I’m often asked the question: “What is self-care?”
Not what self-care is to one particular individual, not what it represents, but really, what does the term self-care mean?
A term so clinically ingrained into my mind that I often forget I once believed that “self-care” was only for the extremely crunchy, la-di-da, spiritual types.
I was going to write a post on self-care. It was filled with humor, and bits and pieces of advice I’d gathered from friends and family members about what self-care means to them. I finished the piece, re-read it, and although I enjoyed the humor and wit of it I felt compelled to write from my heart. I felt the necessity to be honest, and real. To be authentic about a topic I often delicately tip-toe around. The very topic I walked on eggshells around for years. A topic I never knew, until a few years ago, would ever play a part in my life.
I had an experience with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Nothing earth shattering, nothing like what our soldiers endure after combat, nothing that was the result of brave or heroic actions. Nothing like the traumatic experiences I hear about every day. Nothing that felt like it needed or deserved credit for resiliency.
I felt embarrassed. I constantly found myself thinking the typical sentiment, “This can’t be happening to me, I work in the field of trauma,” knowing better than to ever think anyone is ever immune to trauma. I thought I had worked through getting assaulted at a residential facility. I thought I had processed those emotions, and that physical pain. The egg on my head had healed years ago. It was done with. It was over—or so I thought. So I hoped.
As I stood in the back of a room while a client became threatening, I found myself freezing. I felt sick to my stomach, I wanted to run, to cry, to scream. I wanted out. I wanted to be anywhere but there. In a matter of seconds I had sky-rocketed up and I did not know when I would ever come down. My nervous system had taken over and I replayed images in my mind of my head hitting the kitchen counter. I had no logical reason to feel this scared—there was bullet-proof glass between me and the individual who wasnot carrying a weapon. Yet here the trauma was, and it was staring me directly in the face. It reminded me of watching a film when the screen splits and you watch an individual’s reality play out right next to what they envision in their mind.
Sh*t, this is serious.
I took a moment to calm myself down and returned to work with a heightened but functioning nervous system. I tried to remind myself that I was in control, I was grounded, and that no one could hurt me. I did anything and everything I could do to get through those minutes that felt like five years. For me, this experience was one day. Honestly, I can probably assume it also will not be the last, but for countless other people this day is their life, this day may be your life.
This trauma reminded me of how fragile our nervous systems are. It reminded me why waking up to go to my job is important. Why the helping profession saves lives, and if we cannot save them, how we can at least positively impact them. This experience with PTSD reminded me of the power our brains carry. The negative implications they can have, and how beautifully we can fight back. How our instincts are so biologically wired to survival down to the core of our being. How I too needed to be resilient, and could be resilient.
I realized how lucky I am.
How fortunate I am to have had this initial incident occur in a work environment, rather than a home, a school, a place where everyone should undoubtedly feel safe. And yet, I was forced to face that fact that I also did not know what to do, or how to feel safe in that moment. I had to give myself permission to feel that way, and to recognize, that I too, even as a professional who works in the field of trauma, am also a vulnerable human.
So, what is self-care? I do not know. But I am continuing to learn. Learning by listening to myself. Listening to family members and friends. I am piecing together the bits of my past that might have been better not to revisit. In practicing these small things, I recognize I am practicing self-care in some of the most fundamental, important of ways, but certainly not the easiest.
So I ask you, the reader—is it fair to say that self-care is also about facing what we would rather turn away from?
There have been times I have had to physically plant my feet to the ground in order to feel my presence literally rooted to the earth. As if the earth and I touched each other in the core of our beings, offering me protection as I to continued to face forward, to move forward, to keep going. The earth acting as my healer, and I, its adventurous wanderer who chooses to keep moving upon its surface.
Is a part of self-care about pushing through the ugliness that we would rather ignore? If we do not move forward we seem to maintain stagnancy, and yet through the discomfort of moving forward I’ve discovered that change really can occur. But one must make that change. One must make that movement. One must feel those yucky, cringe-worthy sensations throughout their limbs in order to discover the other side.
Is it possible that self-care does not always feel all that caring at all? I had to admit that I was not immune to PTSD. I had to believe in that change would only come inwardly if I was willing to face the outer-world that caused me pain. I had to understand, and mostly accept, that trauma can creep into all of our lives and affect us even when we least expect it. Most importantly, when we least appreciate its presence.
So, in honesty and kindness, here is a toast to my experience with PTSD. A toast to anyone and everyone who may battle it when it rears its ugly head. To those who embrace it, and again, to accept it when it passes through their days. And to individuals like myself, the random girl on the internet, who is continuously learning, growing, and reminding ourselves what self-care really looks like.
Author: Anna Polovin
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