Blog

Self-care is a nebulous word that has often been tossed around in mental health circles worldwide. However, its meaning and application varies by person. In the media the application of self-care has a physical focus. For example, getting daily exercise, eating a stereotypically healthy diet, putting on a face mask, watching tv, and retail therapy (i.e., the purchase of unnecessary items for pleasure). When I consider what self-care looks like for myself I view it as being synonymous with the maintenance of the whole self. I am not suggesting that maintaining physical health is not important, my main point is that it is often the first thing that is thought of when we think about self-care, potentially because it is the most tangible to manage. Emotion regulation and coping with compounding stressors can be intimidating, thus leading to avoidance and abusing distractions. In many cases, we fail to recognize that accumulating stress can result in physical consequences. 

When I close my eyes in a meditative practice, I can see myself for a moment surrounded by an empty vault, but in an instant, there are several things that demand my attention. The farther you traverse this vault the narrower it gets. In the space with the largest dimensions are immediate needs such as school tasks, work tasks, and the physical needs of the self and my codependents. Farther inside, I begin to notice desires for connection with others. The faces of certain people, things they said and did that provoked an emotion linger here. Still yet, there is the innermost part of the vault which is so narrow I can only fit by crawling into fetal position. In this space is the most authentic form of myself that contains my secrets, insecurities, existential questions – the most beautiful and ugly parts of myself. There is so much in the vault that if I manage to find the innermost part, it is fear-inducing because I am shut in and cannot easily find my way back out. I am so far from the physical, I feel as though my psyche or spirit has been severed from my physical body. Therefore, even though I may be where I need to be, paradoxically, I am not. Self-care is like a rope that I tie to the entrance of the vault as I travel further inside so that I can easily find the way back out. Without it, I find myself in a trance, where I am not conscious of what I am doing because I’ve done a specific task so many times before I do not need to think about it anymore. And this lack of attention reduces the quality of my work. Everyday becomes like the next and the world around me is bleak and gray, there is no unique flavor, only complacency and comfort. Traveling to the farthest end of the vault can be terrifying because I am forced to sit with the memories that elicit the unpleasant emotions of anger, sadness, grief, anxiety, shame, and so on, alongside the experiences of love and joy. However, as you will soon come to see, it is necessary for myself to keep my zeal for life. 

If you knew me today, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you the self-harm I engaged in to keep memories and feelings from crawling out of the farthest end of the vault. In fact, I’ve been diagnosed with a ridiculously long strand of mental illnesses: obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, orthorexia, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, and major depressive disorder. My symptoms began manifesting at the age of 12 and ravaged my life for 7 years. My adolescence was the loneliest time of my short life (I am only 20 years old). My diagnoses made it nearly impossible to build and maintain intimate friendships. I developed a contempt for others and life itself. Though I desperately craved connection I suffered from a chronic distrust of those who rejected me because of my illness, including my family. I didn’t believe anyone loved me, but rather that they pretended to care to protect their own social statuses and perceptions of themselves as “good people”. The illness pervaded every aspect of my life, my academics, extracurriculars, relationships and physical health. I’ve been hospitalized twice and have taken time from school because of how unbearable my symptoms were. 

As I reflect on my personal narrative, I acknowledge that for me what helped the most was not the prescription of psychiatric medications. I fortunately no longer take medication. I am in my third year of undergrad at Northwestern University, and I am interning in Milano as a research assistant within ISTUD’s prestigious Narrative Medicine Program. What helped me the most was confronting my immense fear of remembering, feeling, and retelling my narrative in a new way. I claim my story and that ownership empowers me daily. These unpredictable sentiments I resented and believed were useless to life are the essence of youth and humanity. Practically, how do I exercise and express agency over my narrative? Through faith and art, this is my self-care, and self-care looks like praying every time I get anxious, and reading scriptures from my Bible every morning that remind me that I need only to be still because God is fighting for me. I am reminded that I am not alone in my suffering and when I am at my weakest I am truly at my strongest (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Self-care may also look like listening to a song with or without lyrics that invokes, in me, a particular emotion and with my body I speak; it looks like singing a hymn or my favorite pop song; it looks like writing and reciting poetry, or drawing an image that I can’t get out of my head. It looks like talking to a friend who shares similar values and who has earned my trust through word and deed. Sometimes, it looks like refreshing someone else by sharing a word of encouragement or giving them a hug or a gift and counting my blessings. Yes, I love treating myself to dinner, a movie, a facemask, and/or a new outfit, but just remember that selfcare is far more than just the surface level things.