What do you do to resist the urge?

[Bath]

This is a two-part question, first part is what emotion do you feel when you feel the urge to self-harm? Second is what do you do to manage those feelings without self-harming?

I mostly feel anger when I need to cut or burn, either with myself or other people. I try to deal with that anger w/o self-harming by either smoking, cutting myself off from people, sleeping, or squeezing things / ripping things up.

I've been slipping a lot and it's getting harder to control these negative emotions without self-harming so I'd like to hear what helps you.

[Rayquaza]

I'm kind of in the same situation.

There's two parts to what I feel. The first one is completely random. It'll be like I suddenly feel the need to, and it usually happens at school. It's like I can't wait to get home and do it, kind of like some sort of treat waiting for me. Other times I feel really depressed, upset and alone, so when I cut, it feels like someone else is giving me the pain, someone else's hand is digging into my skin, and I don't feel so alone any more.

I try and put it off my trying to forget about it, think about positive thoughts or dance, but in the end there will come a point where I can't carry on, I'll just stop, look at my arms, scratch, then get the blade. I don't smoke, I don't drink and I don't do any drugs. I'm always sober. Even a Burn-Book type thing I made that I burnt didn't even help.

[Hangover]

I don't know how to describe it, but i guess I feel angsty..
I feel it doesnt matter if I'm dead or alive, except dead people don't hurt
themselves or others.
Cutting relieves me of the selfdestructive emotions in a way few things can, but sometimes I just draw until I fall asleep.
Drawing just clears my mind enough to replace the urges.

[Harley Quinn]

I usually feel out of my body sort of thing, it's hard to explain. But I know when I start feeling weird like that, like sometimes I look at my hands and it feels like they aren't actually connected to my body, then I know I need to do something to stop it escalating.

I smoke also, for the past 3 years it's been my steady replacement form of harm, realistically it is the same, if not more harmful than self harm, but oh well. I tend to start clenching my fists or cracking my knuckles and that sometimes helps, other times I set fire to things because I have an obsession with fire and knowing that something is permanently getting destroyed, is a beautiful thing. Sometimes though, because of my MPD, I literally cannot control it to the extent I normally could. Having a job is also my distraction as it like means I don't have to think about it due to the fact I'm running around like a blue arsed fly.

[Conqueror of Hearts]

I feel anger or shame or loneliness. But lately I try not to cut myself even when I feel those things. Now instead of really cutting I imagine it....I imagine the feeling, blade,blood etc.and it really helps me.