Please note that this post discusses self-harm.  While no details of specific behaviors are mentioned, the general topic may be triggering.  If this is the case for you, please move on to another post and feel free to return to this one when you are not feeling triggered.  If you do become triggered while reading, please consider contacting someone who can help you.  You can find resources for this in this blog post.

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Welcome back!  Last time we talked about urges to self-harm, and possible ways to work with them.  Today we’ll go over how you can create your own plan for managing difficult emotions.  You might notice that when emotions are difficult, it can be hard to think of things that can be helpful.  That’s why it can be useful to think about this ahead of time and write them down, so that the only thing you have to remember in the moment is to look at your list.

First, let’s talk about the more creative part -- how you want to make your list.  You can make this in a simple way, such as by putting it in the Notes section of your phone or writing it on paper, or you can turn it into a little art project.  Some ways this could be done is by writing each skill on a popsicle stick and putting them all in a cup, writing skills on index cards in different colors, or drawing the skills and making a little book that you can flip through.  Feel free to do this as simply or as creatively as you would like.  Either way, the idea is the same -- to think of activities ahead of time and write them down so you can remind yourself of them when you are struggling.

We want to think of as many possible activities as we can, so that when you are struggling you have a lot of different things to choose from.  And sometimes the first one or few things you try won’t work well, so it’s helpful to have several so you have others to fall back on.  Try to think of at least 2-3 options from each category that we talked about in Part 1 (expressing emotions, distracting, and support from others).  However, since more choices is a good thing, if you can think of 4-5 activities for some categories that might be even better!  Try to include things that work sometimes, even if they don’t work all the time.  It can be really hard to feel overwhelming feelings, so we don’t want to leave out any ideas that could be helpful to you, even if you don’t find them helpful all of the time.  

You can refer back to Part 1 for examples from each category if that’s helpful for your brainstorming.  You could also think generally about what you enjoy doing; sometimes things that we enjoy doing in general can be helpful things to do when we are having a difficult time.  If you need more ideas, you can also take a look at this article.

I hope that thinking about this together was helpful, and that you were able to come up with some things that might help you.  Remember that you can always add to your list as you learn more skills that help you.  Thank you for taking the time to read my post, and I hope you have a peaceful week!