The
Basics: Alternatives/Tactics That
Everyone Knows About, Plus Some Others
That I Came Up With
1.
Ol’
Reliable: The Ice Cube
Press an ice cube against your arms/legs/hands/wherever you’d
normally put something sharp.
As I’ve learned from my many years of living in Canada, cold
hurts, especially when it’s right up
against your skin. However, unlike the frosty Canadian
winters I experience every year, a single
ice cube won’t give you frostbite, making it a handy
alternative to self-harm that won’t give you
scars.
2. *k-chunk* *k-chunk* *k-chunk*
Grab a (preferably cheap and low-power) NERF
gun. Load it up with regular ol’ NERF bullets.
Aim it at your temple and shoot yourself in the head,
repeatedly. Again, it hurts, but it ain’t
gonna give you much more than a slight bit of bruising, and
that’s only gonna happen if you’re
really overenthusiastic. This is probably one of the more
hurtful solutions on this list, so I
recommend that you only do this for a very short while if the
other options don’t work.
3. -20° Knife VS Human EXPERIMENT (NOT
CLICKBAIT)
Get a butter knife and stick it in the freezer for an hour or
so. Take the DULL END of the knife
and press it against your skin. Simple, easy, and actually
kinda hurts if you aren’t used to the
cold.
4. bopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbopbop.....
Find an empty plastic water bottle or a toilet paper tube,
and repeatedly bonk yourself in the
head with it. You know, like literally every middle schooler
in the world does when they’re bored
during lunch. It’s kind of a stretch to compare this to S/H,
but it’s fun and distracting. Just
pretend your urges are your annoying teacher telling you to
open your book and do your damn
math already, and do your best to ignore them.
5. WOOOO YEAH BROTHER TIME TO GET P U M P E D
Go do some exercise. Run nonstop around the block as fast as
your legs can carry you. Lift some
weights (or lift your cat/dog/children/siblings, if you lack
weights). I promise, you’re gonna be
too distracted by your aching joints and burning muscles to
even think about hurting yourself.
Plus, you’ll be getting totally ripped in the process.
6. This is a rather odd way to make tea...
Microwave a mug full of water for about 40 seconds (a little
bit more/less in case your
microwave is underpowered/overpowered). Hold your hand over
the sink, with your fingers
spread out a bit, like you’re about to play Five Finger
Filet. Then, slowly pour a tiny bit of water
out of the mug across your spread-out fingers (emphasis on
slowly! Don’t dump the whole mug
onto your hand all at once!). Like the NERF one, I wouldn’t
recommend doing this very often, or
microwaving the water for too long.
7. Pretend you’re Wrestlerface McPunchypants or
whatever his name is
Hunt for a long chunk of styrofoam. Hold it in front of you,
with your arms gripping each end. Use
your forehead to break it in half. I can’t think of anything
else to add onto this one, really.
8. Now THIS is how you decompress...
Rub some lotion into your arms/legs, and give yourself a
massage. Massages are great fun with
two, but it can also be fun to do it on your own.
9. Channel your inner Van Gogh
Doodle on your body with a sharpie. Give yourself a sick-ass
gang tattoo, or draw a herd of
buffalo grazing on your arm hair (or, if you lack arm hair,
draw a herd of starved, dead buffalo).
10. You get the picture. Just be your own
middle school bully.
Put a small rubber band or hair tie around your wrist. Pull
it back a bit, and let it snap back into
place. This is a tactic taught to me by the assholes who
bullied me in middle school.
Take that, Zach and Devin! Turns
out your bullying actually ended up helping me! >:D
11. Coming up with these titles is harder than
surviving a Canadian winter...
Fill up a shallow bath with cold water. Strip naked, and sit
in it for a few minutes. Don’t spend
too long in there, though! I’d recommend staying there for 6
minutes max.
12. Ahhh, simpler times...
This one’s for the people that prefer the visual effects over
the actual feeling. Spread out some
paper on your desk, dip your hands in some non-toxic
(preferably red) finger paint, and smear it
all over the place. Wooooo, kindergarten!
13. Khudakushee bura hai, bhaiyon aur bahanon.
Draw on your arms with henna. Henna is a type of body paint
made from the leaves of a specific
kind of plant in India and some other southeast Asian/middle
eastern countries. It stays on the
skin for about two weeks before disappearing. I recommend
using traditional red henna over
other kinds, as they can cause allergic reactions in some
people.
14. WHEN I WAS A YOUNG BOY
Put on some music, and turn up the volume WAY loud (not
damage-your-hearing levels of loud,
though). Sing along if you want. Hell, do karaoke if you
want. Focus on the lyrics and try to
interpret the meaning of the song as you go along.
15. penisland.com
Draw lines on your arm with a ballpoint pen. It’s sorta
scratchy/sharp, but it won’t cause damage
unless you keep constantly going over the same spots.
16. help i cant come up with a joke for this
one
Print out a photograph of you. Get a red marker and mark
wherever you want to hurt yourself
with red lines.
17. *faint muffled screams of the damned*
Scream into a pillow. Grab the pillow and throw it at the
wall. Then scream into it again. Repeat.
18. Don’t mess with me, I’m a big boy now and
I’m very scary
Put on some gloves and punch your wall. Put on some shoes and
kick your wall. Stab your wall
with pencils if you want. Just fucking decimate that poor
wall. It’s better than decimating
yourself. Walls don’t have feelings, or futures, or people
who love them. You do (and if you say
that you don’t, the likelihood that you do goes up
exponentially).
19. Bring the joke to life
Cut some styrofoam. Just make sure to do it inside, so that
you don’t pollute the environment
with cut-up bits of styrofoam.
20. Fuck my thoughts, I think too much
Write your thoughts out onto some pieces of paper. Then tear
those pieces of paper in half, or
cut them, or even take them outside and burn them (NEVER BURN STUFF INSIDE!!!!)
21. What’s 9+10?
Pick a random really big number. Count down all the way to 0
from it.
22. Time flies...
Set an alarm on your phone. Watch the
seconds ticking away on your phone’s clock. Focus
intently on it. Try to think of one interesting fact for
every minute that passes.
23. Mmmmm, Popsicles!
Eat a Popsicle. Focus on the feeling of the frozen juice on
your tongue. Then try to make
it disappear as fast as possible. Suck on that thing like
your life depends on it. Break it up into
pieces and chew on those.
24. Be honest, we should all probably do this
one more often.
Cry. Cry your eyes out. Scream and sob and wail into your
pillow. Throw a toddler tantrum.
Maybe kick the wall some more. Crying is a natural human
phenomenon, and we definitely don’t
do it enough.
25. You’ve probably heard this one way too
much, but trust me, it works
Tell someone how you feel. Talk to them about what’s been
bothering you lately. Maybe try to
come up with a few healthier
coping mechanisms. I know, I know, this one’s probably been
hammered into you by every single
damned mental health advice article you’ve ever read, but I
promise, it really does help. Let
me make something clear: this is only a good idea if you’re actually
comfortable with it.
Don’t force yourself to talk to someone else if you don’t want to; that is one
of
the most counter-productive things
you can possibly do when you’re struggling and need help.
26. Rubber duck debugging!
Get a tape recorder, a video camera, or anything else that
can record sound, hit the record button,
and start talking to yourself.
Record all your thoughts and grievances onto a tape/sound file, so
you can listen to it again some
time in the future. It may seem silly, but talking to an inanimate
object/talking to yourself can
actually help you understand yourself better, no matter the subject.
Some programmers, when faced with
a particularly irritating problem that they just can’t seem to
solve, will attempt to explain the
problem to a rubber duck toy, in the hopes that they will suddenly
come up with a solution to the problem while thinking about
their explanation.
27. Productivity? Never heard of her.
Watch a TV
show/movie, read a book/webcomic/actual comic, or consume some other form of
fictional (or nonfictional) media.
You probably already do this one every single day, but I felt like I
should put it on the list anyway.
28. Self-care :)
Take a shower. Drink some nice
cold water. Eat your favourite food. Play your favourite game. Do
what you love. This
is literally the opposite of self-harm, so it should be pretty obvious why it’s
a good idea.