Battle

Self care is hard. And it's different for everyone. Sometimes it's hard to tell if you're practicing self care or being self destructive. It's exhausting.

Self care isn't fair. It means you have to say no to things that you want to do because deep down, it's the right step for yourself. It means exploring feelings that hurt to try and understand.

Self care is not selfish. It's necessary to survive.

Getting to that point can be a difficult journey. It was for me. And my god it took a long time. Actually,  I'm still on it.

I was probably 25ish when I finally faced some childhood demons. With the help of a therapist, I learned that it wasn't my fault, that I was still able to be loved, that I might feel broken, but that I could heal. It wasn't easy to believe.

When you've felt undesirable, ugly, broken, or empty for most of your life, learning you can feel otherwise is overwhelming in its freedom. I battled with some intense feelings. I didn't think I deserved to feel any differently so I couldn't accept it was possible.

Self care is easy to procrastinate. When you're in a place that you're used to, why change? The anxiety can be too much.

It was for me once. I held the bottle of pills. I had the thoughts. A friend stepped in--I was lucky.

I am lucky. I have a support system to help me push forward towards new and more challenging aspects of self care. But it has to start with me. I have to accept that I can even begin to try. And it's hard. It's so hard. It's like going against everything you've been taught, felt, experienced.

When you learn that the things you were taught, felt or experienced were not aspects of care...that's when it gets really hard. You have choices. You can act, you can ignore. You can dwell, you can practice letting go. You can hide, you can confront. You can do anything in between. This is when self care and self destruction sometimes dance.

My feeling is that if you're battling some inner demons, you need to do the best things for yourself to help win. Sometimes though, the things that feel good are not the best things for you to do in order to heal. Drugs and alcohol are easy solutions, numbing agents.  Like a child that's hiding in plain sight, "you can't see me!" Maybe they've masked the demon, for a little while but you know they're there. Food was my numbing agent. I ate because it was the only thing that I enjoyed--and it wasn't broccoli and salads. I ate terribly, all the time, and still struggle with it sometimes. I smoked a LOT of pot. I drank too for a little while.  I did whatever I could to feel better. I cried a lot and eventually realized what I was doing wasn't helping. I wasn't better. The numbing agents were just cover ups. I fell into a spiral of helplessness.

Once you know you're not ok, things get scary. The fear of not being able to get over the past, to heal from it is overwhelming. It means I had to finally confront the demons and begin to truly fight. I was terrified. But for me, that was the first step. I didn't realize it at the time but looking back, I can see that's where it started. The self care.

One of the first things I did was tell my parents about a childhood trauma I'd kept hidden. I wasn't sure how I wanted or needed them to respond but I told them anyway. I did it for me. I had to let some of the demons out and let them die in honest air. I practiced self care by sharing my story and it was excruciating.

I wish I could say that all the other demons just fell right out after that and that practicing self care became easy for me but that's not true. I still struggle. I doubt telling people things for fear of their reaction. I've been learning that individual past behaviors can help me with that but the truth is you never know how someone will respond.

Self care for me is strongly tied to communication. I try to be honest and open with people from the start. I pay attention to how they respond to others so I can learn how to talk to them in a way that works for me, in a way that won't aggravate a demon.  I talk to my therapist, and I write about my feelings until I can find the right way to express them aloud. Sometimes they never go from the paper, but I've still communicated them. I've released them.

Self care is hard. And it's different for everyone. It's exhausting and sometimes disappointing and challenging and painful at times too. But it's for me. I will keep fighting the demons, even if they're never gone, they will not control me.