HOW TO STOP SELF HARMING FOR GOOD | Recovery 101
Don't forget to thumbs up and comment below if you found this helpful! Here are my best tips for stopping self harm for good. They're listed below for you guys too :)
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TIPS-
1- It’s all about breaking the habit- for me it was finding alternatives that I substituted in and distractions. Then the less and less I did it, the less I wanted to.
As soon as you feel like doing it either substitute it by:
-punching a pillow or a punching bag
-squeezing ice cubes
-putting your face in a bowl of ice water
-Eating chili or other spicy food
-Taking a very cold shower
-Drawing on your body instead of cutting it
-Strenuous exercise
or distraction:
anger-
exercise
hit cushions
shout and dance
shake
bite on bunched up material
tear something up into hundreds of pieces
go for a run
sadness/fear-
wrap a blanket around you
spend time with an animal
walk in nature
let yourself cry or sleep
listen to soothing music
tell someone how you feel
massage your hands
lie in a comfortable position and breathe in – then breathe out slowly, making your out-breath longer than your in-breath. Repeat until you feel more relaxed.
numb and disconnected-
flick elastic bands on your wrists
hold ice cubes
smell something with strong odour
have a very cold shower
DELAYING-
Another technique is to wait five minutes before you self-harm. This is not always easy, so if you still have the urge, then let yourself. If you can, slowly increase the time you wait and gradually build up the gaps between each time you self-harm.
2- Put measures in place if you know there are specific times/ triggers that cause you to self harm.
Understanding your patterns of self-harm can help you to work out what gives you the urge to self-harm, and recognise when the urge is coming on. Remember, even when you are unable to resist the urge to self-harm, it is helpful to reflect afterwards on what happened. This will enable you to better understand the next time you have similar feelings.
Do you self-harm at a specific time of day?
Do you self-harm in a specific place?
Do you use certain tools to self-harm?
Do you have a ritual around your self-harm? Stop yourself from committing self-harm rituals by adding or removing steps from them. Altering your rituals will likely make you uncomfortable and this discomfort can help stop self-harm
3- Using your rational mind and taking practical steps to take care of yourself.
Self harm thrives off overthinking and irrational thoughts. What you need to do is make sure your rational mind takes over when any urges to self harm arise. That way you can challenge these thoughts when they come up and say no actually I’m not worthless, I don’t need to hurt myself etc…
You know it doesn’t help things in the long term- instead focus your energy on looking after yourself. make sure you’re sleeping as well as you can, exercising, socialising and eating well.
4- Get therapy to deal with the issues behind the self harm and learn to change the way you think. Its all about breaking the cycle. For me I would do cycles in therapy and analyse the triggers and the subsequent actions that would seem to follow so seamlessly but I realised this was wrong. This wasnt how it should be so I put factors in place to break the cycle.
5- Don’t beat yourself up if you do do it. Its important to change your negative thinking… often feelings of guilt follow from self harm but instead of hating yourself more for doing it just try to think you did what you thought was necessary to take care of your emotions that point and you’re going to try better next time to use a safer method to do so.