It’s Fucking Self Care Baby

Now That’s What I Call Self Care

Lets preface this immediately with just, a little bit of context to set the mood.

I have never been and likely never will be very good at taking care of myself. I like to eat too much and move too little, I spend too much time thinking and not enough time doing. That’s reflected almost comically in the fact that I’m sitting here writing a blog post about my experience with self-care instead of doing the workout regimen my sister just emailed me about 2 minutes ago. But my experience with taking care of myself was a long and hard fought journey, and it’s something that in the past year or so I’ve really come to appreciate. I spent a large amount of my life wasting away and doing nothing, well doing nothing is not quite the exact way of putting it. I was doing something, I was gaining weight and slowly building up a deep resentment and hatred for myself that ended up being reflected in the interactions I had with my friends and family.

It’s never really easy, coming to the realization that you are directly responsible for the things going wrong in your life. It’s infinitely easier to blame your shortcomings on your enemies, your parents, on your mental illness, on some cosmic aspect of life you have no control over. Really though, the truth of it is you are always the one in control, or at least most of the time you are (barring more serious conditions) of the things in your life, even if those things are limited solely to the way you treat others, and the way you treat yourself. My depression, my anxiety, my twisted web of emotions and self reflection is an easy thing to pin blame on when people around me get mad because I’m acting like a total fuckass, but despite this myriad of different things that surges through me the person at the end of the day who’s choosing to act on those impulses is me. My illness doesn’t force me to do anything, it only highlights the courses of action that would be easiest, when I’m depressed I don’t want to move, I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to do much of anything other than eat and sleep, but if I succumb to that desire then I was not forced into it by anything, I chose it because I personally was too weak to do otherwise.

That’s kind of a harsh opinion to have but that’s the mindset that pulled me out of the darkest part of my life, I saw the unhealthy behaviors I was exhibiting, and I chose to stand tall and refuse to act on this impulses to the best of my ability. Sometimes they get the better of be, sometimes I barely get out of bed for two days straight, eat nothing but saltines and nutella (my favorite depression snack) for 3 meals a day, and that’s ok now, and I don’t need to dwell on the negativity of it anymore because the other 5 days of the week I’m pushing myself to experience the world, talk to my friends, laugh and move and enjoy life. I am pushing myself past where I stumbled for so long, and stubbornly refusing to fall prey to the same line of thinking that nearly ended my life after high school. To me that’s what self care is, self care is those things that you stubbornly refuse to give up, that you cling to even as your mind is trying to drain the life out of your body. The things that tie you back into the real world and get you out of your bed when times are tough and remind you how good life can be if you can push yourself to enjoy it.

There are many, many different types of self-care, and despite how much I like to list things I’m not going to make any attempt to categorize all of them. This is my personal blog, my new type of self care as a matter of fact, so I’m just going to be talking about the things that really helped me out and reminded me how good life can be. They range from the smallest of things to the grandest of gestures, but no matter how insignificant an activity might seem the inclusion of it on this list means it’s without any contest something that I truly find enough joy in that I will fight through another day just to get to the next time I get to experience it.

The first, and main thing I’ve started to do to bring me back into the world is something that I truly find so much joy in I will go so far out of my way just to make it work. Getting a cup of coffee with a friend. Sitting down with a friend just to drink coffee and chat is something that I originally got obsessed with cause of Seinfeld’s show on Netflix, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. The freedom of it, just sitting around, talking for a few hours to someone you might not interact with enough in your daily life, it was so nice to see, and seemed like a thing only multi-millionaires with no actual day job could do. Then again I saw it done on Sugar Pine 7, the YouTube show I mentioned in my last post, friends just going out and having brunch (granted here it wasn’t coffee so much as it was Bloody Marys and mimosas) having a good time and just talking. Albeit in both cases there was a camera pointed directly at them the entire time so it clearly isn’t as free form as it’s portrayed as but I digress. I started hounding my friends to come hang out in coffee shops with me, or I would just go alone and watch people and work on my writing, coffee shops turned into a place where I could relax, enjoy the atmosphere, and it taught me to live my life again. When I’m in a mood, the go too guaranteed way to get me out of the house is to invite me for coffee or brunch and I am there in a heartbeat. This spun off into me and my friends going to a board game cafe and playing games for hours on end, again something I physically cannot turn down if offered the choice.

The second thing that brought me out of my shell and really got me to enjoy life again is Dungeons and Dragons, the fantasy role-playing game from Wizards of the Coast. It did wonders for my mental health and ability to cope with things, it allowed me an avenue of self-expression that was accepted (mostly) without judgement. I got to act like a fool, get as emotional as I wanted, it was like an improv session for introverts with a rule book, and I love it. I started when I was taking film for my first year at college, and have kept playing as much as my schedule would allow for the past 3 years. I’ve started DMing (running my own games), and it’s allowed an avenue of creative self expression that I only felt when I would write, but unlike my writing it’s a cooperative activity that doesn’t shut me out of the world for hours at a time. It’s challenged me and rewarded me, and most of all it gives my friends the opportunity to play around and have a good time centered solely in my own wild imagination. I’ve made some of my best friends through DnD, and in most cases strengthened my existing friendships with it as well. It taught me how to talk to groups, how to hold a conversation, how to be more personable and friendly, and also kicked my ass into figuring out how to actually organize my notes which is part of the reason I’m even attempting to write a book at the moment. I highly encourage people to check it out, and if you’re curious there’s a wealth of YouTube content devoted to the subject that will give you a bit of an idea what sort of experience it might be.

The last thing that really started to change my life was the simple act of cleaning up my space. I was still living with my parents when I started this, and my “space” consisted of essentially my single bedroom and nothing else, which made the thought of it less intimidating that having to do it to a whole apartment or house. I started hanging up my dress shirts and pants, folding up my T-Shirts, hoodies, pajamas, and possibly most importantly of all, matching my socks up and only wearing proper matching pairs of socks. In all honesty, the fact that I cleaned up and maintained a clean room is secondary to the importance of wearing matching socks. It’s honestly changed a big portion of my life, despite the fact that literally no one cares about it or is even aware of it unless I tell them specifically (which is do because I’m very excited about my socks). In the actual grand scheme of my life, and the world, and the cosmic destiny of the universe is completely unaffected by my matching socks, whatever minimal effect I personally have on the future is so much bigger than the potential affect my socks would have, but the fact that I care enough about it to actually make sure they match, and are usually poppy and colorful, changed my perspective and gave me a clearer appreciation of what self-care means.

At the root, self-care is exactly what it sounds like, plain and simple. It’s stupid really that it took a pair of matching socks to really nail that through my thick ass skull but that’s how life is sometimes, I guess. self-care isn’t some esoteric incomprehensible concept, it doesn’t need to revered, or placed on a pedestal. It’s just a name for all those little things that push you through the day, keep you going and get you to move through life with power and confidence. Being aware of those things that keep you going and bring you genuine joy is hard sometimes, and sometimes little demons bury themselves deep into your brain and convince you that your bad habits and your self-care are one and the same. Once you can push those demons away, and accept those toxic habits for what they are you can move past it and discover what brings you true joy, and finding those things really does change your life. It can be a glass of wine in a bubble bath, watching a movie alone in theaters on a Sunday morning, or just a colorful pair of matching socks, but no matter what it is, once you find it, it really can change your life.

Or maybe I’m full of shit, who knows? I’m just some jackass with a blog and a lot of feelings so everything I say might be a complete waste of time. Up to you I guess, writing this is self-care too, babey.