Self Care Soliloquy

Self Care. It comes in many different shapes and sizes and morphs into different beings on a constant basis. One day it looks like grocery shopping and eating cereal for dinner. Another time it looks like eating 3 meals and showering. Sometimes it looks like reminding yourself not to destroy the skin around your nails from your anxiety. Sometimes it looks like zoning out to the rest of the world while calming your racing mind inside. Sometimes it looks like sleeping in. Sometimes it looks like not sleeping at all till you run the demons out of your mind. Self-care is a chameleon and while one thing might have worked for you one day, the next time it might not. One of the most important ideas I have learned so far on my self-care journey is to not get angry at myself when something I try once doesn't work a second time, just keep learning and taking care of yourself on this journey of life.

The Body Bubble

Today someone touched my leg while I was getting off the train. While he was a train worker and trying to help me get off the train, he didn't use his words for a simple action that really just could have been said. It bothered me way more than I expected it to, so I decided to delve down into those feelings to figure them out. As I sat in the feeling of being violated, I tried to understand why a simple touch was so off-putting. I realized that as a disabled woman, I for the longest time have been touched involuntarily by doctors, physical therapists and by misguided well-meaning people. Lots of people don't understand that my wheelchair is an extension of my body, so if you come up behind me and push my chair without asking, you are essentially pushing a person walking.Now while it might look like you are helping me, if you don't ask--you're not!! You are actually harming the relationship of trust between able-bodied people and disabled people. As someone who works incredibly hard to build a trusting relationship with my body about control, and learn to love it, touch is an incredibly powerful in trust in my relationships. Try to enhance the bubble rather than pop it.

Not being ok-- and being Ok with it

I don't have to feel great or even ok all the time. While society and those around me feel the need to always try and fix me when I'm not feeling ok, I've learned to listen to my body rhythms of highs and lows. While learning to surf the highs and just lie down on my board during the lows. It is OK to not feel OK all the time. I used to panic everytime I felt low not knowing exactly what I thought had triggered my low-not understanding that while sometimes a very specific event will trigger a deep low, all waves go up and then crash down, in order for the next wave to rise up. I have learned the panic of the low does nothing to help you paddle through it, just paddle and wait for the next wave to carry you high, and learn to enjoy the lows to get to the highs.