I've been struggling with self harm for almost 30 years (ugh, I didn't realize it had been that long, how depressing), but have had a great deal of success for the past two years. However, I still get urges that can be overwhelming. This happened a couple of weeks ago, and my amazing husband found this skill somewhere and did it with me the first time:

He had me hold out my hand, palm up, and then slapped my forearm with a metal ruler from my craft room. He told me to concentrate on the sting until I could no longer feel it. When it had gone away, I would tell him, and he would slap me with the ruler again. He told me to keep going until I started to feel better. I was skeptical, but it worked wonderfully! I had to resort to this last night, I did it on my own, and it worked again. And it doesn't do any permanent damage - no scars or visible remnants.

There are some **caveats**! Obviously, you can still fuck yourself up with a ruler, so, if you're tempted to really go crazy with it, you may want to try this with a partner for awhile. This may not work for you if you're one of the people who need to see blood or whatever. (I draw on myself in red marker when I have that urge, which also works surprisingly well.) My personal thing is the pain, since I tend to self harm for the punishment aspect.

I hope this helps someone out there. I love the support from this sub, even if I mostly lurk, and I hope that I can give back with this little trick. We can get through this together! BPDs unite!!! :)