Suck at Self Care?

When I first heard the term “self-care” I thought it was a fancy way of saying masturbation. Honestly, the idea of loving and attending to your emotional self seemed absolutely odd.

“Where do you feel safe?”

I remember the first time a therapist asked me.

“Huh?” I said tilting my head like a dog wanting cheese.

“Where do you feel safe?”

It wasn’t a math equation but I was lost. I didn’t know what she was talking about.

Feel safe. Feel and safe were each words I struggled with but together I was perplexed.

More staring. Me at her. Her at me.

“Where do you feel not afraid?” she tried.

“Oh, o.k. Um… Car alone. Tub with bathroom door locked.”

“And…?”

“I’m done.”

“What about with people?” she pressed.

“Yeah, not with them,” I said and by them I included myself.

I hated being alone. In the tub, I’d bring books or play audiotapes (I’m that old). In the car I’d blast music. The idea of myself as company or companionship outside of writing in my journal was not something I had explored or that sounded even a little appealing.

I thought of myself like a plant that I fed and watered and put to bed. I had things to get done. Period.

I went to therapy to eradicate the feelings of anxiety that followed a harrowing year and a half where:

• My sister met our biological father, a homeless drunk, in Boston after he’d been absent for two decades.
• The guy we called “Dad,” our first step-father (and one of my abusers), died of cancer and his eldest (also one of my abusers) hit on me at the funeral, as his casket was being lowered into the ground.
• My grandmother battled stage 4 ovarian cancer and died. I lived with her part-time to help take care other while commuting to school. My aunt was her main caregiver and living with her, as she raised four children, gave me my best up close view of what family life could be. 
• My step-sister, disclosed that she was also abused, before my grandmother’s wake, so some family members, who had not believed me, were less certain that I was lying.
  
• A friend, and someone I had dated, at college, committed suicide. 
• I was going to college as the first in my family to do so and working at a shelter for homeless families where I related more to the clients than the social worker staff.

It was not a joyful and easy time at college. I felt so ashamed of my life and history that I didn’t share the details of much with many (unlike now). Now, I marvel that I finished school at all never mind that I did well. Then, I was horrified when I started having anxiety attacks, going to therapy and had the ever increasing awareness that not all families were as “complex” as mine.

It’s not that nothing good ever happened to me. It did. The town and school system we moved into in high school was great academically. There were literary journals and after school activities and joining them was empowering. I had friends, furry pets and good books to read. I worked at the town newspaper and the mother of my boyfriend back then was incredibly nurturing.

But I was not prepared to identify or meet my own needs. I didn’t even know how much I didn’t know. Basic healthy attachment and developmental skills that are supposed to be learned as infants and toddlers were abstract concepts to me.

Therapy, while helping me understand what trauma and post-traumatic stress are, did little to help educate me on all the basic skills I lacked.

Wouldn’t it have been more effective, as a second-language learner, to be with other new learners as well as those fluent in the language I was trying to learn?

Wouldn’t it have been easier to translate my past experiences to someone speaking the same language as me?

Imagine if you attempted to learn Chinese if English is your first language. Could you do it with one-on-one lessons one hour a week and expect yourself to read or write or travel in China without assistance? How much immersion would you need in order to be independent and think and dream in Chinese rather than your native tongue?

If self-care is a bit abstract, in theory or practice, I will blog a great deal about this topic.

Please send in any of your self-care stories and realizations to [email protected] and indicate if you want them shared on the blog, and if so, how you want your name to appear.

For more on this topic,here is a post on being human basics and one based on my first observations of self-care in practice.