| It is important to match the way you're feeling
to what you do that isn't self injury. Depending on your mood there are good way to deal with it that will
get the desired effect. All the ideas below have worked for different people, you can adjust them or
substitute tasks/items to better suit your needs by doing anything that isn't self harming & produces
intense sensation
Angry, frustrated, restless
Try something physical and violent, something not directed at a living thing:
Rubbing Ben-Gay, Icy- Hot, Vap-O-Rub, etc under your nose, on
sexual organs, etc
Slash an empty plastic pop/soda bottle or a piece of heavy cardboard
or an old shirt or sock
Make a soft cloth doll to represent the things you are angry at. Cut &
tear it instead of yourself
Rip up some old clothes into shreds
Flatten aluminium cans for recycling, seeing how fast you can go
Hit a punching bag
Use a pillow to hit a wall, pillow-fight style
Rip up an old newspaper or phone book
On a sketch or photo of yourself, mark in red ink what you want to do.
Cut and tear the picture
Make Play-Doh, Sculpey, Plasticine or other clay models and cut or
smash them
Biting into something strongly flavoured (Hot peppers, ginger root,
unpeeled lemon/lime/grapefruit, etc)
Squeezing ice
Throw ice into the bath or against a brick wall hard enough to shatter it
Crank up the music and dance
Clean your room (or your whole house)
Go for a walk/jog/run
Stomp around in heavy shoes
Take a cold bath or hot or cold shower
Play hand ball, tennis, badminton, etc
Wear footwear that is too small for you
Sad, soft, melancholy, depressed, unhappy
Do something slow and soothing, like taking a hot bath with bath oil or bubbles, curling up under a
comforter/quilt with hot cocoa and a good book, babying yourself somehow. Do whatever makes you feel taken
care of and comforted:
Light sweet-smelling incense
Listen to soothing music
Smooth nice body lotion into the parts of yourself you want to hurt
Call a friend and just talk about things that you like
Make a tray of special treats and tuck yourself into bed with it & watch
TV or read
Visit/invite a friend over
Craving sensation, feeling de-personalised, dissociating, feeling unreal
Do something that creates a sharp physical sensation:
Squeeze ice hard (this really hurts)
Putting ice on a spot you want to burn gives you a strong painful
sensation & leaves a red mark afterward, kind of like burning would
Put a finger into a frozen food (like ice cream) for a minute
Bite into a hot pepper or chew a piece of ginger root
Rub liniment under your nose
Slap a table top/work top hard
Snap your wrist with a rubber band
Take a cold bath
Stomp your feet on the ground
Focus on how it feels to breathe. Notice the way your chest &
stomach move with each breath
Wanting focus
Do a task:
A computer game like Tetris or minesweeper, writing a computer
program (Not: Some people report that being online while dissociating
increases their sense of unreality, be cautious about logging on in a
dissociative state until you know how it affects you) needlework, etc)
that is exacting & requires focus & concentration
Eat a raisin mindfully. Pick it up, noticing how it feels in your hand.
Look at it carefully, think about the changes the grape went through.
Roll the raisin in your fingers and notice the texture, try to describe it.
Bring the raisin up to your mouth, paying attention to how it feels to
move your hand that way. Smell the raisin, what does it remind you
of? How does a raisin smell? Notice that you're beginning to alivate, &
see how that feels. Open your mouth and put the raisin in, taking time
to think about how the raisin feels to your tongue. Chew slowly,
noticing how the texture and even the taste of the raisin change as you
chew it. Are there little seeds or stems? How is the inside different
from the outside? Finally, swallow
Choose an object in the room. Examine it carefully and then write as
detailed a description of it as you can. Include everything: size, weight,
texture, shape, colour, possible uses, feel, etc
Choose a random object, like a paper clip, and try to list 30 different
uses for it
Pick a subject and research it on the web
Wanting to see blood
Draw on yourself with a red felt-tip pen
Take a small bottle of liquid red food colouring and warm it lightly by
dropping it into a cup of hot water for a few minutes. Uncap the bottle
& press its tip against the place you want to cut. Draw the bottle in a
cutting motion while squeezing it slightly to let the food colour trickle
out
Draw on the areas you want to cut using ice that you've made by
dropping six or seven drops of red food colour into each of the
ice cube tray wells
Paint yourself with red tempera paint or water based paint
Wanting to see scars or pick scabs
Get a henna tattoo kit. You put the henna on as a paste and leave it
overnight, the next day you can pick it off as you would a scab & it
leaves an orange-red mark behind
The fifteen minute game
Another thing that helps sometimes is the fifteen minute game. Tell
yourself that if you still want to harm yourself in 15 minutes, you can.
When the time is up, see if you can go another 15. Many have said
they can get through a whole night doing this sometimes |
