| healthy alternatives to self-injury |
[Jun. 3rd, 2007|04:11 pm] |
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here's a bunch of good advice i've found all over the web to avoid SI.
Ice Cubes
This one is also good if you want to experience the pain of Self Harm. Hold an ice cube in your hand (or several cubes if they are small) until your hand starts hurting. If you need more pain than this provides, you could try squeezing the ice cubes in your hand.
5/4/3/2/1
If it's control that you want to experience with Self harm, this might help you. Try and name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can smell, 2 things you can touch and 1 thing you like about yourself.
Playdough
This is good for expressing anger as well as an alternative to Self Harm. For this you need to make some playdough (red if you are using it for Self Harm). Put the playdough where you want to cut and use a blunt knife to cut through it. If you want to use it for anger, the process of making it (kneading the dough etc) will help to express the anger and also by squeezing and punching it, you will be able to express the anger you are feeling.
Marker Pens and Food Coloring
This is good to use if you like the blood of Self Harm. Use a red marker pen or felt tip pen and draw a mark where you would usually cut. Do it the same as you would if you were cutting, so if you do small, angry cuts, do the same with the pen. If you need something more you can add food coloring to the mark you have just made to represent the blood.
Music
Depending on how you are feeling when you get the urge to Self Harm, listening to music can sometimes help... get up and dance along to it or sit and cry... listen to whichever sort of music feels good for you at the time.
Have a Bath or Shower
If you are feeling tense then this is a good one to do. The water and the temperature should ease the feelings of tension and help you to relax.
Talk to a Mate
This is good for however you feel too. If you have an understanding friend that you can trust, then phone them or meet them online or whatever and just let rip. If you are angry then shout and yell at them, if you are sad then cry your eyes out. Just use your friend as a venting ground until you feel better.
Keep a Diary (Journal)
If you don't feel comfortable or able to express how you feel out loud, you might find it helpful to keep a diary and write down how you feel in there... again, let rip. If you are worried about people seeing what you have written then it might help to buy a lockable diary and keep it with you.
Stay in a Public Place
If, like me, you don't feel comfortable harming yourself unless you are on your own, this might help. It will be hard, but staying out in public where there is a crowd of people might stop you from hurting yourself. It won't take away the urges but it might stop you from Self Harming while you are out.
Relaxation/Deep Breathing
If you are feeling panicky or tense then this might help you to relax and get through your urges. There are lots of methods you can use, but a good basic one is to sit comfortably, back straight, close your eyes and breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Try and fill your lungs as full as possible when you breathe in and empty your lungs as much as you can when you breathe out. Count slowly from 1 to 5 as you breathe in and count back from 5 to 1 when you breathe out... concentrating on your breathing the whole time.
Read a Book
Depending on how you are feeling at the time this might help. If you can find a good book that you can really get into and really enjoy then it might take away the intensity of your urges.
Exercise/Go for a Walk
This is good if you are feeling angry. Try and spend some time at a gym burning off all your feelings while you are there or you could do some sit-ups or press-ups at home. Maybe you could go for a walk. If you go for the walking option, it is usually a good idea to try and walk briskly if you can.
Do Some Housework
Yes, I am serious!! Get the vacuum cleaner out and go through the house going over all the floors or do some washing up. Maybe you could scrub the bathroom clean or clean out all the kitchen cupboards.
Treat yourself
For every hour that you don't harm yourself, treat yourself to something.
Sad, melancholic, depressed or unhappy
• Relax in a warm bath
• Curl up under a big warm duvet with a hot drink and a good book
• Put on some calming, relaxing music and rub moisturizer into the parts of you that you want to cut
• Phone a mate and have a chat about whatever takes your fancy
• Take yourself off to bed with a trayful of treats
• Pamper yourself - whatever makes you feel taken care of/comforted. getting a haircut or buying a happy meal
• Visit a good friend
• Try using henna tattoo paste to draw on yourself
• Create a mental 'safe place'
Angry, restless or frustrated
• Rip up an old piece of clothing
• Try and tear up a thick cardboard box
• Smash an empty soft drinks bottle against a wall
• Crunch up soft drinks cans
• Go to the gym and hit a punching bag
• Use a pillow or cushion and bash it against a wall
• Rip up as many pages of an old newspaper as you can in one go
• Use playdough to take out all your feelings
• Go for a walk and break up any sticks you find along the way
• Do some housework
• Do some exercise/go for a walk
• Try making a soft cloth doll, rip/cut it up to represent how you feel instead of doing it to yourself
• Try hitting something not alive and perhaps talking to the object you are hitting, explaining what's wrong
• Try listening to loud/ angry music, dance/ sing along
• Try dropping ice into a bath or throwing it against a wall so it shatters, or hit a tree with a stick
• Try making clay models to smash
Needing to feel something, feeling depersonalized, feeling unreal or dissociating
• Take some ice into your hands and squeeze it hard
• Put a frozen pack of peas (or whatever) on the area you want to hurt
• Bite into something like a lemon or a hot pepper.
• Wear a rubber band on your wrist and snap it hard
• Have a cold bath or shower
• Be around people, perhaps playing games with a younger sibling, hug someone or help someone else
• Open a dictionary in random places and learn new words
Needing to focus on something
• Play a game on the computer that requires concentration
• Find something in the room and examine it closely. Write a detailed description of it including as much information as you can and then try and list all it's possible uses. Try and get the list to 25 - if you can find that many uses try and find 40
• Open up a search engine and do a search for the first word that comes into your head. Go to each page in turn
• Start off at one web page and follow links from that site to other sites and see how far away from the original topic you can get
• Rip or crumple paper, could collage the ripped pieces or scribble on them
• Try setting a target time, for example saying you can harm in 15 minutes, then if you can last, going another 15 minutes.
Wanting to see blood or burns
• Use food coloring on the places you want to see blood
• Use a marker pen to draw where you want to see the burns
Others
• Pump up the volume of your favorite music and doodle on a piece of paper in time to it
• Spin yourself round on the spot until you get dizzy
• Buy a coloring book and some coloring pencils and color in some of the pictures
• Curl up in bed with a stuffed animal
• Do some finger painting with food - ice cream, chocolate pudding, jam, custard... try all sorts of different things
• Get creative - try writing poetry or a story or drawing or painting how you feel
• Go for a walk and smile at everyone you see. If you are feeling braver, say hello to everyone too.
• Pop bubble wrap
• Plan your ideal holiday in your mind and then try and research it all online - destinations, prices, tickets, what there is to do when you get there... as much as you can find
• Look into learning yoga or meditation
• Go through magazines and catalogs and cut out all the words and pictures that make you feel good
• Create a safe place for yourself - somewhere you can go when you are feeling bad
• Buy yourself a special plant and take extra special care of it
• Join a Self Harm community and post to it
• Make a mourning wreath (start with black flowers and replace with colored flowers)
• Repetitive reality checking (It's April 2007, and I'm going to be okay)
• Negotiate with yourself
• Recognize and acknowledge the choices you have NOW
• Carry tokens to remind you of peaceful comforting things/people
• Get away from the stress
• "I'm aware" Repeat 5 things you see, smell, touch, taste in your present surroundings to help ground you in the present
• Make a phone list of people you can call for support. Allow yourself to use it.
• Learn HALT signals (hungry, angry, lonely, tired)
• Accept where you are in the process. Beating yourself up, only makes it worse.
• Take a break from mental processing
• Choose your way of thinking, try to resist following old thinking patterns
• Keep in touch with others who are fighting the same fight
• Check in with yourself and others frequently (try not to isolate)
• Write a letter, NOT mailed, to the person or problem upsetting you
• Pull weeds in a garden
• Plant flowers
also if you're not ready to throw away your blades try wrapping notes to yourself around the blades and put the blades in a box with a note wrapped around the box so when you feel the need to cut you have to go through these notes to yourself. each note should have a positive message and an alternative like, take a walk, to try before harming yourself. if you get through all of the notes and complete each alternative as you unwrap it them but still feel the need to si i guess you can. i don't endorse trying to make it through the notes just to get to the blade, give each note an honest attempt and consideration.
or take a coffee can and fill it halfway with water and freeze it. then put your blades in and fill with more water and freeze again. the end result will be a type of blade popsicle that will hopefully delay you long enough for the urge to pass. |
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