Tips please

Im looking for tips to stop self harming...i need to stop harming in order to get out of the house to see a psychotherapist. Also I need some tips on defeating panic attacks. I put the icon just incase this was triggering to members.

Self Injury

Things to do instead of hurting yourself

Anxiety, Panic and Phobias

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Ok.

a thought, you can get out of the house even if you're self harming. your psychiatrist will not pass judgement on you. he will help you stop. that's why you need to go to get help. good luck.

I would identify things you like to do and/or are good at and see if you can't creatively combine them to help you? For example, I like to write and journal so I am writing a "fictionalized" story/journal. The character that represents "Me" says she does/does not do certain stuff and I feel better able to do/not do that. It works best for me while I'm actually in the process of typing so I do a lot of that each day, taking breaks to actually do what I say I'm going to do (usually chores I don't normally want to get up from the computer to do) but also remembering what I've written when I'm out at a restaurant, for example, and being better able to eat/drink what I've "said" I did in the story.

In other words, use your imagination and creativity and sense of humor, everything you have that you like to work "with" yourself (instead of against) to move yourself in a direction you would rather go. Whichever way you "face" is the way you are focusing on so go toward something rather than trying to fight against something (as in, run toward the scary monster in the nightmare instead of trying to run away; you can never run away).

Were I you, I would start by giving your self harming an actual name, making it personal and starting to talk to "it" as if it mattered and was important to who you are. Open up a dialog and instead of trying to thrust it away from you, ask it to help you get to a therapist. It has been helping you with your psychological health up to now so tell it you want to give it additional help doing that! Ask it for suggestions of other, less obvious ways you can get relief and ask it to reduce the urges enough, to talk to you (you talking to yourself in a sense :-) instead of physically approaching you and your hurts and fears.