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A Lesson in Self-Care

What does self-care mean when you struggle with depression?

By Kendra Felicity WheelerPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Photo via @dearemilyann on Instagram, via @glittergremlins on Tumblr.

I read an article a while back (after it had circled around on my Facebook feed) that discussed self-care. I agree with the author when I say this: People have a skewed view of what self-care really means. So many people today see self-care as taking a nice bath, eating a piece of cake, reading a book, and buying yourself new lotion, but that is not what self-care is.

Though this might seem obvious to say, self-care is about taking care of yourself. It may seem simple enough, but for some people, self-care is a battle. The author of the aforementioned article discusses "[building] a life you don't need to regularly escape from," meaning doing all those pesky little things that make life difficult, but that are necessary to make a successful life. Things like making budgets, picking up shifts at work to pay the bills, hitting the gym on days you don't want to, eating your fruits and veggies...I could go on forever.

These are all important things. They are definitely self-care for a mentally healthy person, but not all people can choose to have a successful life, because first they have to choose to live.

I want to talk about what self-care means for someone who is mentally ill—specifically, when you struggle with depression. Whether you're mentally well or unwell, self-care is not an easy thing to do. It's really hard. Every day, you have to make a choice: do I take care of myself or do I let things slide again? You don't always win the battle against yourself.

The thing is, when I was at my lowest, I didn't just struggle with those "pesky little things." Those were completely off my radar! I wasn't concerned with making my life work like a well-oiled machine, I was just trying my best to get through each day. I struggled with basic self-care. The most basic self-care that you learn very early-on in your life.

When you're depressed, this is what self care means: making sure you leave your bedroom each day, making sure you shower enough, that you brush your teeth each day. It's making sure you eat at all, let alone eat something healthy. It's getting dressed in the morning and making it to work or school, whether you're mentally present or not. It means remembering to brush your hair before you leave the house. It means getting more than three hours of sleep every night. It's remembering to take your medication each day.

For some people, these things are a struggle. To some, it seems like it's easy to just say "no" to yourself or to your mental illness when all you want is to sleep forever, but it's not that simple for some people.

People don't usually talk about this part of depression because it's unpleasant—not just unpleasant, but downright gross when you haven't showered in five days, you haven't brushed your teeth in two days, and all you ate in the last 24 hours was a chocolate-chip muffin.

What self-care really is for someone who struggles with depression is choosing to survive each day, even on days when you wish you wouldn't. Self-care is making sure that your body doesn't fall apart when it feels like it wants to. Self-care is choosing to live even when you want to die.

That's what self-care really is.

It's not a piece of cake. It's not new lotion. Sometimes, it's not even a trip to the gym.

It's making sure you keep living. Once you overcome your demons, that's when you can move up to the next level and tackle those "pesky little things" that keep your machine well-oiled.

As for the cake? There are some people who think self-care is a synonym for self-indulgence. Those people are wrong.

But do you know what? Indulging in a piece of cake, or taking a break from your hard work to read a book for a half hour is okay. It makes the hard stuff a little easier when you have these things to look forward to.

Once you're alive—really alive—and once you're working on making your life successful, take a break once in a while. Self-care is hard work. You deserve a bit of self-indulgence, too.

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About the Creator

Kendra Felicity Wheeler

Kendra is a 24-year-old music major studying voice at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She's an aspiring singer and actor, and likes to write in her spare time. She has a growing Instagram following at @kendrafelicitywheeler .

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