Any one of us who has been there knows that in those final seconds, nothing on earth is going to convince you that what you are about to do isn’t the exact right action. It feels so overwhelmingly convincing. It IS your reality at that moment. No one else can talk you out of it. Consequences don’t matter. It virtually is impossible to stop- in the last few seconds.

But both the cause of the problem- and it’s solution- lie in the same place. You have to find a way to work around the fact that you can believe in, but act on totally different things. Our minds don’t have the kind of connectedness that very concrete single-reality people have. So we can either wait until one part of us says to harm ourselves, even though part of us knows that isn't right, or long before that moment, we can tell ourselves to learn habits and make preparations that ultimately will help, but feel wrong in the immediate present. Confusing? Well, so is having DID.

When we do injure ourselves, we know all the reasons this isn’t rational, or helpful. But our DID allows another part to have control, for whom this feels absolutely rational, and we’re pretty good at acting one way and thinking another.

This can be turned around and used as a means of prevention. Starting months before incidents of self-harm, there are dozens of little choices that come up that ultimately will determine the final outcome. If you can learn to act in a way that is different from what you believe at the moment, you can stop self-harm. It won’t feel right, or appropriate or helpful or necessary at that moment, but you have to decide you accept that making yourself do certain things will ultimately be good for you, and so you will do them.

What am I talking about? Ten months ago, at 11 pm on a Saturday night in January, I was seized with an overwhelming impulse to cut myself. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t have called anyone. BUT- I didn’t have to have the necessary ideal tool sitting out in my bedroom. Three months earlier, when I had bought that, I paused for a second, and a little voice said "you shouldn’t really have that around", but at that time, cutting myself seemed so remote, it didn’t matter. "I don’t do that anymore", I thought.

A month later, when I started having real problems with impulses and intrusive thoughts and lapses from reality, I told myself I’d just have to "try harder" not to be sicker. So, instead of taking steps to get myself some additional help- even some relatively small thing- I just continued on the same path. And I got worse.

A few weeks before, I started really losing it and I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. So I downplayed it a little. Not entirely- I told my therapist, and we thought about the hospital, but it would have messed up what was going on in my life so badly, it seemed worth almost anything not to go.

Then a few days before, I was clearly out of control. I called my therapists back-up (guess what? My therapist was on vacation!) and he was not helpful or supportive. So even though I knew I had called because I couldn’t control myself, I just stopped that route.

Now, on that Saturday, I was with friends until about 7 pm. I had invitations to stay later. I knew I was in a very, very bad way. But like all the other points so far, I didn’t, at that exact moment, really want to cut my arm, so therefore, I’d be ok I figured. (I know better than that).

So finally, it’s 11 pm, and with no friends, no therapist to call, no prior intervention, and a scalpel with a new blade lying out in my bedroom, I was overcome with the urge to do self-harm.

Once I was in the ER, I assumed they’d fix it and send me home. What was the big deal? They put 19 surgical staples in it, and then the psychiatrist talked to me. I figured she’d send me home. Finally she came back in and asked if I’d consider the hospital. I said ‘no, I really can’t go in right now", to which she replied, "well both Dr. Otherpsych and I are ready to certify you then".

Oh.

So I spent January in the hospital, with all the problems and consequences I was so sure would happen- and they did. But it all happened anyway, despite my conviction that I just "couldn’t" let it. What are some thoughts to take away from all this?

[1] Don’t keep the most accessible, easy to use, convenient means of self-harm readily available. Sure, we can all find something no matter what, but taking longer to look for it allows a chance for another part to speak up. It’s tough to give up, but I just keep certain things out of my apartment entirely, or in very inconvenient places. If you’re serious about trying to break the cycle of self-harm, you have to be ready to sacrifice. I know, as I’m sure we all do, how really hard it is to give up instruments of self-harm. It feels like a life-line (somehow). But if I don’t want to be back with a plastic bracelet, I need to do it, and do it now.

[2] When I recognized I was not doing well, I could have asked for another couple therapy sessions, or spent one week at the Day Hospital, or any one of several options. Early limited intervention can prevent a lot worse later, even if you feel silly making a big deal out of it now. Remember, when things get so bad that it’s not a big deal at all to see how much you need help, it might already be a little late. Since all of us try hard to stay out of further treatment (after all, we’re recovering), it feels so hard to get extra help. But make yourself look at it objectively.

[3] When it got much worse, and I talked to my therapist about it, it was a very hard choice. But we can all look at how we’re feeling and doing, and project the likely outcome based on the past. Maybe now is the time you HAVE to do something- or the consequences will be worse.

[4] When it was undeniably bad and I was really losing it big-time, I was desperate enough to call the therapist providing back-up for mine. He wasn’t helpful. That was too bad, and not my fault. But I didn’t have to give up. I could have called him back. I could have called someone else. I could have called a friend. But I remember hanging up with the feeling that this was it- now I would just have to let happen whatever happened.

[5] That last day, it didn’t take much to recognize I was not in a good place. I’m shy about saying I can’t handle things and asking for help, but if my friends asked me, I’d do it. Do I really believe they are less considerate than me? Why didn’t I? Because, once again, the work of not letting these impulses go any further seemed less than overcoming my shyness. When I found out a few minutes later I was wrong, it was too late.

This wasn’t the first time- just the most recent, and the one that I was able to see the clearest in retrospect. There are a couple other things I think can help with staying unharmed.

Many of us (I know I have and do) feel a certain sense of really having "been there" because we have scars. Or we joke about it. "Safety" was always a thing to be sophisticatedly cynical about when we were kids. I think it’s real important to work now at changing those thoughts. I can’t make them feel untrue, but I can remember what happened this last time. My two children went into such deep depressions that the younger one couldn’t go to school some days because he was afraid he’d come home to find out I was dead. My older son barely spoke a word to anyone for three months. Now, after therapy and medication, they are both much, much better. But when I remind myself about that, I don’t feel particularly "hip" or "cool" just because I’m a patient-outlaw.

I’m learning not to talk about it with others as if they were battle wounds to compare. It is dramatic, and it was a big moment, but the more reality we give it, the more we make it acceptable, the harder it is to resist. One of my friends, who went to my apartment to get my things (since I was committed, I didn’t have a suitcase), was angry and upset with me for weeks. She had to see what I left behind (this was a pretty extensive laceration), and as she told me later, after all her work staying safe when it was hard (and all my encouragement and support) I turn around and do it to myself.

Finally, I try to remind myself, just privately, how seriously wrong this is. I don’t say that to others, because I’m not judgmental at all about it, and I don’t want people who haven’t been there making stupid comments, but I have to keep reminding myself that just because I know how much sense it can make, and how that’s true for all my friends, it’s still really, really not a rational idea.

Even writing this is hard for me- parts of me keep trying to pop up and say "you know how right it was!", but I believe that if I keep trying to live as if I wasn’t going to have that as my reality, it would make it a little less intense at those times when it actually was.

The further along I go, the more recovery seems to be about realizing that I have multiple realities and multiple beliefs, and letting myself trust and act on the one that seems to have the best path to one day feeling better. On a clear day, it’s hard to see where hurting myself really belongs in there.

And if nothing else helps, I try to tell myself, "that’s what they did to you. That’s what they liked. That’s what made them happy and what they thought you were good for. Are you like them? Do you want to hurt someone just so they get hurt? No? Then don’t".

© John M. is a recovering survivor with DID.