I Tried Self-Care, and it Hurt so Bad

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The masses advocating for mental health say self-care is important, but to what end? What do you do when self-care feels bad? When it feels selfish and guilty? When it makes you feel like a bad friend?

I’m terrible at taking care of myself. I’m a fixer and a helper; I love to please people. To help people. I live for the look on your face when I offer you a thoughtful gift, even if the purchase made me go overdrawn in my account. I will give you the shirt off my back; I will cook you dinner when I don’t even have enough food for myself.

In depression, I’ve lost joy for the things I love like reading and writing and making art. I just sleep and watch TV in my 2 hours of free time per day because it requires the least amount of effort. I’ve convinced myself that I love nothing more than I love sleep and have aimed to do nothing but. This type of self-care has not made me feel good, and neither does the type of self-care when I choose myself before my friends. Being selfless is kind of my thing, and I don’t know how to live with the decision to choose myself over others.

But the masses, they tell me I must do it. And I know I should, but it doesn’t feel good.

Maybe it’s not self-care, this thing I’ve done, where I said I couldn’t do that because I didn’t want to. Because I have schizophrenia and the littlest thing is the biggest thing. Maybe it’s being selfish. Maybe it’s being a bad friend. I don’t know the difference anymore. I don’t even know what self-care is. What is it? What is this thing that people keep telling me to do? What does it entail? How do I do it? How do I do it without feeling like I’ve let someone down? Like I’ve let everyone down?

I know self-care is important, but I haven’t learned how to do it properly yet. I haven’t learned whether or not you’re supposed to force yourself to do things you love even though those things you love feel like the hardest thing in the world in the spirit of self-care or if sleeping and binge-watching Netflix is self-care even though you feel like a loser because you haven’t written anything in three months. I don’t know if not being there for your friends when they are in need is called self-care or it is called being a bad person.

I’m still figuring out this thing called life just like everyone else. I'm somewhat normal in that way, at least.