Self-care is Unfair

Mental health gurus often emphasise the importance of self-care and talk about being “selfish” sometimes. Conservatives, and especially those of the old guard, understandably roll their eyes at the seeming self-centeredness of these well-meaning folks who have really failed to come up with a decent justification of self-care to Christians.

I’ve wondered about this quite a bit myself. With an extreme mental illness it is getting easier to take care of myself – because it is a necessity – but what about the steps along the way? Surely, we don’t think that people should only care for themselves at a crisis point. So, when is it ok to put ourselves first?

I don’t have any grand philosophical answers to this, but I would like to change the perspective on this issue in order to show how I’ve come to terms with it. At one point when I was trying to get through some pretty serious trauma I stumbled across a meme (yes, a meme! Intellectual, I know) that said that you are responsible for your own healing. It seems obvious, but I think a lot of human pain continues because the universe deals us a blow and we therefore expect the universe to fix it. Even though schizophrenia wasn’t my fault, I had to figure out a way to heal myself. I could accept help – but not expect it. This isn’t fair, but it is essential.

Taking care of yourself actually means not burdening another with your pain.

Maybe you say that you can take care of people while going through a lot and not needing to take care of yourself. Sometimes that is true. Prudence should decide if it is. However, ask yourself honestly, are you often taking out your frustration on others passive aggressively? Do you hold resentful feelings frequently? Do you people please and expect a return? All of these I do. I vent way too much and expect to get better.

This is why self-care isn’t selfish. Some pain in life is an obvious effect of sins we’ve committed and sometimes we endure difficulties with no answer. A lot of things are not directly our fault, but we still have to fix them. No one owes you healing. Self-care is unfair.

Mental health: should conservatives care or does this cause only belong to liberals?

Before answering this question I should give the reader some background on why I’m choosing to write about this topic at all. Five years ago I developed paranoid Schizophrenia, a severe mental illness that affects your perception and involves delusions about reality. It is quite a horrible illness and took about two years before receiving treatment and caused significant trauma to me and obviously deeply affected my family. Before my illness, which developed quickly, I have suffered with suicidal thoughts and depression as a teenager, and as an adult childbirth trauma, post-partum depression, and chronic anxiety. All the “minor” mental health difficulties went untreated and I only recognize them in retrospect.

I am very fortunate that in my recovery time my husband’s family took our children in for a few months while I was treated in the hospital. We are enormously lucky and privileged to have loved ones take care of them at such a critical time. Also, my family, and specifically my aunt have talked to me for hours upon hours working through trauma and anxiety attacks dealing with the fallout of this horrible disease. I am very blessed.

That said, despite all the efforts to de-stigmatize mental illness, I am very alone socially in dealing with it. Most people we have known for years and know I was hospitalized don’t ever address it or ask how I’m doing. Socially I know I can’t discuss my difficulties or they would be met with discomfort and silence. One time I found it necessary to reveal my illness to someone whose communication was upsetting to me after I had just emerged from a six month psychosis due to medication changes. I was told that “God didn’t want me to take the easy way.” While this response seems cruel and even ridiculous given the severity of the disease “everyday” mental illnesses are met with similar callousness. Post-partum depression or any kind of depression are written off as ingratitude, suicidal thoughts or acting on it are “looking for attention”, people with OCD just “need to relax”, people grieving the death of a loved one “need to move on”. The list and terrible responses go on and on.

Is there a reason for why conservatives struggle with these issues? David Shariatmadari makes the argument in the article Why Can’t Conservatives Fix Mental Health? that they struggle because “mental health conditions primarily affect our thoughts and behaviour, faculties that we are taught to view as being under our conscious control.” Also, “The once widespread view that mental illness comes about through weakness of character lingers on today.” Conservatives believe in hard work and self-control, which are admiral qualities. However, many mental issues previously seen as personality defects are now known to be chemical and biological, not a matter of willpower.

Of course, negative, rude beliefs and reactions to mental issues are I’m sure endemic to both sides of the political realm and difficulties with conservatives dealing with mental problems are only in conflict with one aspect of conservative ideology. Traditional Christian religion has always believed in being caring and welcoming to those disadvantaged in any way. It shouldn’t be that hard for conservatives to learn to extend this charity to those with mental health issues and they are going to need to learn to do so. The liberals are pushing this cause hard and those who would otherwise stay and fight will feel too lonely and leave – and it will be for good reason.

I am hoping that other souls who struggle with any form of mental health concerns will feel a little less lonely in stumbling across this blog. I am not in any way a health professional and I have no answers, but there must be a place for those who believe in tradition, religion, beauty, and family to feel that they belong and it is worth staying and fighting. That they are not alone.