day 1: self-care should not just be for rich white women who laugh and eat salad in stock photos1/3/2017 Guess what? Life is hard! If you didn't know that, congratulations, you're living under a rock and I would much rather be there face-down in the dirt than out here in this hard-life-place (otherwise known as, you know, The World). However, no matter how much I try to pretend we're not--by sleeping, or drinking way too much $8 wine, or putting my head under my pillow and screaming into the void--I am here, in the hard-life-place, and so are you. Welcome. I've spent an inordinate amount of time pretending that life is not hard. When I was a kid, people asked me why I smiled all the time, and I replied that it was because I was ALWAYS HAPPY. My peers called me Teacher's Pet and Miss Perfect and Why Does that Girl Never Shut Up, and I simply called myself an ~optimist~. Don't get me wrong--I was often very happy. I loved to read and act and sing and ride horses; I was an only child with two loving parents and plenty of equally nerdy, silly friends. I had a warm, safe home, and never had to worry about going hungry. School came easily to me, even when I got to college. I was, and am, very lucky, and very privileged. However, I wasn't always happy. No one is always happy, even if one is supremely fortunate, or lives under a rock. (It's probably cold and dark under there. There are probably a variety of wriggling insects.) I am a Cancer, a raging maelstrom of emotion hidden beneath a shiny shell; I'm an actor, a reader, a writer, a dreamer, a person who feels so intensely that the sadness of strangers brings me to tears. However, all the way from youth to college, I feared that if I projected any other emotion beyond happiness, I would be labeled a fraud. My identity was Miss Perfect, Little Miss Sunshine, ALWAYS HAPPY. People liked me--admired me, maybe envied me--for my indefatigable positivity. If I wasn't happy, who would I be? Who would want to be around me? Who would like me for me? It turns out that this cocktail of supressing emotion, ignoring reality, family history, and obsessing over perfection does not result in positive mental health. I'll spare you the gory details. Just rest assured that, these days, I'm on a lot of meds and in a lot of therapy. It was in therapy, in fact, that I was first properly introduced to the concept of self-care. Before that, my understanding of the term had been hazy at best. I was not a Self-Carer, I was a Carer of Others. I convinced myself that I didn't need to secure my own oxygen mask before helping others--I could put on her oxygen mask, dammit, and his, and that flight attendant's, AND the pilot's, all before I eventually passed out and died. Besides, self-care was for selfish people, right? After all, when I looked in the self-help section at Borders (RIP) or Googled "how to self-care," it appeared that self-care was to involve taking daily bubble baths, spending my entire paycheck on champagne, ingesting large quantities of cake, and covering every inch of my body in glitter. Self-care seemed lavish, exorbitant, silly, like "TREAT YO'SELF" all day, every day. Worse, it seemed like an exclusive luxury for rich white women who had time and money to burn. You know, the women who laugh while eating salad in stock photos. Instead, I learned that the true definition of self-care is as simple as the name itself. To perform self-care is to take care of oneself. Yes, taking care of myself can sometimes manifest as a scalding-hot bath with coconut oil and Epsom salts, approximately eighteen candles flickering in my tiny bathroom and my cat howling outside as I pretend to be a Celtic mermaid. However, taking care of myself also means knowing when to eat a vegetable and drink a glass of water when all I want to eat is fast food for every meal. It means not sleeping all day. It means paying my bills on time. It means taking a shower for the first time in three days, forcing myself to interact with other human beings, telling my depression to pipe down and let me enjoy two peaceful seconds of my depressing anxious hard-place life.
Self-care can be--should be--just as practical as it is pampering. Instead of being a luxury for the wealthy and lazy, I believe self-care should be a necessity for us all. Self-care can be practiced regardless of one's age, race, sex, gender, ability, mental or physical health, sexual orientation, income, or workload. The definition can be tailored; the means and methods, personally selected. My self-care may not look like your self-care, or her self-care, or his. The only universal is this: everyone deserves self-care, and self-care is for everyone. I'm great at starting projects, and not great at finishing them. I infamously get Big Ideas of the Week, where I attempt a momentous and exciting feat for about three days before I give up and go back to binging Buffy the Vampire Slayer. However, my Big Idea of the Year is this: I will very scientifically and scrupulously research different methods of self-care (i.e., Google it and ask randomn people on social media) and attempt them myself. Every other day, ON THIS VERY BLOG!, I'll record my mood, the self-care method I tried, and what I thought about it. Some tips might be great and helpful. Some might work for you and not for me, or vice-versa. Some days, my depression, anxiety, bad moods, and general distaste for humanity may persevere despite my most valiant efforts. That's okay. I don't want my self-care to be about perfection. I tried that for a while; it didn't work out. In conclusion (yes, I did work at a collegiate Writing Center, thanks very much), I'm excited to learn more about self-care, and hope you'll join me on the journey. Because you deserve it. And maybe--maybe!--I do, too.
6 Comments
1/3/2017 10:27:06 pm
So excited for this project, Dani!
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Dani
1/4/2017 07:50:18 pm
H E I D I
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1/7/2017 12:35:15 am
D A N I !
Allison
1/4/2017 12:15:10 pm
I'm so excited to read this, and I hope you know you're going to be helping more people than just yourself :)
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Dani
1/4/2017 07:50:50 pm
YAY! Thank you, Allison; that's so sweet of you to say!!
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Saire
2/8/2017 07:43:23 pm
Woman! You are my heart. The journey is in the steps you take everyday and the scenery you will uncover along the way. 👣❤ I enjoyed reading this very much because I get to know you from a different perspective. A perspective that I know is hard for me, and I imagine for you too, to put into words in conversation with others in real time.
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