Turnaround Techniques

All the effective techniques we use to get us to the stage of being able to survive without self-harming will be needed to sustain this coping, or ‘abstinence’. And possibly a whole load of extra tactics. As mentioned above, if it’s humanly possible it’s much better to avoid doing any ‘alternative’, or ‘diversionary’ activity which mimics self-harming.

There’s no question that at moments of intense stress it’s very very hard not to self-harm, at least in the early stages of ridding ourselves of this addictive behaviour. But we hope that the extent and range of the following ideas does give you one or more options which help. The crucial thing is to find ones that work for you and to have with you at all times any resources you need (pen, paper, puzzle, Play-Doh….) The following ideas inspired our expanded website feature on Turnaround Techniques – pleasurable ways to change perspectives.

With thanks to Heather

Turnaround Techniques

These ideas are inspired from various expert sources, ranging from (not surprisingly…) websites written by people whoself-harm to books on creative thinking for entrepreneurs. The principle is always similar: how to shift from one fixed set of views or feelings in order to come up with fresh perspectives and improved solutions. Many of the following turnaround techniques include the benefits of doing the opposite and this is probably the most useful concept to hang onto. At its simplest, if you feel crap and you’re indoors, doing something outdoors can really help. Or shifting from being active to restful, or vice versa.

Turnaround techniques, a.k.a. ‘Turnaround techniques’, are just this. They don’t even attempt to begin to address the underlying sources of, or real resolution for distress. But they can really help get us through some particularly ghastly moments. And that’s great, just like the much maligned sticking plaster is actually a particularly good idea for bunging on a kid’s grazed knee. (Then they can be given the lecture about not texting on their mobile phone while they’re cycling to the sweetshop.)

There are of course hundreds of things we can do which might delay or prevent us self-harming. But invariably the very best things to do are:

  • to express what we feel, ideally by talking to someone else. Writing things down, or drawing (or scribbling….) our thoughts and feelings can also be very calming
  • to cry

We hope that at least some of the following will be of help.

1. Thinking

Always available, escaping into distracting thoughts, games and fantasies can be a great way of providing some emotional relief.

  • If you were invited onto the Desert Island Discs programme, what music, books, and possessions would you impress the audience with. And which ones would you really like to bring?
  • Think about, or write down, what you love about your friends, family, favourite celebrities and pets.
  • Do that Parisian boulevard, sitting outside a café, thing - people watching. Watch them wherever you happen to be – at a bus stop, walking down the high street, sitting in a PTA meeting .… Think about what they’re wearing (is it like so last season?), how they’re walking (not surprising with shoes/jeans/a dog like that), what their job might be (tattoo artist? croupier? embalmer?)
  • Do a mental maths puzzle, like counting backwards in 3s from 100 or 1000 (or on a bad day, 10. On a very good day, try it in 7s).
  • Or those old favourite letter puzzles, used over the decades to parry the car cry of ‘are we nearly there yet?’ – eg finding the name of an animal, plant, flower, type of food or country for each letter of the alphabet
  • Choose an object in the room. Examine it carefully and then write as detailed a description of it as you can, as if you were describing it to a blind person. Include everything: size, weight, texture, shape, colour, possible uses, feel, how light falls on it etc.
  • Pick an object, like a glass or a tube of toothpaste, and try to list 20 different uses for it.
  • Escape! Wherever you want to go, it’s only a second away when it’s in your imagination – the Costa Rican rainforest, a Zen retreat, anywhere at all in Las Vegas, a Jamaican beach. Or escape upwards by paragliding, curling up in a treehouse, hot air ballooning…

Websites

2. Sensing

Touchy feely, smelly, yummy, noisy or pretty – all helpful absorbing experiences.

  • For a totally sensational work-out, and a handy way to add a few inches to your and others’ waistlines, cook something quin-sensory. How about making chocolate pastry? You’ll obviously get the joys of touch, sight and smell, plus sound (OK, a bit of a stretch this one, but imagine the sound of pastry ricocheting off the sides of the bowl) and of course taste.
  • Go into your food cupboard or fridge and smell lots of different foods. Things like vanilla, chocolate, coffee, herbs, and lemon are particularly fab.
  • Rummage through your clothes, or clothes in a shop, with your hands rather than your eyes, feeling the difference between cotton, wool, silk, leather….
  • Instead of window-shopping, go nasal shopping in these sorts of stores:
  • Asian, Greek, Chinese and other great-smelling food shops
  • body pampering stores (Body Shop etc)
  • pet stores (possibly a more mixed olfactory experience, especially if you get too close to some of the reptiles. Or hamsters.)
  • If it’s hard to shake off the smell of iguana, try buying a delicious bunch of mimosa and (unlike Bill Clinton) inhale
  • Take a hot bath – and ratchet the sensory experience up to all 5 senses if you nibble while you soak
  • Really notice everything you can see around you, as if you were going to draw it. (Even better, whip out a pencil and paper and draw it!) Describe in your mind, or on paper, features like colour, the effect of light and dark, textures, shapes, contrast, people’s interesting physical characteristics etc
  • A less taxing version of this is simply to count the colours you can see.

Websites

3. Reading and writing

We’re not talking about ploughing through Sartre or attempting to write a blockbuster novel, but mellow dipping into some reading treats and scribbling down whatever pops into your head.

  • Buy a gorgeous journal, like the ones Paperchase sells, hand-made in Nepal. Write down absolutely anything – how you feel right now, your Fantasy Frisbee team, the first and last lines of a novel (it doesn’t have to be a blockbuster, nor have anything between the first and last lines….)
  • Read about something you know nothing about. Browsing magazines in a newsagents can reveal whole new worlds, from body-building to train-spotting. (And they say people who self-harm have problems…)
  • Open the dictionary in random places and learn new words.
  • If kids can watch the Finding Nemo video a zillion times, it’s perfectly reasonable for us to lose ourselves in our favourite novel again. And again.
  • Spend a few hours gazing through catalogues of your favourite retail fantasy. Ours include stationery (little more satisfying in life than a slow browse through the Viking catalogue) and cabin baggage.
  • Dip into really easy, funny books. We’d recommend:
    • The Puffin Book of Nonsense Verse edited by Quentin Blake
    • 101 Unuseless Japanese Inventions – Kenji Kawakami
    • Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught Me – Cynthia Copeland Lewis

Websites

4. Playing

Bit of an overlap with ‘mental’, but needing a trip to Smiths, the back of the kids’ toy cupboards or (best of all), a leisurely spree on the websites of Hawkins Bazaar and its sister company Tobar. Equip yourself with:

  • word game books
  • hand-held puzzles like Rubik’s cube and that little plastic thing where one tile is missing and you shuffle the others around to spell out the first line of Hard Times or to reconfigure a nuclear power station
  • ridiculous desk games like:
    • micro-croquettiddlywinks10 pin bowling
  • a ball to bounce – or 3 to juggle
  • a dart board – perhaps one of those nice safe magnetic or Velcro ones if there are kids, pets or colleagues at risk from rogue throws

Websites

5. Computing

This deserves a website, a gallery, a city all of its own. But in the meantime, here are some obvious and a few slightly more obscure ideas.

  • Fun websites – ones that are funny, surprising, and especially those that are interactive – i.e. visitors have to get actively involved with them, eg because there are games, quizzes etc.
  • Computer games, including handheld computer games – latest Gameboy etc
  • Pick a subject, find websites about it and chose 10 amazing things about it to tell other people
  • Really surf – wander aimlessly from site to site using links, links from links, links from links from etc etc
  • Or wander slightly less aimlessly by specific topics, perhaps inspired by things on your desk – wood, files, pictures, half-chewed bars of chocolate…

Websites

  • Undoubtedly the best website of all time. Featuring Must Haves such as a Lick-O-Meter keychain which counts how many licks you’ve had on the inserted lollipop. http://www.stupid.com/index.html
  • Great games inc. online jigsaws, word games and strange videos if you have high-powered fancy software stuff www.shockwave.com
  • Exquisitely satisfying – bursting bubble-wrap on-line, complete with authentic popping noises Virtual Bubblewrap

6. Eating

Gaze at it, feel it, buy it, draw it, photograph it, talk about it, write about it. Oh, and eat it. No big surprises in this list:

  • Recipe books
  • Cooking
  • Shops:
    • cooking equipment, supermarkets, bakers etc
  • Foody mags

Websites

7. Creating

There are so many lovely things that we can fiddle with, sculpt, draw, paint and generally make a mess with.

  • Getting stuck into kids’ things like Wikkistix (sticky pipecleaner type things), Play-doh or even better, the edible version – sugar paste
  • activities you might normally dismiss as too naff but which can be deeply engrossing:
    • sewing
    • knitting
    • origami
    • painting, drawing – even colouring in
  • playing some kind of musical instrument. Even if you don't really know how to play, picking out tunes is a way to concentrate and help get rid of the urge to harm yourself.
  • taking photographs. Absolutely don’t worry about the end result, and play around with taking photos of:
    • small parts of objects (eg of street furniture, flowers, clothes, luggage….)
    • light and shade
    • splashes of colour
    • the shapes that groups of people make
    • and then… sorting photos, into albums, shoe boxes, sides of sofas etc
    • and if that’s too daunting, dust off the old albums and have a nostalgic hour or two with them

Websites

8. Connecting

Best thing, of course, is to be with people. Ideally people we love and we feel totally safe with. Hugging is a powerfully calming and heartening thing to do and if it’s with someone you know, it won’t result in getting arrested.

It’s really tempting, and sometimes essential or unavoidable to be by ourselves when we’re feeling at our worst. If relaxed schmoozing the time-honoured way isn’t right or possible, there are now all sorts of ‘indirect’ ways of being in touch with people

  • Writing letters
  • Emailing
  • Chat rooms
  • Texting

And connecting doesn’t have to be only with humans. Animals can be profoundly comforting, energising, amusing, stimulating…..

Websites

9. Switching on

So much choice, so little time!

  • Listen to your favourite music
  • Watch your favourite video
  • Conversely, watch a TV programme, or channel, that you would put last, or second to last, on your list of favourites
  • Flick through TV channels (mainly if you’ve got non-terrestrial, else you’ll be a bit unsatisfied after a mere 4 flicks!)

Websites

10. Switching off

Chilling out has shifted from being the monopoly of mountain-dwelling gurus to being as mainstream as the Simpsons. Even Homer might have tried one of these:

  • Day dreaming
  • Visualising
  • Deep breathing
  • Meditating
  • Yoga

Websites

11. Moving

When things are really grim, it can be a real effort to reach for the remote control just in time to avoid yet another programme about a family starting a new life in Tuscany or Tobago. But all the books and many of the people say that exercise is a crucial element of recovering one’s mental health. Personally I’ve found that little beats stretching out with a few select pralines and a Will and Grace video. But the official line is that it’s highly beneficial to try:

  • exercising:
    • aerobics
    • badminton
    • basketball
    • cricket
    • cycling
    • dance
    • fencing
    • football
    • hockey
    • martial arts
    • netball
    • running
    • squash
    • swimming
    • table tennis
    • tennis
    • volleyball
    • walking
    • yoga
  • Visiting a street or building you’ve never visited before, within a 10 minute walk of your home or place of work
  • sorting out & clean drawers, cupboards

Websites

12. Laughing

Five A Day applies not only to fruit and veg but to the absolute requirement of 5 lots of convulsive laughter a day. Any of the following ideas should help, although a good schmooze with friends will generally do the trick.

  • Going to a comedy club, funny film, funny play, funny musical
  • Lovely potentially everyday funny experiences – sit coms, favourite videos, cartoon strips in the newspaper
  • Funny books such as those by Sheila Heyman, Tony Hawks, Danny Wallace and those magnificently off-beat cartoons by Gary Larson
  • Anything by Nick Page – his website (www.nickpage.co.uk) , his books (In Search of the Worlds’ Worst Writers; The Tabloid Bible; The Tabloid Shakespeare) – and if you’re particularly lucky, his emails, contributions to meetings, leaflets, radio scripts…..

Websites