What is self care!?

seriously though, what is self care? I see so many things on the media and posts that say “self care is self love”, but I am still in the dark about what it means. I see so many big name youtubers and instagram models doing a face mask and drinking tea with the tag line of self care. So I took part and through on a face mask and drank my green tea and waited till I felt better. When I washed my face the bitterness of life had not gone away. It did make my face look good though.

Self love is a hard task for thoes with mental illness. I find myself saying that I don’t “deserve” any love for myself. Which is awful now that I have written it down, but it’s a truth. For thoes in deep depression caring for yourself is sometimes a very hard task, takes too much effort when you already have a rock on your chest. There is hardly any self love in the mental illness world, that is at the core of most illnesses. That lack of love brings on the feeling of unworthiness and shame for any good things in life.

I have a bit of a problem with the media, mainly from my experience of wanting a perfect life, body, house etc. and never receiving the images in real life as I have seen on Instagram. Thoes modles look like they have the best life and have the self love thing down to a tea, but that’s not possible for anyone. It just creates a false sense of perfection. I always thought to myself when I tried self care “am I doing this right?” Like it’s a task with a certain way of accomplishing it.

Self care can be anything I found out. I find joy when I look at a pretty tree, so maybe a walk in the woods would be self care for me. It’s literally anything that makes you happy. For the ones who struggle, a sip of happiness is everything. That being said, disorders have this way of making everything seem bad, it creates a cloud over anything good in your life. Things you once loved you might find no joy in anymore. That is the reason why I struggle finding things that make me happy, I know what I have loved in the past, but the pure happiness isn’t there.

There is so much uncertainty in how ones with disorders can find love for themselves and it may differ from day to day.

One thing that I have been trying that’s been working for me is, dedicating a full day to me. That includes making sure my hygiene is good, catching up on all the work that’s been stacking up, doing something that interest me that particular day, whether it is taking a bubble bath or a walk or simply watching a good show. Just having a day that I know is for me has helped with hard weeks. Knowing on Saturday I get to rest. I also take this time to assess my state of mind, notice if I’m falling into a depressive state or having random anxiety attacks and see if there is anything causing it (usually nothing for me) see if I can fix it, or simply planing on how I will deal with the next week. For example if the depression is setting in, I know I’m not going to be productive that week, so I make sure that I’m ahead on work so that won’t cause anymore stress then needed.

This plan won’t work for everyone but it can be a start if you are lost and looking for a way to cope with yourself and start to lay the Seeds of self love.

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