there as an option if I ever get that desperate again. Of course if it still remains and option then eventually I will go back to it, I know that, I know myself.

Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point? I’ve been getting urges a lot recently and I feel like I need a release of all these things that I keep pent up inside.

Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then? Yes I have been here before and I have given in and SI-ed so I could get that release. At first when I felt that release then I felt better but the next morning I felt ashamed and bad for doing that to myself.

What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me? I have been posting on bus to try to get my mind off of my problems and I have been answering these questions. I could take a nap so I’ll feel better or take a walk but I don’t like being alone that much and I’ve been taking a lot of long walks alone lately so I don’t want to do that and its daytime right now and I feel more comfortable taking walks after dark so people can’t see me.

How will I feel when I am hurting myself? I’ll feel bad for hurting myself but I will get a release.

How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning? I will be ashamed after I hurt myself and tomorrow morning I will get down on myself for doing that to myself again.

Do I need to hurt myself? No.

[Wandering]

Hello.

I hope you've held on. It doesn't sound like you're in an easy place, but it does sound like you have a good grip on the consequences of if you do SI - you seem to have thought it all through a lot.

I just need to get everything out somehow, have some release which is usually my cutting.

What coping methods have you tried? Maybe try looking at other ways you can 'get everything out' - if those are feelings maybe try journalling or art, if its anger or frustration then maybe exercise would help. As you've recognised, SI is only a short term release to anything, and it really isn't the ideal choice, so try and find some healthier ones.

Hope that's some help, take care, Andi x

[Blake 1]

Well I didn't SI which is good. I have tried writing in the past but it doesn't seem to work very well, i don't like to draw. i do go for walks a lot when i feel like SI-ing, i walk about a mile down to the river and i go right down to the water level and its just always so peaceful there, it helps me clear my head. Thanks for your response Andi!