Tag: self-care
Rest and self care are so important. When you take to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve others from the overflow. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.
Eleanor Brown (via onlinecounsellingcollege)
Self care is not selfish or self indulgent. We cannot nurture others from a dry well. We need to take care of our own needs first, then we can give from our surplus, our abundance.
Sigyn, probably. (via earth-paths-green)
you don’t have to be perfect at self care to deserve medical treatment
Disabilities and chronic conditions often require difficult and time-consuming self care.
For instance:
- People who are paralyzed have to pay very close attention to their skin to avoid dangerous pressure sores
- People with CF have to do a lot of breathing treatments
- A lot of people have to keep track of a very complicated medication schedule
- Or any number of other things
A lot of medical complications are preventable with the right self care. But no one manages perfect self care, because self care is hard, and people are human and nobody is perfect.
Making a mistake that leads to an injury that was theoretically preventable sometimes pisses off doctors. It’s also something that people sometimes feel very ashamed of. This can be a deterrent to getting medical care.
It’s not right that it’s this way. You don’t have to be perfect to deserve medical care. Sometimes you make mistakes and need treatment. That’s part of the human condition, and it doesn’t mean you’re somehow less deserving.
Nondisabled people injure themselves doing careless things all the time. People who fall off bikes in a moment of carelessness and break bones get to have medical treatment without facing that kind of hate. So do people who burn themselves cooking. Doctors are capable of understanding that people make mistakes and get hurt — and people with disabilities deserve this understanding just as much as anyone else.
Everyone who needs medical care deserves it. Including people who make mistakes. Including people with disabilities who make mistakes. You don’t have to be perfect at self care to deserve treatment.
Rigorous attention to self care is important. So is medical support for needs that arise, including as the result of mistakes.
Take care of yourselves, watch the people around you carefully, and cordon off the ones who are toxic, so that the universe can decontaminate them for you through exposure and death.
Warren Ellis
This is always very good advice (I’ve written some version of it myself at various times), but it’s especially poignant for me to read it from Warren, now, because I’ve just had to remove a profoundly toxic, dishonest, manipulative, bad, bad, bad person from my life. You’d think it would be easy, but it wasn’t.
So, speaking from experience: it’s not your fault that a toxic person fooled you, even if they fooled you for years. It’s not your fault, and while it is entirely expected that you go through the normal grieving process that is associated with any loss, try not to spend any time blaming yourself for not seeing all the things that you can see now in hindsight much sooner than you did.
Take care of yourself, as Warren says.
(via wilwheaton)
THIS.
(via dianesdreams)
okay if you suffer from anxiety, or depression, or even insomnia, or you just feel shitty all the time, listen up you little shit because what i’m about to say might just help you like nobody’s business
you see these motherfuckers right here? these crayons are like little sticks of wax joy that will never fail to help you in your time of need. these are your buddies right here. You don’t meed a million crayons like me, I just happened to buy these the other day for another project and then loved them so much. any crayons will do.
{colored pencils work too, but you want some crayons because that’s what works the best. don’t ask me why, but you feel 3000% better coloring with crayons than you do with colored pencils or even markers. IT BRINGS BACK THE CHILDHOOD INNOCENCE OR SOME SHIT LIKE THAT}
tl;dr just get some crayons i don’t even care what brand if you want to be a disgusting little shit go ahead and buy RoseArt you just need crayons.
okay, so it’s really simple. you just color. if you have a coloring book, awesome. if you don’t, look up some stuff on google and print it. get stuff that makes you happy, like your favorite disney princess or cartoon character. just type in something like “little mermaid coloring pages" and you’re good to go
now, here’s the best part. grab a crayon and just fucking go for it. don’t even think about anything else, just focus on coloring the picture however you want it to be and don’t stop until you’re completely satisfied with it. when you’re done with that one, color another one.
i promise, by the time you’ve finished coloring to your heart’s content, you’ll feel so much better. i have no idea why it happens, but coloring with crayons just lifts your stress away, even for a little bit. keep some blank coloring pages on hand and your box of crayons close to you for easy access should you really need it one day.
pro tip: when coloring, spill your crayons out
just take your time and spill all of them out from the box and then like run your hands over them and kinda mess the pile up because that shit is the most orgasmic feeling in the world i don’t know why but it just is
okay, i hope this helps. and if anyone looks at you funny or says that you’re too old to color with crayons, don’t get angry just pity them because they think that there’s an age limit to happiness and they obviously don’t remember how awesome it is to color so just offer them a crayon and if they don’t take it, well, sucks to suck
bringing this back because it’s the only thing that’s gotten me through this summer
Literally this is one of the most helpful things for me
Yep. This works for me, and worked really well with many of my clients when I did social work.
here’s the deal with self care, for me:
pleasure, in the fun late-capitalism hellhole of present-day america, is treated like a luxury. it’s expensive. it’s frivolous. it’s guilty. if we want to eat ice cream out of the carton and be socially acceptable at the same time, we’d better have earned that ice cream. maybe by like running a marathon or getting dumped by an asshole. if we’re going to duck into the corner store and buy fresh flowers, it’s because we’ve had a hard week, not because flowers are nice. we can take a day off work, but only if we’re sick. we have to suffer before we’re allowed extra kindness.
in this equation pleasure is optional (irresponsible, even), except when it’s a balm for suffering.
however! we need pleasure to live. a life without nice feelings in it is like a diet with no vitamins in it. it’ll make you sick and eventually it’ll kill you. we know this because people with depression stop feeling pleasure, and they often kill themselves. left untreated, depression is a fatal disease.
pleasure is not optional. pleasure is not a luxury. without it, we die. that is literally the opposite of a luxury.
because pleasure is treated like a luxury, and priced accordingly, it is fucking hard to get. it’s hard to take time to relax and see loved ones when corporations aren’t required to offer paid vacation. it’s hard to buy that special face scrub or art print or pretty yarn when it costs $35 and student loans are breathing down your neck. so pleasure gets saved up for when things are really bad. pleasure gets budgeted. pleasure, once again, becomes something we have to earn by abstaining and hurting and gritting our teeth.
do this to people long enough and pleasure becomes potently associated with guilt. this thing we need desperately to stay alive is suddenly something we can’t seek out without looking over our shoulder and wondering if we’re allowed to have it.
that’s why it’s so important that we talk about self care, and tell ourselves and each other that it is okay to do things that feel good. it is necessary to do things that feel good. we have to uncouple suffering and pleasure, because the idea that we have to earn feeling good by first feeling bad is monstrous and wrong.
take care of yourselves, darlings. don’t feel bad about it.
No one here seems interested in the grimy parts of mental health. Everyone wants to talk about mental illness as quiet introverts drinking tea and nervously stuttering over words. No one ever talks about symptoms like paranoia or hallucinations or hypersexuality or compulsions or homelessness or drug addiction or delusions or psychosis or violent urges. Every time a clearly mentally ill person commits a crime, and someone says, “Hey, maybe this is a sign that we need to improve mental health awareness in this country,” everyone goes to screaming: “This isn’t about mental illness! Mentally ill people aren’t violent!”
But yes, sometimes mentally ill people are violent. Sometimes we are bad people. And even those mentally ill people are in need of advocacy, maybe even more so.
When you post “Protect people with mental illnesses at all costs,” do you mean all of us, or just the cute ones?
I get sick of tumblr’s version of self care, which 90% of the time threads into this beautifully: go pet a fuzzy cute animal! pile up your favorite blankets from childhood and watch disney movies! take a nap! play a game from this list of cute soothings games!
More realistically: go take a shower because it’s been three days. Wash the dishes that have been in the sink since last Friday that you can smell as soon as you open your door because rotting food stinks. Pick all your clothes off the floor because that’s where your entire wardrobe is and you’ve already cried today because you tripped over a sweater and realized the cat puked on it. Call someone who can give you enough courage to pay that bill you’ve been ignoring. Put away the crackers because that’s all you’ve eaten for two days straight. Apologize to the friends who are worried sick about you, and if you can’t at least let them know you are ok and need space.
One of the most empowering types of self-care is responsibility, but tumblr just wants to sit in a closet strung with fairy lights and read their favorite fic.
“Cute” self-care for “cute” mental issues. That’s not reality.
The Self Care Journal is 100 pages of worksheets, journal prompts, coloring pages, and more! Get yours now!
Done, son. More tools & strategies to consider to keep qtibpoc alive. On it.
YES
here are links to all sorts of helpful things that i have found and i hope you check it out. these are posted on my blog under the *distractions* link and is updated continually. if you have any websites that should be added, send me an ask! remember that i love you and i am always here!
having an anxiety attack?
quietly calm down(quiet place)
Need distractions?
cut paper, not your skin (trigger warning: blood)
Cutting
Self Injury Recovery Masterpost
99 Coping Skills: Things to do Instead of Cutting
Suicidal?
How To Tell Tumblr That A User Is Threatening Suicide
What To Do If Your Friend Is Talking About Suicide
How To Help Someone Who Is Suicidal
What To Tell Someone Who Is Suicidal
Video To Anyone Thinking About Kill Themselves
Depressed?
if you need a hugEating Disorders
helping someone with an eating disorder
Need advice?
anonymous comfortED Recovery: Self Soothing Techniques
telling people how you’re feeling
how do i tell someone when im afraid?
Just need a pick-me-up?
the dreams room27 videos that will make you happy
random acts of kindness caught on film
Videos:
for the girls who are starving
for the survivors of rape or abuse
for anyone who thinks they are worthless
Holding the Bowl 