The importance of self care

It’s been a stressful time over in Jane Lane land lately.

My life has been up and down like the stripes in a rocky road ice cream. Recently, I’ve had two really good years after I changed jobs to one that lets me work from home and where my coworkers are not arrogant dickheads. However these last few months I’ve had a bit of a blip – feeling depressed, teary and losing control of my emotions again. It’s disappointing to feel like I’m backsliding after so long in recovery, not to mention the massive investment and successful graduation from therapy.

Objectively, Nothing with a capital N is wrong in my life at the moment (don’t you think it’s even more frustrating sometimes when that is the case and you still feel down??!). I’ve got a good job, relationship is good, living situation is good, cats are fine, friends and social life is busy, hobbies keeping me occupied…. why am I losing my grip?

And then I realised it’s because even with all the good stuff going on, sometimes it’s just TOO MUCH. Too much socialising, too much ‘fun’ stuff to do, to much work (even if it’s successful). Too many obligations. Literally zero time to relax and think about nothing and feel like I’m ok to just exist rather than work my way through a massive to-do list.

I also realised I’ve been slipping massively on my self-care.

Anyone who has gone through Dialectical Behavioural Therapy will be familiar with the PLEASE MASTER skills for reducing vulnerability to negative emotions. They are:

• Treat PhysicaL illness
• Balance Eating
• Avoid mood-Altering drugs
• Balance Sleep
• Get Exercise
• Build MASTERY

So far, out of that list I’m only doing the last one – I’m pleased that I do generally master and accomplish a number of different things, be they work related, creative or academic projects. However everything else has gone out the window – I’m constantly physically ill from stress and lack of sleep, my eating is erratic because I forget or feel too much of a knot in my stomach from stress to eat normal meals, I’m back on the booze after a happy and successful year of giving it up, not to mention smoking up a storm, and I’ve gone from being an everyday gym bunny to cancelling my membership in January and doing ZERO exercise (because I’m too stressed). So this unvirtuous circle of self-non-care feeds into itself and leads to me feeling more shit, less able to cope, less able to eat / sleep / exercise well, etc.

So what to do about it?

Well yesterday I went back to the buddhist centre for meditation class. I’ve gone on and off of it because at times I’ve found that when I meditate too much, I lose my drive and ambition to do anything (probably because I’m not good at doing anything in moderation – even meditation!). However a bit of balance would be welcome now, hence embracing the zen zone and the do-nothingness of meditation. I felt much better after that, and I’m going to try and get in the habit of practicing on my own on a daily basis, even if only for 10 min.

I’m trying to be responsible with food and stop enforcing my funny food preferences, instead listening to what my body tells me it wants to eat. Today it was a ham and cheese sandwich with lots of mustard and gherkins, plus some salt and vinegar crisps. Normally the nutritionist voice in my head would go ‘noooo, you can’t eat crisps! bread is too fattening!’ but that voice is having to just stuff it – my body knows better and I’m trying to get back in touch with that instead of letting my mind overrule that. I’m trying to stop taking klonazepam every night to help me sleep – I was getting so used to it that it wasn’t working anyway despite increasing doses, and I was waking up at 4AM every morning – annoying! At least now, if I’m tired, it’ll be natural tiredness rather than a weird drugged out yet sleepless grogginess.

I’ve yet to tackle the exercise portion of my self-care plan but that’s truly because there are not enough hours in the day, plus having heart palpitations from stress is hardly conducive to wanting to go out for a run. My plans are to start doing yoga or something similarly calming once I finish my uni final assignment at the end of this month. In the meantime, I’ve booked myself in for a holistic full body massage with a masseuse who sounds super understanding and knowledgeable – hopefully this will help me recover from all the stress and pressure I’m carrying around in my body.

I haven’t given up the booze yet either but I’m thinking about it – however I have stopped the smoking as of 5 days ago, so hurrah for that. Already it’s helping me sleep better without having the stimulant nicotine coursing through my system all night long.

That’s all from me peeps – I’ll report back to share how it’s going. After all writing is also part of my self-care plan, so long as it’s no pressure, it helps to put stuff out there and get thoughts out of my head and into the air, plus a bit of encouragement as I try to make positive changes….

Wishing you all lots of strength and peace,

Jane Lane x