Other Methods to Avoid Cutting

Last Updated on Friday, 26 June 2009 16:05 Written by Cindy Monday, 22 June 2009 15:06

• Scribble on photos of people in magazines
• Viciously stab an orange.
• Throw an apple/pair of socks against the wall
• Have a pillow fight with the wall
• Scream very loudly
• Tear apart newspapers, photos, or magazines
• Go to the gym, dance, exercise
• Listen to music and sing along loudly
• Draw a picture of what is making you angry
• Beat up a stuffed bear
• Pop bubble wrap
• Pop balloons
• Splatter paint
• Scribble on a piece of paper until the whole page is black
• Filling a piece of paper with drawing cross hatches
• Throw darts at a dartboard
• Go for a run
• Write your feelings on paper then rip it up
• Use stress relievers
• Build a fort of pillows and then destroy it
• Throw ice cubes at the bathtub wall, at a tree, etc
• Get out a fine tooth comb and vigorously brush the fur of a stuffed animal
• Slash an empty plastic soda bottle or a piece of heavy cardboard or an old shirt or sock
• Make a soft cloth doll to represent the things you are angry at; cut and tear it instead of yourself
• Flatten aluminium cans for recycling, seeing how fast you can go
• On a sketch or photo of yourself, mark in red ink what you want to do. Cut and tear the picture
• Break sticks
• Cut up fruits
• Make yourself as comfortable as possible
• Stomp around in heavy shoes
• Play handball or tennis
• Yell at what you are breaking and tell it why you are angry, hurt, upset
• Hold ice in your hands, against your arm, or in your mouth
• Run your hands under freezing cold water
• Snap a rubber band or hair band against your wrist
• Clap your hands until it stings
• Wax your legs
• Drink freezing cold water
• Splash your face with cold water
• Put PVA/Elmer's glue on your hands then peel it off
• Massage where you want to hurt yourself
• Take a hot shower/bath
• Jump up and down to get some sensation in your feet
• Write or paint on yourself
• Arm wrestle with a member of your family
• Take a cold bath
• Bite into a hot pepper or chew a piece of ginger root
• Rub liniment under your nose
• Put tiger balm on the places you want to cut.
• Say “I’ll self harm in fifteen minutes if I still want to” and keep going for periods of fifteen minutes until the urge fades
• Color your hair
• Count up to ten getting louder until you are screaming
• Sing on the karaoke machine
• Complete something you’ve been putting off
• Take up a new hobby
• Make a cup of tea
• Tell and laugh at jokes
• Play solitaire
• Count up to 500 or 1000
• Surf the net
• Make as many words out of your full name as possible
• Count ceiling tiles or lights
• Search ridiculous things on the web
• Colour coordinate your wardrobe
• Play with toys, such as a slinky
• Go to the park and play on the swings
• Call up an old friend
• Go "people watching"
• Carry safe, rather than sharp, things in your pockets
• Do school work
• Play a musical instrument
• Watch TV or a movie
• Paint your nails
• Alphabetize your CDs or books
• Cook
• Make origami to occupy your hands
• Doodle on sheets of paper
• Dress up or try on old clothes
• Play computer games or painting programs, such as Adobe Photoshop
• Write out lyrics to your favorite song
• Play a sport
• Read a book/magazine
• Do a crossword
• Draw a comic strip
• Make a chain link out of paper counting the hours or days you've been self harm free using pretty colored paper
• Knit, sew, or make a necklace
• Buy a plant and take care of it
• Hunt for things on eBay or Amazon
• Browse the forums
• Go shopping
• Memorize a poem with meaning
• Learn to swear in another language
• Look up words in a dictionary
• Play hide-and-seek with your siblings
• Go outside and watch the clouds roll by
• Plan a party
• Find out if any concerts will be in your area
• Play a musical instrument
• Make your own dance routine
• Trace your hand on a piece of paper; on your thumb, write something you like to look at; on your index finger, write something you like to touch; on your middle finger, write your favorite scent; on your ring finger, write something you like the taste of; on your pinky finger, write something you like to listen to; on your palm, write something you like about yourself
• Plan regular activities for your most difficult time of day
• Finish homework before it's due
• Take a break from mental processing
• Notice black and white thinking
• Get out on your own, get away from the stress
• Go on YouTube
• Make a scrapbook
• Make a phone list of people you can call for support. Allow yourself to use it.
• Pay attention to your breathing
• Pay attention to the rhythmic motions of your body
• Learn HALT signals
• Choose a random object, like a paper clip, and try to list 30 different uses for it
• Pick a subject and research it on the web
• Crawl on all fours and bark like a dog or another animal
• Run around outside screaming
• Laugh for no reason whatsoever
• Make funny faces in a mirror
• Without turning orange, self tan
• Pluck your eyebrows
• Put faces on apples, oranges, or other sorts of food
• Go to the zoo and name all of the animals
• Color on the walls
• Blow bubbles
• Pull weeds in the garden
• Congratulate yourself on each minute you go without self harming
• Draw or paint
• Look at the sky
• Instead of punishing yourself by self harming, punish yourself by not self harming
• Call a friend and ask for company
• Buy a cuddly toy
• Give someone a hug with a smile
• Put a face mask on
• Watch a favorite TV show or movie
• Eat something ridiculously sweet
• Remember a happy moment and relive it for a while in your head
• Treat yourself to some chocolate
• Try to imagine the future and plan things you want to do
• Look at things that are special to you
• Compliment someone else
• Make sculptures
• Watch fish
• Let yourself cry
• Play with a pet
• Have or give a massage
• Imagine yourself living in a perfect home and describe it in your mind
• If you're religious, read the bible or pray
• Light a candle and watch the flame
• Go chat in the chat room
• Allow yourself to cry
• Accept a gift from a friend
• Carry tokens to remind you of peaceful comforting things/people
• Take a hot bath with bath oil or bubbles
• Curl up under a comforter with hot cocoa and a good book
• Make affirmation tapes inside you that are good, kind, gentle
• Make a tray of special treats and tuck yourself into bed with it and watch TV or read
• “See, hear and feel”-5 things, then 4, then 3 and countdown to one which will make you focus on your surroundings and will calm you down
• Listen to soothing music; have a CD with motivational songs that you can listen to
• Meditate or do yoga
• Name all of your soft toys
• Hug a pillow or soft toy
• Hyper focus on something
• Do a “reality check list” – write down all the things you can list about where you are now
• With permission, give someone a hug
• Drink herbal tea
• Crunch ice
• Hug a tree
• Go for a walk if it's safe to do so
• Feel your pulse to prove you're alive
• Go outside and attempt to catch butterflies or lizards
• Put your feet firmly on the floor
• Accept where you are in the process. Beating yourself up, only makes it worse
• Touch something familiar/safe
• Leave the room
• Give yourself permission to...
• Think about how you don’t want scars
• Treat yourself nicely
• Remember that you don’t have to hurt yourself just because you're thinking about self harm
• Create a safe place to go
• Acknowledge that self harm is harmful behavior: say “I want to hurt myself” rather than “I want to cut”
• Repeat to yourself “I don’t deserve to be hurt” even if you don’t believe it
• Remember that you always have the choice not to cut: it’s up to you what you do
• Think about how you may feel guilty after self harming
• Remind yourself that the urge to self harm is impulsive: you will only feel like cutting for short bursts of time
• Avoid temptation
• Get your friends to make you friendship bracelets: wear them around your wrists to remind you of them when you want to cut
• Be with other people
• Make your own list of things to do instead of self harm
• Make a list of your positive character traits
• Be nice to your family, who in return, will hopefully be nice to you
• Put a band-aid on the area where you'd like to self harm
• Recognize and acknowledge the choices you have NOW
• Pay attention to the changes needed to make you feel safe
• Notice "choices" versus "dilemmas"
• Lose the "should-could-have to" words. Try... "What if"
• Kiss the places you want to SH or kiss the places you have healing wounds. It can be a reminder that you care about myself and that you don't want this
• Choose your way of thinking, try to resist following old thinking patterns
• The Butterfly project- draw a butterfly on the place that you would self harm and if the butterfly fades without self-harming, it means it has lived and flown away, giving a sense of achievement. Whereas if you do self-harm with the butterfly there; you will have to wash it off. If that does happen, you can start again by drawing a new one on. You can name the butterfly after someone you love.
• Draw on yourself with a red pen or body paint
• Cover yourself with plasters where you want to cut
• Give yourself a henna or fake tattoo
• Make “wounds” with makeup, like lipstick
• Take a small bottle of liquid red food coloring and warm it slightly by dropping it into a cup of hot water for a few minutes. Uncap the bottle and press its tip against the place you want to cut. Draw the bottle in a cutting motion while squeezing it slightly to let the food color trickle out.
• Draw on the areas you want to cut using ice that you've made by dropping six or seven drops of red food color into each of the ice-cube tray wells.
• Paint yourself with red tempera paint.
• 'Cut' your skin with nail polish
• Phone a friend and talk to them
• Make a collage of how you feel
• Negotiate with yourself
• Identify what is hurting so bad that you need to express it in this way
• Write your feelings in a diary
• Make lists of everything such as blessings in your life
• Make a notebook of song lyrics that you relate to
• Call a hotline
• Write a letter to someone telling them how you feel