When Self Care Means Getting Out of Bed

What comes to your mind when you think of self-care? Is it a facial mask, or a hot bath? Or a cup of tea? A manicure? Treating yourself to a latte? Spending the night in watching Netflix? Or eating some pizza?

For some people - people like me - self care sometimes just means getting out of bed. Finally taking a shower. Brushing the mats out of my hair. Putting on chapstick. Eating a meal that has any nutritional value whatsoever (i.e. not a cup of ramen or a diet Coke.)

Here's the sad thing: Self-care has become a capitalistic, commodified, and borderline classist culture. Why is self-care inherently tied to buying things? To making yourself prettier? To spending money on things you're going to use to make yourself prettier, while you pop open a bottle of wine that you bought to "treat yourself?" It bums me out, because self-care and pampering is one of the ways that I really like to de-stress! But, in my opinion at least, it's getting more and more inaccessible.

There's a lot of literature out there about the spoon theory, especially in feminist circles. Basically, the spoon theory is a way of measuring the amount of energy it takes to perform tasks throughout the day. The theory is often used by people like me, who live with chronic (physical or mental) illness. You start off the day with a certain amount of spoons. You use a spoon for every task you complete. By the end of the day, your spoons are gone and you need to rest.

For me, this leads to what I call 'spoon rationing.' For example, if it takes a spoon for me to go to class and it takes a spoon for me to put on makeup, I have to go that day without putting on makeup so I can conserve the mental and physical energy to go to class instead. If it takes a spoon for me to shower and a spoon for me to make dinner, and I'm on my last spoon of the day, I have to pick which one I need more. It's exhausting. And honestly? It makes me feel like a burden. Like a 'debbie downer.' It makes me feel lazy and needy.

So basically, the point of this post is that self-care isn't a one size fits all cure. It's not a magical concept. Whipping up a DIY vanilla scented body scrub or painting your toenails sometimes isn't plausible for chronically sick, mentally ill, or just plain tired people. And who isn't tired? We're all tired right now. Especially activists. It's okay if your self care means just putting on some warm socks and some deodorant. Or even if self care means missing class for a day. I just try to always put my wellbeing first when it comes to deciding what I'm going to spend my spoons on. Which would feed my soul more? Driving to the supermarket, or going for a walk in the sunshine?

Take care of yourselves. xx