Awesome Disabled

If you’re like me, you’ve heard a lot about self-care. It has become a cultural shorthand for bubble baths, face masks, manicures– all with a soft light Instagram filter.

In theory, self-care is about replenishing your own life force, because we can’t trust that someone else will do it for us. In early Indigenous cultures, the community would care for the individual, because it was important that each person be a functioning member of the community. But now, who cares. People are on their own. So we need to take care of ourselves.

Because I am a Sensory Girlie^TM, I have a issues with a lot of spa stuff, including having a bath. When I’m stressed, it’s very hard for me to bathe or shower, and I certainly don’t have energy to give myself elaborate facial masks or manicures. I don’t like going to manicure shops because they’re loud and it costs money, and your girl is saving up to buy a house. Plus I got some good ol’ body dysphoria, so I don’t love dealing with aesthetics.

So all that soft stuff is out. When I’m stressed, my home is messy, and it doesn’t look like an Insta filter at all. I eat worse, and sleep worse, and it’s hard for me to bathe. So it’s not pretty. Being disabled and stressed is nothing like sitting on a meditation chair and listening to pan flutes.

Still, there are lots of things I can do to take care of myself. Being the only adult member of my household, the first thing I can do is give myself latitude for my household management. I am inspired by the G. K. Chesterton quote, “Anything that’s worth doing is worth doing badly.” So if I don’t have the energy to clean the whole kitchen, I can unload and reload the dishwasher. That way, I will have clean dishes. If my floor is too prickly to walk on, I can use my cordless vacuum cleaner to clean that one patch of floor. If I don’t have the energy to go for a walk or play a board game with my kids, we can watch a movie together. Lowering my expectations for myself is my primary form of self-care.

Self-care is also buckling down and doing important things for my long-term wellbeing. As mentioned (in every single post lol!) I’m saving for my new house. It is a regular part of my month to put away my little pennies into my savings account. I also have a “Amy Buys a House” savings thermometer, like they do for fundraisers. Every month, my youngest and I move the money into the savings account, then color the thermometer to indicate how much is saved. I only have a few more months to go!

Another form of self-care is going to the gym and running. I’ve been training like crazy, and I’m kind of at the point where I get grumpy if I don’t run for a while. I’ve touched the 5k mark a couple of times at the gym, and it feels great to be able to move my body fast. But even before I could go fast, it was still important to move my body however I can.

Self-care is also making a casserole on the weekend. I have my protein and vegetables in a tasty mix that I can eat all week. In the same vein, self-care for me, as an Executive Dysfunction Girlie^TM, is planning two weeks’ worth of lessons for my work at a time. I build a monster slideshow for everything I will teach for two weeks, and I plan the printables in a Google folder. This allows me to plan longer-term projects than I would be able to do if I were planning day-to-day. Plus, it increases my sense of novelty, because half the time I forget what I planned. Sometimes I move to the next slide and think to myself, what are we going to do next? Let’s spin the wheel.

Self-care can be getting groceries delivered instead of shopping for them. Self-care can be drinking a can of diet root beer, because I want one. Self-care can be setting a boundary with family members. Self-care can be taking an easier route home, because I can’t face congested traffic.

I refuse to let my sense of caring for myself be co-opted by a social media aesthetic. Self-care is something that shows grit and strength, something that means I plan to stick around for the long haul.

I’m interested to hear about your self-care. What do you do to support wellness?