[Yobeth]

My T gave me "homework" to go home and write a plan how to get rid of my weapon of choice. I don't want to get rid of it. I don't cut every day. I just don't want to go home take my weapon and throw it out. I want to do it in steps. I want to do it gradually.

How did you get rid of your items you use to self injury?

[puzzclar]

I placed it in a trash can for a little while, and then eventually became okay okay with letting it go.

[Detia]

For letting go of my tool/weapon of choice I 'hide' it from myself. I place it somewhere I wouldn't usually think to look. I've heard of people placing happy and encouraging messages where they used to keep their tools, or where they would expect to look for it.

For me it has helped to hand it over to a loved-one that knows what I'm going through and is understanding. I tell them that I want to be done, and I ask them to 'keep it safe' for me, which we have the understanding that it's to throw it away.

Anything you can pick up doing instead of picking up the tool has helped me. I have passions for writing and art, so drawing to express what I want to do has been helpful. Sometimes putting on my 'feel-good' music and choosing to be goofy and dance until I laugh or my body feels better is something I do too.

Maybe check out TheWork.com and try some of the exercises might help. I love the Turnarounds for situations like this..

About The Work :: The Work of Byron Katie

[grey_aj]

Getting rid of the items is essentially just letting go. You can go through the motions and throw away your favorites, but there will always be other sharp objects around. So your T is basically asking you to think about letting go of SI and not just the physical objects.

The reason it took me so long to get rid of my SI things is that in the back of my mind, I still saw SI as a backup solution and considered going back to it if I really needed to. We will only be ready to throw things away if they no longer hold value to us anymore. So for me it just took time (7 months in fact), so I guess you could say that I did do it gradually and not all at once. It's pointless to do it all at once if you don't truly believe that you're doing it for the right reasons.

Once I finally decided to go through with it and throw it away, I had this increasing urge to do it asap and put it all behind me. It takes time but when you're ready, you'll know.

- AJ

[Yobeth]

Originally Posted by ajbpdljhsk

Getting rid of the items is essentially just letting go. You can go through the motions and throw away your favorites, but there will always be other sharp objects around. So your T is basically asking you to think about letting go of SI and not just the physical objects.

The reason it took me so long to get rid of my SI things is that in the back of my mind, I still saw SI as a backup solution and considered going back to it if I really needed to. We will only be ready to throw things away if they no longer hold value to us anymore. So for me it just took time (7 months in fact), so I guess you could say that I did do it gradually and not all at once. It's pointless to do it all at once if you don't truly believe that you're doing it for the right reasons.

Once I finally decided to go through with it and throw it away, I had this increasing urge to do it asap and put it all behind me. It takes time but when you're ready, you'll know.

- AJ

Hi AJ, can you explain how you did it gradually? Thanks!

[grey_aj]

It just took time and sort of just happened naturally. I always kept my stuff in a particular drawer. The last time I SIed was last September, and after that I tried to hold out as long as I could without SI. At that point I wasn't trying to quit. My stuff just stayed in the drawer. If I was having urges I would occasionally go look at my SI stuff and hold it but never use it (might be triggering for some, but it calmed me down).

Time carried on and I fought urges but still held on to the things. Even though I was clean for many months, all that time in the back of my mind I had the intention of opening the drawer and SI-ing again in the future. Until more months later, I began to realize that life was kind of okay without SI, and that was when I officially decided to never go back to it again (or at least try to). Once I came to that realization, I had this sudden need to throw everything away to move on from the past and it was like a weight lifted.

I hope that did not bore you to death. To make a long story short, it was the sit-and-wait method. You will know when you're ready.

- AJ