Distracting and Soothing Techniques for Self-Harm

[fuchsiascreams]

I'm going to keep this here because I'm not quite finished yet, and I want to put it somewhere safe in case my computer fucks up before I'm done.

TW: Mentions of self-mutilation/self-harm, mental illness.

(Important note: These techniques are not just for self-harm. They can also be used for depression, anxiety disorders, phobias, suicidal thoughts, emotional upset, social anxiety, performance anxiety, trauma, eating disorders, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, and many other mental illnesses.)

I’ve been thinking about making this post for a while now, because I’ve noticed that there seems to be a lot of people on Tumblr who suffer from mood and anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and bouts of self-harm. I want to preface this by mentioning that I am NOT a therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, doctor, or any other kind of medical professional. The advice mentioned here does come from a licensed therapist and I have personally found it to be helpful when put into practice, but you should probably talk to your doctor/psychologist before trying anything new. I have been blessed to live in a country (Canada) where mental health care is thorough, extensive, and affordable, and I know that there are a lot of countries - even developed nations - where these services are not widely available, and not everybody has physical or financial access to them. These techniques that I’ve been taught are mostly applied to self-mutilation, but can be applied to any other situation involving an onset of debilitating negative thoughts and feelings. I've listed some of the other mental illnesses and situations that these techniques could be used for right under the title and trigger warning. However, because I am writing this with self-harm in mind, all of the parts of this post in which I write the goal of these exercises is written with respect to self-harm specifically, for the sake of brevity and to facilitate the flow of writing. If you are reading this to, for example, teach yourself how to self-soothe in the event of a panic attack or onset of intrusive thoughts, you can directly replace all of the words specific to self-harm with "panic attack" or "intrusive thoughts", and the instructions will be identical.

To begin with, people self-harm for many different reasons; this post is written with the assumption that people who are reading wish to eventually stop self-harming, or find alternative coping methods when the urge to self-harm does come up (which it eventually will). I also realize that there are many different ways that people self-mutilate - cutting, burning, picking, hitting, piercing, breaking bones, pulling hair, not letting scabs heal, and many more that I haven’t thought of - but in order to facilitate the flow of writing, I’m going to use the most common one: cutting. The main goal of this technique is to delay yourself from self-mutilating until the urge (hopefully) goes away, or lessens significantly enough for you to ignore it entirely. There are two main ways to do this: distraction and self-soothing. Before I start, get a pen and a piece of paper, because you’re going to write things down as I explain. (Note: This is not just a suggestion. A pen and paper are required in order for you to do this exercise.) Make sure that the paper is long enough for you to write something at least the size of a very large grocery list on.

The first way to fight the urge to cut is through distraction techniques. This involves basically finding other things to do and occupying yourself long enough so that the initial urge or craving to cut yourself lessens enough for you to ignore it, or for it to go away entirely. Most of this involves engaging in hobbies that you enjoy. Grab that pen and paper that I mentioned earlier, because we’re going to start using it now. Write down at least five hobbies that you enjoy doing, no matter how small or innocuous it seems. My list would look something like this

1. Painting
2. Photography
3. Writing
4. Scrapbooking
5. Watching Disney movies
6. Petting my rats
7. Reading
8. Listening to music
9. Learning (Spending the whole day on Wikipedia, anyone?)
10. Posting Pokemon pictures on my Tumblr blog. (You can see that here; what I do is fill requests for pictures that people ask me to post, which takes a long time. This activity can be very distracting for me because of how much effort it requires for me to read the requests in my inbox, find a picture in my files or on the Internet that matches the request, and then post it.)

Fill your list in with your own favorite hobbies.

The second method is self-soothing techniques. This method involves finding ways to actively calm yourself down so that you feel less anxious and keyed up. The way to do this (from what I’ve been taught; I’m sure there are other ways to do it as well) is to appeal to your five senses - smell, taste, touch, sight, and sound. Distracting and soothing your senses may give you an edge over your urge to self-harm. Make a list that looks like this, but be sure to leave spaces in between the points (it may be better if you just write one point at the top of five different pages (or one on the front and back of each page), to give yourself room to write down lots of different things):

1. Sight
2. Sound
3. Taste
4. Touch
5. Smell

The goal is to come up with as many ideas as you can that will satisfy one (or more) of your five senses. To give you an example, this is what my list would look like - yours may be similar, but tailored to your own specific likes and dislikes.

1. Sight

• Keep a picture of someone you love (a friend, a parent, a significant other, a pet) in your pocket/wallet, so that you can take it out and look at it when you’re feeling upset or triggered. (Example: I keep a picture of me and my boyfriend in my wallet. I also have several pictures of my friends and my pets on a board in my bedroom, and on my cell phones in case it happens in public.)
• Put a picture on your wall of something that cheers you up or makes you happy when you look at it - for example, something with bright colors, a photograph of a loved one, a picture of something funny or cute, a favorite video game character. (Example: I have a giant fabric poster of all the Disney characters on my wall.)
• Keep a poem or the lyrics to a song that you like with you to read. (Example: I have a hard copy of a song that my boyfriend wrote in my purse, and I also have a digital version of it on my computer and online just in case.)
• Keep something that makes you feel good - a letter/card from a loved one, a good report card, an acceptance letter from university, etc. - with you so that you can look at it when you feel the need to cut. (Example: I have a copy of my most important report card on my wall, and also in my purse. It was the class that first triggered my school-related anxiety, and it was the first class I took when I went back to school after having dropped out five years earlier. It was also the highest mark I've ever received: an A+, the highest grade in the class.)
• Keep a piece of art that one of your friends gave, drew or made you in your room, or even in your wallet, purse, school bag, locker, or laptop. (Example:

Sound

• Keep your iPod/CD player with you. Put your favorite songs on it, or have an entire playlist that only contains soothing, calming music.
• Call a friend/family member/significant other when you’re feeling the urge to self-harm. If you don’t want to talk about what’s upsetting you, call them just to hear their voice. Sometimes just talking to another person can give you enough time to calm down and get ahead of your feelings.
• Watch some funny videos on YouTube.

Taste

• Make/buy your favorite foods, and eat it.
• Keep something that tastes good, like a sucker, candy, or gum, at hand.

Touch

• Keep a piece of something soft, like velvet, or a childhood blanket, in your pocket. Alternatively, if you’re at home, get a soft blanket and touch it while you do something else.
• Keep a favorite stuffed animal near you. If you don’t have one, go buy one. Maybe make someone you love pick one out for you so that it has a special meaning.
• If you have a pet, stroke them when you’re feeling upset.
• Wear a necklace. Zip it along the chain or play with it to distract yourself. (If you don’t have a necklace, you can use a ring or a bracelet, too; but I’ve personally found that necklaces work the best for me. I even noticed that I’ve started doing this whenever I’m stressed out or experiencing flashbacks, and that it calms me down a lot. Apparently this is also used in sensory overload for treatment with people who have PTSD as well.)
• **SPECIFICALLY FOR CUTTING OR SELF-HARMING: I have also heard that other things can help alleviate the need to cut in people who self-mutilate. Some of these things include holding an ice cube to the skin, running hot/cold water over the skin, snapping a rubber hand over your wrist, or using a marker to draw on the area where you would normally cut.

Smell

• Keep a vial of essential oils or perfume (something that calms you down; I would recommend essential oils over perfumes, which can be very acrid and chemical-smelling, and can contribute to feelings of anxiety) with you to smell when you’re upset.
• Spritz something that calms you down on your pillow - for example, when I was upset, I used to sprinkle a little bit of my dad’s aftershave on my pillow, and it would make me feel a little safer.
• Burn incense.
• Take a bath. Use scented bubble bath.
• Cook your favorite foods (something aromatic).
• Lay down in somebody else’s bed (sometimes their smell can help calm you down).
• Put your face in one of your pets’ fur.

When you’re done making your personal list (try to come up with 5-10 of these for yourself), copy them down onto a small cue card. Keep this cue card on top of/near the area where you keep the tools that you use to self-harm (i.e. if you keep them in a box in a drawer, put them on top of the box so that you have to see them when you reach for the box. If you keep them in your bathroom, tape them on the inside of your bathroom mirror). The goal is to hold off on the urge to self-harm until you can resist it entirely. You will most likely slip up sometimes, but don’t beat yourself up for it. Hopefully you will eventually learn to distract or self-soothe to the point where you don’t feel the need to self-harm anymore.