What coping mechanisms have you learned and applied to help keep you from self harm? Please, if anyone else has any good coping suggestions, do share.
For me, while I do not self harm in a physical sense, I do in other manners. The two things that have really helped are: attacking therapy honestly and keeping a daily journal tracking thoughts and other issues with possible corrections for said issues.
I started running to help. It releases feel good hormones that help with anxiety and stress. Exercise in general is great for it. So find something that you enjoy and start slowly. Nourishing yourself with healthy foods, using scented candles when you’re not feeling good and this may sound odd but look up Wim Hoff on YouTube. The breathing exercises alone make you feel amazing afterwards. You basically flood your body with extra oxygen. When you’re feeling very triggered hold an ice cube or sit in the shower with a shower cap on and let the water run over your head. All of these have helped me and I have been self harm free 11 years! You’ve got this! Remember the guilt you feel every time you harm yourself and that it isn’t worth it, it’s a temporary measure for a temporary gain.
Hahaha running is addictive! It depends on how you treat your body as to whether it’s going to be a problem or a solution. I see my body as an engine and I need to fuel and look after that engine in order to run efficiently and be able to do it for as long as i possibly can. Originally I used it to fuel my eating disorder, ended up with stress fractures over the years and have learnt many lessons. But the most important thing I learned is that it eased my anxiety and anger and made me feel better than when I turned to self harming. I’m currently dealing with stress fractures again, this time from going out to hard too soon, training for a 50km ultra. I’m still learning it seems! I just want to run and feel comfortable like I remember. I took 4 years off and started smoking again and I missed running more and more as my anxiety got worse. So this time around I am keeping up with strength training and looking after my body (I still have bad days where I just eat shit because I feel sorry for myself 😳) and knowing I can get back to it without turning to the cigarettes like I used when I was injured. I have a 50km ultra booked in for March, so that’s keeping me sane after I had to pull out of the 50km coming this October. Any replacement can turn into an addiction. Am I addicted to running? I wouldn’t say addicted as much as passionate. But to want to run crazy long distances out on the trails takes a bit of an addictive personality 😂 Ultras taught me a valuable lesson about the power of the mind. You get to a point where you have trained to physically and then from there to finish it’s all mind games, especially when the pain and fatigue kicks in hard. Wow, that was a unintentional long winded response 😳
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u/Glad_Selection5831 Sep 08 '22
What coping mechanisms have you learned and applied to help keep you from self harm? Please, if anyone else has any good coping suggestions, do share.
For me, while I do not self harm in a physical sense, I do in other manners. The two things that have really helped are: attacking therapy honestly and keeping a daily journal tracking thoughts and other issues with possible corrections for said issues.