Give me your best self harm distraction technique.

[CaulkheadUpNorth]

Just that really. If you want to self harm what do you do that means that you don't do it.

I've tried pinging a rubber band, talking to Samaritans and setting a timer. What else can I try?

Thanks Caulk there has been actually. I like the colours thing you mentioned. Posting here initially gave me a big surge of anxiety but doesn't it help to know there are others who seems to 'get it'. X

Totally. Well done you for posting.

Yesterday I was in town and feeling anxious, thinking I'll do it when I get home so I very consciously read everything I could see (road signs, shop numbers etc) and sort of talked my way through it like you might to a young child "so that shop is red brick and painted white and then there is a blue car and a lorry and the lorry has writing on it" etc. It works for me sometimes

You sound like a very brave person Caulk. You are an inspiration. Hope that doesn't sound too yuk!

No it doesn't, but I'm really not. I just somehow manage to sound like I am on here. I don't know how. If you see my other freds you'll see I'm normal and as messed up as everyone else.

YAY CAULKED!

Ah, fanks.

Am pretty proud of myself

So you should be and I bet your therapist will be too. Loved the part about you teaching her to knit, she sounds great.

She's brilliant. Totally barmy but in a good way. Very big on trying stuff and working out what's right/helpful. We spent ten minutes once with her saying ridiculous stuff and me having to disagree with her. Harder than it sounds!

No, I'm crap at arguing so I can imagine that being pretty hard!

The wonderful therapist has just face timed me for 40 minutes because I felt so crisis-y. She has reminded me to keep feet on the floor and do tummy breathing. So that's my suggestion for any of you feeling anxious.

Tums of steel .

It might not make sense to anyone (but I'm guessing it might...) How do you get past the feeling that everything will be ok if you do it (whatever it is that brings control or makes everything feel ok)?

OK yes that makes sense.
Here's another question back.

DOES it make everything ok? Or does it make you feel better for a few minutes but that's it?

A few minutes. And then the knowing it's happened and not wanting to do it again lasts a day or so.

That's the I-cut-yesterday guilt? Remember how good it felt Sunday morning when you didn't have it?

When I was doing it, it made me feel better for a few minutes too. And I didn't give a fuck if other people wanted me to stop because I wasn't giving it up just to make them feel better. When I eventually gave up, it was because I knew stopping would make ME feel better.

its natural

When you have nowhere to go with emotional pain and distress its entirely natural to 'do' something to relieve it.

Your self-position will dictate the 'what' you do. If you feel 'bad' as a result of emo pain/distress there is greater likelihood that you will turn the pain inwards and express it through physical harm, which is a release from the emo/pyschological pain you feel.

We also work on many levels of 'satisfying needs' and these often get mixed, so eating definitely satisfies a major driving need within us, that gets derailed and diverted sometimes into doing something to alleviate [boredom/pain], and becomes a habit, that can be unlearned but needs to be supplanted with something else more helpful?

Pain so intense can be hard to not be overwhelmed in this way, but thinking around the issue, and suggesting to yourself those ways that are making you feel better in a positive helpful way, non-harmful way, start you protecting yourself and acting.

Sharing it on here is good because it removes the shame, saying it out loud helps stop the internalising. There is a trend at the moment amongst CBTer's [I think] to use bands around wrists to flick yourself each time you feel this way.

So, basically, hurt yourself????? I have challenged this and feel wholely against any such practice.

Nurture, kindness and self-soothing are the practices to supplant the harmful. The ways of nurturing/kindness & soothing are of your own choice.

I recently bought my teen son a massive really fluffy blanket, which has a male theme on it. He self-harms by banging his head against a wall/floor/nearest object/own hands when meeting a boundary that he can't face because it conflicts with supporting another belief in him. I found him this way one way and wrapped the blanket around him and held him, then left him quietly whilst he stayed in the blanket himself. He sleeps in the blanket and wraps himself in it when he feels challenged this way. Its not a teddy bear, or any of the traditional things that are so easy for women /girls to use for soothing without notice. It just what works for you.

Once the pain has subsided and calm has returned it might be worth noting what brought up the pain, and what challenges to self were involved in that.

I haven't done it for about a week, but also haven't let the current stuff heal if that makes sense.

Did you start liking yourself enough to stop for you, or did you stop and and then liked you more, or nothing like that?

A week with no new ones is bloody brilliant, good on you.

Got to go back into work now so I'm going to think through the answer to that one this afternoon and I'll come back to you this evening.

its bringing you relief, so thats you knowing that you will feel ok once you do it.

when you say 'everything' do you mean the intense pain at the time?

If you normally do it more regularly and you've now not done it for a week that's really doing well.

Its a switch at the point that you think this is the only way to make 'everything' ok again. Its at that point you decide to do something other than hurt realising there is another way to achieve the same feeling of comfort, soothing yourself.

Yes to the pain. I can't put it into words more than just something doesn't feel right.

I can go months not doing it, and began following the od (3 weeks ago ish) but since then I've wanted to do it more and more.

so whats your trigger? do you think?

Home now.

I think for me it was the gradual realisation, helped by the citalopram and my therapist, that there could be more for me than this if I could just manage to grasp it.

Without going into too much RL detail, I'd been certain that the shit life I was living was never going to change, that I deserved it and that the only thing that was MINE was the harming. Then my therapist asked me exactly why I thought I was so awful and argued the other side. She helped me realise that I wasn't the pile of shit I thought I was, that all that was the illness talking. From there we talked in some detail about where I wanted to be and how I could get there.

And it was hard, and it was scary, but it was the first spark of hope I'd had in such a long time. And with that hope I felt far less urge to harm and one day I realised that I didn't need it any more - and that I hadn't cried for weeks.

Thank you. That helps a huge amount.
Now enjoy some

• your therapist sounds so much like mine! Or maybe just therapy is a bit the same for lots of people.

Sugar - triggers are far and wide. It's sort of to do with how I'm feeling towards myself or others.