by JigsawAnalogy on Wed Nov 11, 2009 11:33 pm
I/we have also found that feeling intense emotional pain can make us want to self-harm. It's as though physical pain is easier to cope with, and self-injury seems as though it would take that pain outside of our mind, and put it in our body. I think some parts also hope that if outside people see the injuries, they will take the emotional pain more seriously (unfortunately, this doesn't happen as often as it should, and mostly, people are upset and disturbed by the self-harm, and focus on stopping the behavior, rather than finding the source of the pain).
For me, the alternatives to self-harm when I'm feeling this way tend to be more symbolic, such as the following:
Get a red permanent marker, and draw on yourself where you want to be cutting.
Get a tattoo of something that symbolizes your pain (think carefully about this, as tattoos are more permanent).
Draw, paint, sculpt, or write about the pain. Let whichever part or parts are feeling pain have a chance to express themselves in a way that works for them. Don't worry about how the picture/story/poem comes out. The point is to express the pain, not to have a professional-quality piece of art. Often, it just gets thrown away or put into a box when we're done. The point of this is the process, not the product.
If you have dolls, action figures, or something similar, younger (or older) parts might want to act out the situation that is causing emotional pain, and other parts might participate in providing the responses they think the original parts would like to hear.
For my system, it's been both very challenging and very helpful to actually tell someone about why I/we are feeling intense emotional pain. The other person can't solve it, but often having someone listen, and validate the feelings, helps to make them easier to bear. My/our experience has been that people are more comfortable with a verbal or visual expression of pain than they are with self-injury, and I/we are more likely to get the help we need when we try that route.
Listen to music that either expresses how you feel, or music that you just happen to like. I've been surprised over and over again by how listening to music can make me feel better, even when I don't expect it to.
If you have an outside person who is emotionally safe for this, it's okay to just say something like "I just need a hug right now" or "I just need to cry, and be comforted."
In my system, even older parts say that the emotional pain sometimes comes from what they call a "baby place." It's pain from the time before words, when we didn't have a way of expressing ourselves, or comforting ourselves. So sometimes "baby" like solutions are most comforting: curl up with a stuffed animal, suck your thumb, and regress. (This is best done in private, or with someone who understands that it's ok.)
Be aware, when you're asking people for support, that it is not within ANYONE'S power to lift that pain from you. There is nothing they can do that will take the pain away, or make the hurt not have happened. What they can do is listen, and validate, and let you know they care. Sometimes, support people feel overwhelmed, and might back off in the face of intense pain. If someone cares about you, they probably wish they could lift that pain away, and make you feel better, and when they can't, they back off. This doesn't mean you're not important, or that they don't care. It means they're human.
Who says there is anything wrong with being crazy, anyhow?