15 minute rule, distracting yourself, or maybe even adapting the butterfly project by writing people you care about instead of a butterfly
Everyone needs a motivation to stop
hey there
If you’re getting an urge right now and feel like you want to self harm, then give me 2 minutes of your time before you make your decision.
The fact that you’ve decided to read this tells me that you’re not 100% sure you want to do it. Think about it. What good is it going to do? Yes you will get pain, but you can also get that through squeezing ice cubes, or flicking elastic bands where you want to self harm. Yes you get to see blood, but drawing red lines on your places of self harm gives the same effect! Yes you get endorphins, but isn’t it better to eat a chilli/chocolate or exercise to get this feeling instead?
Think of the cuts you’ve previously made. Sure, they may represent what you’ve been through. But the scars can last a lifetime: do you want the scars from a few years of bad times to stay with you for life?
I’m so glad you’re still reading. It shows me you’re staying strong. There is honestly no need to self harm, believe me. It won’t help anything in the long term. Are you insecure about yourself? I’ll tell you the truth about yourself. You are BEAUTIFUL. And anybody that tells you different is LYING. The beauty is inside you.
No matter what you are going through right now, it WILL get better eventually; it ALWAYS does! Happiness is just round the corner. I know you have strength deep inside you. We can find that.
Draw a butterfly on your skin where you self harm. That is now your butterfly. If you self harm, then you’ve killed the butterfly and you have to wash it off and start over. If it stays without you self harming, then you’re free of self harm! Try this.
You’re still reading. YOU ARE STRONG.
Hold on for 15 minutes. Don’t self harm for that long. Then if the feeling is there after that 15 minutes, you can self harm if you still want to. But if you hold on 15 minutes, then why not hold on another 15 minutes? You CAN do it!
Go for a run. Call up a friend. Do anything to distract yourself.
You’re still reading. You’ve not self harmed whilst you’ve been reading this. I am so proud of you.
Stay strong beautiful.
Lately, I’ve been feeling really empty and depressed. I haven’t felt like this for a while, so it wasn’t good to be in that place again.
In the past when I’ve been like this, I’ve tried to fill my life with things in an attempt to make me feel whole again. This included stuff like self harm. But last night, it got really bad and I felt I needed more. I was determined not to self harm, but I wanted to get ‘high’ on something other than endorphins for a change. Drugs is never an option, and I’d tried drinking before and it hadn’t solved anything. I was in a very low place all night, feeling very empty. I eventually fell asleep because I was really drained.
I woke up this morning and I felt pretty much the same. I broke down to God. I’d prayed the night before, but not really put any passion into it. As I was praying this morning, I felt whole again. I wasn’t going to feel whole for a long period of time with quick fixes such as self harm and alcohol. And then I felt the ‘high’ I’d wanted so badly the night before. It was a spiritual high. I felt happy, content and whole.
In this time, I’d also prayed that some scars from a long time ago would disappear from my wrists, and as soon as I finished praying I noticed they had already began to fade from when I’d woken up which I think is amazing!
Today I’ve learnt that God is the only thing that can make me feel whole again. I didn’t need any quick fixes or self destructive stuff! Jesus is with us through EVERYTHING no matter how bad it seems at the time!
Peace and love x
First of all, well done for not hurting yourself, that’s really good:)
I used to feel like that all the time. But keeping yourself busy usually does the trick. So when you wake up, do something straight away. Don’t lie in bed, however relaxing it is, get up and do something to take your mind off it. It’s always good to start a new hobby, but if it’s first thing in the morning, then maybe go for a run as soon as you’ve woken up? Then get in the shower and get dressed, and start your day? It will be good because it will help you to clear your head, then you’ll feel fresher and more awake for the day, which will hopefully make you feel less depressed.
Stay strong beautiful
Every day I get asked about what I’ve been through and how I overcame it all. So here’s what happened!
I started to self harm at the end of 2009, at the age of 12, when one bad thing had lead to another. Luckily, I was able to stop within a short amount of time.
In 2010, I fell in love with a guy who was too old for me, and who I didn’t have a chance with. In May that year, he left the country. I would talk to him every now and again over facebook, but it wasn’t the same. In June of that year, I became a Christian, but I was never really ‘with’ my faith. I didn’t understand how much Jesus could help me. In October that year, I began to self harm again. It was a very low point in my life. I self harmed because he never liked me back, so I began to look at what was wrong with me. I started to see myself as fat and ugly, and I hated myself. As time went on, the self harming only became worse as I fell deeper into depression. I felt completely alone. It went on for ages, until June 2011, when I finally started to listen to my friend who was telling me to go back to Jesus, to focus on loving him, and not on the guy who’d broken my heart. As I began to pray more and more, I self harmed less and less until eventually I was able to stop. Jesus kept me strong.
In early 2012, I still hated myself, I still saw myself as fat and I decided to do something about it. I started to throw up my food, in a desperate attempt to lose weight. I was on and off throwing up my meals for a number of months. It began to get bad when I started to get pains in my kidneys. At this point, I decided to tell one of my friends, who directed me to Psalm 139:14 from the Bible. This is what it says:
’I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well’
I pretty much live off this verse. God loves you just the way you are. He made you that way. There was no need for me to throw up my food, because God loves me as I am! At the time I post this, I’m celebrating nearly 8 weeks of freedom from it. God gave me that strength.
I’m still in and out of depression, but I know that God’s gonna sort it out for me so it’s all good!
That’s my life! God did it for me, and I know he can do it for you too!
Stay strong
Peace and love x
Heey, so well done for holding on for 3 weeks, that’s really good!! It’s good that you want to stop, that’s the first step:) You ARE good enough, I promise, you’re beautiful, and it doesn’t matter what the haters say about you because their words mean nothing, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL! Something that used to help me was I’d try and beat my last record. So say that 3 weeks of not self harming is your record, try and hold on for 4 weeks? You need to find a distraction when you actually want to self harm, like calling up a friend, going for a run or listening to some relaxing music. To get pain, squeeze ice cubes, to get the sight of blood, draw red lines on your place(s) of self harm, and to get endorphins (feel good hormones released when you self harm-what you get addicted to) exercise or eat chocolate. The 15 minute rule and butterfly project could also be helpful:) good luck, hope I’ve helped:)
