Harmless

I’ve read loads and loads of leaflets and websites full of good advice on techniques to try; e.g. snapping an elastic band against your wrist, drawing on yourself with red pen where you would normally cut, squeezing an ice cube etc, basically substituting a non-destructive activity instead of self-harming. Unfortunately these just don’t work for me; I have tried but they just don’t have any effect. So I realised that what I needed to do was take away the need to self harm in the first place, and often this is just a matter of patience, because feelings do pass. But it’s not easy to be patient when the feelings to hurt yourself are so turbulent and overwhelming and unbearable. My counsellor told me that whenever I felt like hurting myself I should do something nice for myself instead. I really struggled with this because it seemed so self-indulgent and so difficult when often being nice to myself is the last thing I feel like doing. But I figured it was harmless to try it.I got my little box of blades and things and put them at the bottom of a big tin, then buried them underneath lots of sachets of hot chocolate, and face masks. The idea being that if I feel like hurting myself, before I can even get to the blades I am confronted by all these nice pampering things and reminded that I have made a commitment to try and be kind to myself. So before getting the blades out I have to make a hot chocolate, and put on the face mask and relax, then 20mins later see if I still feel like self-harming, and hopefully I won’t. I’ve tried it once so far and it did work, I felt calm, and the self-destructive feelings had passed (and my skin looked good!) I was really surprised because I was so dubious that anything would work, and it worked better than I could have imagined.  But it also made me feel really sad because of all the times when I hadn’t tried to stop myself from cutting, I have so many scars could have been avoided if I’d just been able to wait for the feelings to pass. I’m really glad, and relieved, that I’ve finally found something that helps. It may not work every time but even just trying it is a step in the right direction.