- 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
Other Methods to Avoid Cutting
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