#endometriosis endometriosisawareness chronicpain chronicillness selfcare feminism femaleempowerment

[soovaryit]

I have to put my hands up and say that in general I am terrible at self-care. I'm definitely getting better, but when you've been in a negative mind-set for a long time, it is very difficult to recognize your own needs and when you're being self-destructive. The way you take care of yourself is going to be completely individual to you but I wanted to share some of my struggles and triumphs that probably a lot of people can relate to.  

At the point in my life where my nutrition came solely from supernoodles and wine, I would have rolled my eyes at the concept of self-care and dismissed as self-indulgent bullshit. For a long time I would read self-care posts and the positivity and simplicity of them would make me angry. I find a lot of them so reductive (i.e. the ‘just love yourself!’ ones) and some verging on abelist, with strict exercise routines and diets being at the forefront of you supposedly making yourself feel better. I am 100% not discounting exercise as a way to make you feel better – it does. But there are lots of different ways to love and take care of yourself and for me, I knew it wouldn’t be as simple as clicking my fingers and changing my attitude or getting on a treadmill.

 So anyway, the past few months I have been thinking about the importance of keeping yourself happy or at least stable by thinking about what you need from yourself and others. I could do a hundred posts on this and probably will. Firstly I’ll start with something I’ve always been guilty of doing – numbing. I’m gonna mention Brene Brown here (because I can’t go a day without talking about her). One of her great quotes from her talk on shame is ‘If you numb the negative, you numb the positive too’. And she is bang on about that. 

Everybody does something to numb reality, whether it's drinking, drugs, obsessing over exercise, excessive shopping... there are literally so many things that we do to push negative feelings to the back of our minds. I wish I was one of the people who would exercise to do that but nope. Mine has pretty much always been alcohol. And don’t get me wrong, I love alcohol, and in moderation it can be totally fine and it didn’t used to affect me in that much of a negative way, but it does now and that was something I needed to address. I used to question why I was miserable and never really looked at my own behaviour. I thought I drank to feel better like everyone else and what was wrong with that? When you're on a variety of pain meds and hormonal treatment there is so much wrong with that. Everybody knows alcohol is a depressant. So when you have underlying feelings of depression that you try and cover it up using a depressant, shit will hit the fan at some point. It’s hard to not have a crutch for when you feel like you need to escape reality, but sometimes working through the shit you’re ignoring will actually make you feel better (once you get through the hell of doing it). I still drink but I’m trying to do so in extreme moderation, and more importantly only when I actually want to and not just to socialise. When I feel like I just want get off my face drunk, I can now identify its usually because I’m stressed and/or miserable, and something I find super useful is to make a list of good, healthy things you can do when you feel really low. Even if they don't make you feel better at the time, they will contribute to making you healthier and happier in the long run and can be your go-to’s instead of something you know will be damaging. Some days I roll my eyes at my own list and decide I can't be that person today but generally it gets me through. I’m not gonna put the whole list here but it’s pretty simple things i.e. replacing bingeing on sweets to bingeing on fruit (sometimes this actually works and its pretty much a miracle on my part). Also, simply preparing to feel terrible is part of my self-care routine (that sounds more bleak than its supposed to). For example, I started my period yesterday and it's the worst pain I've had in a loooong time. The feeling that I could pass out at any minute is back (literally get black spots in my eyes and spin out if I move too quickly), my legs are almost too heavy to move and it feels like there are hot, sharp knives stabbing my abdomen. It was vaguely manageable with nefopam and a coffee (do not recommend but I didn’t sleep well) in my system but after a hazardous food shop that involved me leaning against a wall for a number of minutes trying not to black out, 2 hours later I am back in bed, hot water bottle in hand, gritting my teeth. 

 The difference today is that I feel prepared for this mentally. This is the first month that I have ever felt that way, EVER. I used my amazing period app to track my cycle so I knew when this was coming. I made sure I had lots of healthy food in the house, not many plans for a few days and had enough painkillers. I also try and get washing and cleaning done and make sure I have enough money to get cabs if I need to. It sounds trivial but these simple, seemingly unimportant things can really help when you feel horrific and the smallest task seems unachievable.

In general, paying more attention to your own behaviour and thoughts will tell you a lot about the ways you can make yourself happier. I liked to ignore mine because it was easier. Drinking heavily didn't make me happy, getting involved in pointless situationships (big fan of that word) didn't and working 3 jobs at once definitely didn't, but rather than take a step back and think about it, I carried on until I burned out and would look for external sources of blame. I felt like it was easier that way and to be honest it was, but ultimately, it left me in a state.

In terms of relationships, both platonic and otherwise, I was guilty of putting others needs before mine as well as worrying about the impressions I was giving off, rather than how I actually felt in myself. You can't give anything to anyone when you're running on empty and will often end up making both your situations worse and more negative, so concentrating on your wellbeing first is super important.  When people had suggested I think about my own behaviours and needs in the past I would think literally HOW?! my mind is like a never ending vortex of negative thought patterns that I can’t control. That’s where therapy is your beeest friend. It can be so so difficult to access therapy for many reasons and I appreciate that, but it’s usually worth the wait so try your best to stick with it or start the process if you haven’t. Anyone with a long term condition should absolutely have it because trust me it would have affected you in ways you didn’t think possible. Contact IAPT or Mind for more info on it.

Today I had my last counselling session with a wonderful lady that I have been seeing for the past few months. I equally dreaded and looked forward to each session and every week thought about how much easier it would be to stay at home. We would talk about difficult, upsetting and super personal problems in these sessions but nothing made me emotional until the last one, where she told me she had learnt a lot from me and could see the amount of strength I had from holding on to negative feelings for so long, and now seeing them as empowering.

It really took me by surprise that I didn't cry until she complimented me and said something positive, not only because I am a crier (anti-depressants kind of put a stop to that tho..), but because that to me revealed just how much of a negative opinion I have of myself. I found it easier to talk about difficult experiences and times when I had failed or felt worthless but couldn’t receive one compliment from someone who knew all the ‘bad’ things about me without struggling to believe it. That seems ridiculous and just convinces me further how important it is to keep yourself happy and acknowledge your achievements.

If I had read this a year ago I would have rolled my eyes and thought it was stupid, because I was stuck in a destructive rut that was easy to be in. I never in a million years thought challenging my own behaviour and working through situations that made me feel uncomfortable, rather than avoiding them, would make me feel positive and empowered. I don’t necessarily have any solid tips for self care, neither do I want to be preachy and pretend that I’ve figured it out and wake up everyday feeling myself (I don’t). But I have learned to wholeheartedly respect myself, just as much as I would anyone else. I’m comfortable in being alone and value my body and my mind where before I absolutely hated them. I don’t exercise a tonne and I watch too much TV but ultimately, I like myself, and recognise that all I can do is improve at a pace that feels right and accept the bad days.

‘Loving yourself’ is difficult. It takes time, work, strength and allowing yourself to be vulnerable. But you can start with paying attention your own behaviour and needs, as well as the behaviour of those closest to you (sometimes self-care involves cutting toxic people out so bear that in mind). Do what you need to do to feel at peace with yourself, and never let anyone put you down or make you feel weak for doing that, because it is crazy hard. Next post I’m gonna write a list of the super simple things I did to start feeling better but right now I have to eat a lot of chocolate and roll around in agony.