Self-Care

Self-care is one of the hardest things for me. I struggle with it daily. From taking an Ativan when I need it, to not picking at a wound that is trying to heal. It’s all the small things I don't do that add up to the mess I usually am at the end of the day. All because I don't take the time to take care of myself. I'm so worried about everything all the time that I let that worry consume my life.

I was driving today, thinking about the mark on my arm from a recent car accident and I was thinking about how earlier I hadn't picked the scab off like I wanted to, sorry gross I know, but it's a coping mechanism I picked up as a child. But I didn't do it. Instead, I put the ointment on and went about my business. It was a small step but one I didn't realize I had taken until hours later. And suddenly I was so happy with myself. I had self-cared without realizing it. Why can't it all be that easy?

Unfortunately, for me, self-care has a certain negative stigma around it that I've never quite understood. Self-preservation has honestly been lost on me in the past 30 thirty years it seems, because I've no thought to taking care of myself the way I should. I don't believe I ever had a positive role model to look up to in that department. No one I spent enough time with during those formative years that could influence the way I would love myself. I watched how the women I loved, loved themselves, and it was hardly ever pretty. Putting the needs of others first no matter the cost, allowing others to use and hurt them, not admitting to problems that need addressing. The list goes on and on and I believe that somewhere along the line I got so lost in it that I completely lost who I was.

That may be seem like a far jump from self-care, but it truly isn't. How do you care for someone you don't know? That you don't like?

For Christmas I got a journal and on the cover is a quote from one of my favorite authors. “If a story is in you, it has to come out.” I start flipping through the pages, reading the prompts, and I'm realizing I don't have answers to some of these. Most of these. And the ones I could answer, I didn't want to. Like, who cares what my favorite thing to do was when I was young. Or what I was good at when I was younger.

But then I realized, I should care. I should want to remember the things that make me, me. I should dig through my memories and piece things back together. I should want to know all about me and figure out the best ways to take care of myself along the way. The more I know about me, the more I like me, the better care I will take of myself. At least that is my thought process.

It's been one of the longest, weirdest and best weeks of life so far and it’s not over yet! I can’t wait to see what the next two days hold for me, including, starting a prompt a week in my new journal, to take time to get to know myself and take a time out from constantly ignoring myself. Who knows! Those prompts may even find their way on to one of my upcoming posts!