r/selfharm 18h ago

DAE Goodbye letter to sh

I’ve SHed for as long as I can remember and my therapist is asking me to write a thank you/ goodbye letter to sh. When she first asked me to do it a few weeks ago I said there was no way but now I’m coming to terms with it but have no idea how to start or what to say. For context I have just relapsed after being 6 months clean and had been saying for months that I needed to do it just one more time to get closure. I was wrong! since doing it my urge have been stronger than ever and I still want to do it just one more time. My therapist thinks writing this letter might give the closure I’m looking for because I’m finding the idea that I’ll never do it again really hard because I guess I just believe I’ll always slip up at some point. Has anyone else had to write a letter to sh. How did you do it and know what to say? I’m really struggling to find the words to say what I need to say and need some advice

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u/ManakoAimi 18h ago

I never did it but maybe you can start with writing something like “bye sh” like you’re talking to it just like you would write a goodbye letter to a person or just a goodbye letter for yourself example “Bye sh I realised you’re bad for me and not a good coping mechanism you just hurt me more and did worse I thought it would help me and make me feel better but now I want to stop this is a goodbye and I will never do it again” this is just an example just write what you feel and why you want to stop maybe and another example for how you could do it the other way “I am stopping sh I know I can do it and I know this is not how I want to continue so I won’t sh anymore it’s not good this is a goodbye it’s the end I want to get better.” I mean that’s just what I would say and understand under a goodbye letter but you can obviously write whatever you think and whatever version you want I’m not sure if this helped but I hope it did a bit<3

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u/Dear_Yam2246 17h ago

Thank you that’s really helpful

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u/ManakoAimi 17h ago

You’re welcome!