Next day

[kickingmyself]

what had happened just before?
spoke to my parents on the phone

what were you thinking and feeling?
was really looking forward to the SH, hadn't done it in such a long time. I made a bit of a ceremony around it - lit candles, ran a bubble bath, put on my favourite Suede tracks. wanted to make it as pleasurable as possible, escape everything in my head and fill it just with SH so that everything else would fade away.

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.
I could a) go to sleep, b) go for a drive or c) draw a picture

Did you make an opportunity or was it there for the taking?
My housemates were all out - first time in ages I've been home alone, made me think "now's my chance". I've had increasingly intense urges for the past few months but never acted on them, which was driving me crazy.

It's frustrating because all I feel now is disappointment - I really built myself up to it and barely marked my skin in the end. Left feeling very unsatisfied.

[balletomane]

It sounds like the ritual is important to you. Have you tried building up rituals around self caring (or at least not harmful) activities?

Are there other pleasurable activities that can give you the same sense of escape? Ultimately you'll have to deal with the problems, but sometimes non-harmful activities give you the break you need to be able to calmly deal with a problem. (SI tends to exacerbate the situation in my experience.)

anyhow, take care.

I hope you are doing okay.


b

[kickingmyself]

I used to be a bit obsessive-compulsive so maybe that's why the ritual is important, but I grew out of that phase a loooong time ago.

Other pleasurable activities that give me escape? Well:
1) going to live gigs. I love bands, go whenever I can afford to.
2) driving way too fast in my car on a sunny day with music on
3) sex, but I'm single so no chance of that!
4) pole-dancing (I'm an instructor, I don't actually do it in clubs)

And by the way, completely OT, but I find your little picture of the green dessert thing really uncomfortable to look at, isn't that weird?!