Read your post before I went out to dinner with hubby (we've been doing that far too often cuz I haven't felt like cooking & maintaining the kitchen). Was thinking about you, and what suggestions I could make to help.
I remember when I was going to weight-watchers and trying to lose weight. They gave us a page with 7-8 columns on it, for Days of the Week. Then there were all the hours in the day, running down the page, so 24 rows. The idea was, that for each hour you followed the diet plan, you colored that corresponding square in. So you ended up with lots of colored in squares where you were doing what you had decided you wanted for yourself. I found I wanted to be good, for maybe just another hour, so I could color in another square. Doing something like this, for avoiding one of the behaviors you want to stop might be helpful for you. Worth a try--if it's not too much effort when you are depressed. Then you could focus on all the time you are NOT doing that behavior, and feel better about yourself, than if you did slip once or twice. You might have to take a baby step, before you take a giant step.
The other thing I thought of, is maybe using a substitute behavior for the self-harm. Instead of cutting, why don't you put a rubber band around your wrist, and snap that if things really get bad and you feel you must do something.
Hope these suggestions help--or help spark your thinking of something else you can do to help make things better for you. Sending you some hugs!



