Learning Self Care

I desire to to help people and I want everyone to learn the unparalleled value and importance of self care and prioritizing your own mental health. I’ve had to suffer through the first 27 years of my life and I want to share the positive changes and help that I have found as I try to improve and save my life.

I grew up having a mild form of Cerebral Palsy which mostly effects my right side causing involuntary muscle contractions in my right arm, hand, leg and foot. The biggest obstacle was my right foot. The constant muscle contractions combined with pressure on the foot while walking does not help. So I would not be able to walk for too long because the contractions and pressure would create so much pain I wouldn’t be able to continue walking.

The only thing that significantly helped as a treatment I didn’t find until I was about 21. I was given the opportunity to use treatment through a MLS laser treatment which focuses on specific muscles and releases pressure. This was a huge blessing which didn’t make the problem go away but allowed me to walk much better and longer without pain.

After years of inconvenience and suffering and seeing doctors I finally found something that helped me improve physically. However, the physical issue was surpassed by a much more serious health issue that I developed as a teenager. Something was going wrong with my mental health. I didn’t know if it was the Cerebral Palsy getting worse but I had began to experience things I never had before.

I mentally and physically began to react to things that would happen around me suddenly. Sudden noises or movements. Loud noises or someone coming up behind me and tapping me on the shoulder. All of these things would cause me to “jump.” The muscles especially in my upper body through the chest and shoulders would contract harshly and that never happened before.

Mentally I started not being able to handle certain noises like the noise a car makes when the door is open while the keys are left in the ignition. I felt like going crazy. I felt like I needed to cover my ears and shake my head violently. So with all of the problems getting worse we went to Shriners Hospital to see what was going on.

There I was diagnosed with a neurological and muscle movement disorder called Dystonia. With Dystonia there is a chemical imbalance in the brain so wrong signals are sent that causes the muscle movement problems that I was contending with more and more. I was diagnosed at about 14 years old and now I’m 27. The last 13 years my mental health has gotten worse and worse and worse. However, the last 2 years have been severely life threatening with very little to no desire to live and many suicidal thoughts.

I knew that I was not going to be able to overcome this by myself. I sought out medical help and that has saved me to this point. But I have learned that much more than that is required. I have had to learn self care. I have had to learn basically from scratch how to love myself. To learn that I needed to prioritize myself and my mental health over anything or anyone else.

This idea of prioritizing myself and my health over everything was not ever something that I was able to grasp and apply. I always gave of myself for others but I didn’t give to myself as much as I should, actually really at all.

In my suffering the last 2 years I have began to learn and understand the need to prioritize my mental health and then my physical and emotional health. That must come first in order for me to stay alive and healthy and happy and to be able to give my best help to others. In these articles I’m going to go into this journey of self care and learning how to love myself.