ALTERNATIVES TO SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIORS:
-Use washable red markers to "cut" on your skin
-Use colored pens to draw on your skin, simulating the feel of cutting, but much more safe.
-Place your hands in freezing cold water
-Listen to music/relaxation tapes
-Repetitive reality checking (It's January 2001, and I'm going to be ok)
-Negotiate with yourself
-Get to know others
-Recognize and acknowledge the choices you have NOW
-Offer options
-Carry tokens to remind you of peaceful comforting things/people
-Create and use mental safe places (beach, cabin in the woods, peaceful mountain)
-Get out on your own, get away from the stress
-Help someone around you (reach out on a bulletin board, newsgroup, phone list etc.)
-Pay attention to the changes needed to make you feel safe
-Count yourself down (10...9...8...7...)
-Take a different perspective (different vantage point)
-"I'm aware" Repeat 5 things you see, smell, touch, taste in your present surroundings to help ground you in the present
-Pay attention to your breathing (breath slowly, in through your nose and out through your mouth)
-Pay attention to the rhythmic motions of your body (walking, stretching, etc.)
-Move to music
-ASK FOR HELP
-Ask yourself inside, what YOU need
-Make affirmation tapes inside you that are good, kind, gentle (Sometimes you can do this by writing down the negative thoughts and then physically re-writing them into positive messages)
-Keep a journal
-Touch Something familiar/safe
-Draw
-Put your feet firmly on the floor
-Make something (craft, needlework, etc.)
-Accept a gift from a friend
-Meditate
-Make a phone list of people you can call for support. Allow yourself to use it
-Learn HALT signals (hungry, angry, lonely, tired)
-Identify what is causing you pain
-Accept where you are in the process. Beating yourself up, only makes it worse.
-Do something FUN!!!
-Take a break from mental processing
-Take a SAFE risk
-Tear up paper (old phonebooks, newspapers, etc.)
-Honor your present anger
-Lose the "should-could-have to" words. Try... "What if"
-Choose your way of thinking, try to resist following old thinking patterns
-Put memories in air tight containers with air tight lids
-Notice black and white thinking
-Connect with others around you. Call a therapist or friend.
-Notice "choices" versus "dilemmas"
-Keep in touch with others who are fighting the same fight
-Check in with yourself and others frequently (try not to isolate)
-Make yourself as comfortable as possible (Without using food)
-Take a bath or a shower
-Color in coloring books
-Hold a stuffed animal
-Write a poem
-Leave the room
-Leave the premises
-Write a letter, NOT mailed, to the person or problem upsetting you
-Play a musical instrument
-Plan regular activities for your most difficult time of day
-Call a hotline or support group
-Listen to a comedy tape or video
-Reality check old messages (Those you supply and those you hear others tell you)
-Clean the house
-Get out a fine tooth comb and vigorously brush the fur of a stuffed animal (but use gentle vigor )
-Pull weeds in a garden
-Plant flowers
-Come to this web site

I "borrowed" this off of www.selfinjury.net