Disentangling

My grandfather used to have a saying, “Always take care of yourself because no one else is going to do it for you.” I heard him say it many times throughout my adolescence, years before I understood the true meaning of self-care. Almost ten years after my grandfather’s death, I am only now realizing the wisdom of his statement. No one ever really teaches us about self-care when we are children or adolescents. We grow up watching our parents and guardians, how they sacrifice so much to take care of us. It seems like they were always so unselfish and never had any time for themselves because they were too busy and too focused on loving us. I looked up to my mother and my grandmother and how they provided for our family, how they took care of everything and everyone before themselves. I aspired to be so caring and unselfish. But is being unselfish really that admirable? I’m not so sure anymore. For me, living unselfishly has led to a lonely and unhappy life, the complete opposite of what I had expected. I am so focused on taking care of others that I have forgotten to take care of the most important person: myself. Over the past year, a variety of things have opened my eyes and have made me realize that I have abandoned myself. I have sacrificed my own independence and self-care, at home and at work. I’ve been living a life according to the expectations of others at the expense of my own happiness. This is the year where I start to take it all back: self-care, independence, and sleep.

If you were to ask any of my coworkers, they would most likely describe me as being the nice, quiet, hard-working, reliable one in the group. I always keep to myself, get my work done, and offer to help others whenever necessary. I tend to take on more work than I can handle, but insist it is fine. I offer to do tasks I don’t necessarily want to do. I don’t assert myself even when I should and I keep my opinions to myself even when they should be shared. For as long as I can remember, I have always worried about what other people think of me. I want to make sure everyone likes me, that everyone is happy. I work hard and do a lot of things, but most of these things are for other people, not for myself. I do things to make other people happy. I used to think that doing things for other people would actually make me feel happy, but I’ve learned that it doesn’t always work that way.

Attending college away from home forced me to learn how to be independent. The adjustment of living away from home was tough, especially since my roommates treated me poorly during my freshman year. My roommates deliberately excluded me from activities or abandoned me when we were supposed to do things together so I spent most of my time doing things on my own and keeping to myself. I took care of myself the best I could even though I was stressed most of the time. It was harder to focus on myself in a dorm room than it was to focus on myself at home. At home, I could take all of the time I needed for myself and indulge in all of my creative outlets. I had the time and freedom to read, write, play and listen to music. At school, I didn’t have my piano to play whenever I wanted. I didn’t have the time to sit and write with music playing in the background. I didn’t have the privacy to close myself in a room and just relax without other people around. I didn’t have time to exercise. What I considered to be my self-care routine was slowly fading away and my life was so consumed with academics and stress that I let it go without ever truly being aware of what I was losing.

My social experience during the next few years of college, sophomore through senior year of undergrad, was a better one. Luckily I was matched with two other girls who had similar interests as me and we all got along great as roommates. We did most things together and became great friends. I also had my boyfriend to depend on and he quickly became my best friend. It felt nice to finally have people in my life who understood me and accepted me. Even so, the stress of college ebbed and flowed and it was increasingly difficult for me to focus on myself. My college years were punctuated with multiple hardships: personal health issues, a breakup, the death of two grandparents within just a few months of each other. The last two years of college were the most difficult since I struggled with grief and both physical and emotional exhaustion.

Fast forward to graduate school and I was in a similar situation as freshman year of undergrad. I was at a new school in a new city and I didn’t know anyone. I had roommates, but we were different types of people. I spent most of my time in my room on my own, trying to study while my roommates were partying in the living room on the other side of the wall. Again, I tried to focus on myself. Although grad school was even more stressful than undergrad, I had my keyboard, I had my own room, and I tried to make the best of it. It was easier once I moved into my own apartment for the second half of my master’s degree. Now that I had my own space, I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted. I could really take care of myself without worrying about anyone else. I cooked for myself, went to the gym, started writing again, started sketching and drawing again, played my keyboard, did some crafts, watched shows and movies whenever I wanted. I did all of this throughout the school year. Even with hours of studying and coursework and lab research every week, I still found the time to take a break and focus on resting and caring for myself. I gained back what I had lost during my undergraduate years, but it didn’t last for long after I graduated with my master’s. I found my independence during grad school, but that would soon be lost as well.

After graduating with my master’s degree and finding a full-time job near my boyfriend, my boyfriend and I found an apartment and moved in together. We had a long distance relationship while we were both in grad school and decided we would live together once I graduated. He was finishing his degree while I started working full-time as a scientist. Living together and working full-time were two major adjustments I had to deal with simultaneously. I was stressed out and exhausted most days, mostly from working all day. My boyfriend would be tired from all of his coursework. To alleviate some of his stress, I took on most of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry since he was usually busy with class and studying. Neither of us had much time to do anything but school or work. We fell into a routine, a routine similar to the one my parents had when I lived at home. My mom would do most of the cooking and cleaning around the house while my dad worked. I was blindly following by example without thinking much about it. This was what normal couples did, wasn’t it? Wasn’t this the expectation when couples moved in together?

Even after my boyfriend started his full-time job and we moved into our house, I continued the same routine. He seemed to be more stressed and had a harder time adjusting to working full-time so did everything that I could to help him feel more relaxed. I cooked, I cleaned, I did the laundry, I took care of the dog most of the time, I kept track of the bills. I did everything so he didn’t have to worry about anything. But then I was worrying about everything. I was always stressed, but I convinced myself that I could handle it, that my stress wasn’t important. It was more important for me to focus on taking care of my boyfriend because I’m supposed to take care of the people I love. It was hard for me to find time for myself after doing all of the cleaning, the housework, and the errands. I was no longer taking the time to read or play the piano. I was so exhausted by the end of the day that I would just sit on the couch watching TV or fall asleep. I was bleeding myself dry because I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was absentmindedly fitting myself into a role I didn’t want.

But it was more than just falling into an unwanted role. I realized that I had shed the skin of my previous independent life and quickly camouflaged against my boyfriend. It was easy for me to forget who I was and so I lost myself in our relationship. I found that loving and caring for someone else was much easier than loving and caring for myself. I fell into the trap of codependency and as a consequence, my self-care became non-existent. I became so entangled with my boyfriend and our relationship that I forgot how to be the person I was before we moved in together. I forgot how independent I was when I lived alone in grad school. I let myself believe that my own self-care and my own hobbies weren’t a priority. I thought taking care of myself was selfish when there was always something to be done around the house, always another load of laundry, another room to clean, grocery shopping to do.

The illusion of a happy relationship was torn apart last year. After seven years of being in a relationship and five years of living together, my boyfriend and I realized that both of us were unhappy about certain aspects of our relationship. Our issues have cracked a lot of things open for me. I’ve become aware of things that I never cared to think about before. My codependency and unhealthy attachment style suddenly became obvious. I’ve scrutinized my behaviors and have asked myself difficult questions. I used to pride myself on the fact that my boyfriend and I went to bed together every night, that we spent the majority of our time together. I thought that we loved each other so much that we didn’t need anyone or anything else. I would hear stories from other couples about how separate their lives were, how little time they spent together, how little they communicated with each other. I would think to myself, That sounds awful. I couldn’t imagine feeling so disconnected from my partner. I thrive on the closeness and the intimacy of everyday life. But thinking about it now, maybe “thrive” isn’t the right word. Maybe I immerse myself in the closeness like it’s a drug, some kind of anesthetic to the pain and the fear of being alone and feeling abandoned. The closeness has just been a distraction, a diversion, from my own feelings and my own sense of self. Only now, after being in a relationship for almost eight years, do I really understand the error in my own thought process when it comes to relationships and intimacy. I’ve been so focused on the sustained attachment that I’ve become the vine strangling the flowers.

A lot of things have changed during the past year. Needless to say, rest hasn’t been something that has come easily to me. Stress from my relationship, as well as from work and the ongoing pandemic, has caused my anxiety to spike and I have been at a heightened level of alert for months. I’m constantly worrying about what will come next, what my future will look like, who will be in my life, where I will be. Although the past year has been overwhelmingly stressful, it has also been a blessing in disguise. The awareness I have gained is unparalleled. If not for the challenges, then I wouldn’t have had these realizations concerning my lack of self-care and the need to re-examine my relationship.

My boyfriend and I still have things to work through, but I’m slowly learning to shift my focus back onto myself. I am hopeful that this will benefit our relationship, but regardless it is something that I need to do for myself. To start the year off, we’ve made one change which I resisted at first. We decided to start sleeping in separate rooms to alleviate some of our stress. At first this was upsetting to me because I needed the physical closeness at night, but after a couple of nights of sleeping separately we both realized that the quality of our sleep had improved. We weren’t waking up as much during the night. We weren’t tossing and turning. We were sleeping better. Better sleep benefits both of us. We both feel more rested and better balanced. We didn’t realize how much we were missing out on by sleeping together. Hopefully a change in sleeping habits will have a lasting effect and will lead to improvements elsewhere in our lives.

This year, I am disentangling myself from the unhealthy attachment I’ve developed in my relationship and taking the time to rediscover myself. I want to learn how to be independent again and make time for myself and what I enjoy. I’ve already started to make some positive changes in my life this month and I hope to continue to make more. I am prioritizing my writing, which I haven’t done in years. My ultimate goal for the year is to have a final draft of the novel I’ve been working on since I was fifteen. I joined writing communities and writing workshops to keep myself motivated along the way. I am finding more time to read and relax, rather than stressing about what needs to be cleaned around the house. I’m realizing that it is okay to take a break and sit on the couch with a good book and hot cup of tea. I’m trying to get back into a better exercising routine and started kickboxing. After dinner, I play the piano instead of rushing to do the dishes. I listen to music while cleaning, doing laundry, washing the dishes, taking a shower. I listen to music whenever possible since I didn’t realize how much I actually missed it.

These are just some of the things I am reintroducing back into my life after years of absence. I’m slowly rediscovering myself and the person I once was and realizing that I could be so much more at the same time. This year, I am finally going to take my grandfather’s advice and take care of myself.