Dear SAFE,
I wasn’t fortunate enough insurance wise or finance wise to come to a SAFE facility. However, in December of 2008 I went out & bought the book Bodily Harm. In January 2009 I started the SAFE program per se with my outpatient counselor. We talked about the usual topics, my SAFE assignments & continued to do EMDR (eye movement desensitization reprocessing) as usual. I am here to report that I am just eight days sigh of my fifteen month mark self-injury free. 🙂 I KNOW I KNOW I did it myself, HOWEVER, it would not have happened without the help of my counselor, C, Pam the SAFE therapist & the book Bodily Harm, not to leave out the SAFE hot line. This site was a resource I leaned on for quite a while also. What I found most helpful was the impulse control logs, the questions to ask yourself in your diary & the list of alternatives. I wrote them (15) on two index cards. I keep one in my diary & one in my purse. In essence, I came back to reach out since I am on vacation in Carolina Beach, NC & struggling. 🙁 I’ve been writing & I’m feeling really nervous ((I don’t know why)). I have decided to ‘sit’ with my nervous feeling & let it BE what it IS. *Sigh* I have made it this far I am NOT going to let this urge that has surfaced….this bump in the road make Humpty Dumpty crumble into a million little pieces on the floor. I have come to far & hurting myself wouldn’t change anything, the result would be me feeling worse than I do at the moment & the outcome would be me feeling like a failure. I am writing instead and reaching out. I’m going to bed soon & if by chance I don’t sleep I have my diary by the bed & my phone in case I need to call SAFE. Thanks for being here. *Sigh of relief.
Great job on being self-injury free, that’s awesome. I also am not able to do the safe program because of insurnace/job/a whole list of obstacles. I can’t afford a therapist right now regularly but I’ve read the bodily harm book many times and I’ve been working on the journal assignments and the alternatives as well. I also found the impulse control logs the most helpful! Sometimes I’ll be at work and get the urge and I just write everything down on a piece of reciept paper, whatever works! Anyway, just congratulations and that’s awesome that you’ve gotten so far on your own, it encourages me that maybe I can do it without the direct help of a therapist….program, etc. Best wishes!
((saf33187))
Sorry it took me a while to respond back to your comment. I just wanted to thank you for the wishes and also tell you that you CAN do this. Reach out to someone you trust, write in a diary, do the impulse control logs (they have helped me immensely) & keep your list of alternatives handy. But most important take care of yourself & ask for what you need. I thought all hope was lost when I found out going to a SAFE facility was out of the question for me. I got my hands on that Bodily Harm book, read it over & over & over. Started doing the assignments, logs & talking to my therapist about things. No matter how hopeless things seem don’t give up.