This is an interesting thread. It seems to get to the meat of the problem. It took me a long time to change my opinion of SI. For me it was a relatively safe method of dealing with stuff that I just couldn't deal with. I felt trapped in a situation and I couldn't come up with a way to get out of it so I injured myself to feel better. It made life bearable and made it possible for me to hold up to everybody's expectations. Thing is by letting off the steam with SI, things never got so bad that I felt I had to change what was going on in my life. Change usually doesn't happen until life becomes so intollerable one just can't do it anymore. Kinda like a drunk hitting rock bottome or an employee finally being pushed so far that she quits in the middle of her shift. SI made it possible to carry on the statis quo, it prevented my hitting rock bottom.

So how is it quitting. Quite frankly I don't believe it is quitting. It isn't giving up. I believe it is doggedly carrying on, refusing to quit, a situation that isn't any good for me. I am not talking about the SI but rather the life situation that the SI relieves.

I will conceed that it is a refusal to face the pain it would take to make the change and get out of an old life situation and move on to a new better place.
Carrie

<font color=green>But the implicit and usually unconscious bargain we make with ourselves is that, yes, we want to be healed, we want to be made whole, we're willing to go some distance, but we're not willing to question the fundamental assumptions upon which our way of life has been built, both personally and societally.--Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft