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.

Mindfulness May Actually Make a Difference

Recently, when trying to manage various conditions, my mental health nurse recommended the free app Smiling Mind. I was a bit skeptical about its efficaciousness, but have been learning to be more open minded so I gave it a chance.

Smiling Mind is called a mindfulness and meditation on app, but I am hesitant to focus on the word meditation as it can give Christians the idea that it is religious and anti-Christian. It is completely secular and uses pyschological techniques to induce calm. Hence why I chose to focus on the term mindfulness even though many people think it sounds silly.

This app has helped me tremendously. I often have insomnia and the breathing exercises have frequently helped me to sleep when I was sure sleep would be elusive. The meditations are usually short, between five and fifteen minutes, and are easy to fit in a busy day when you need some very quick stress reduction. It has definitely made a difference with general anxiety; my husband noticed my improvement on his own.

This is an aside from mental health, but the body scans have helped me to handle physical pain. Focusing on other areas of one’s body that are not in pain made it easier to deal with the pain that was there. I felt more gratitude when I was conscious of how many things don’t hurt all the time!

I really recommend the app Smiling Mind for anyone in any walk of life who struggle with anxiety.

Review of Catholic App: Amen

The free Catholic meditation app Amen, which is produced by the Augustine Institute, has been helpful to restore my Faith after my last spiritually damaging psychosis. I downloaded the app first to see if it would aid sleep and anxiety reduction, and found that it has been a beneficial spiritual tool.

One thing that is very difficult with trauma is how harsh the Christian Faith can seem to be. Believing in God’s love and presence is a challenge after you have endured a terrible ordeal. What I have found special about the Amen app is that it is a gentle, but doctrinally sound approach to Catholicism, prayer, and Christian meditation. It has prayers to follow along with, Bible stories, Christian thoughts, and Bible in a Year. The meditations focus on God’s love and forgiveness and a relationship with Christ.

The voices are pretty good. Sometimes the diction of some of the meditations isn’t quite to my taste, to be honest, but most of the time the voices seem normal and soothing. I don’t think the app would be jarring for most people.

At first it didn’t seem to help directly with sleep or anxiety. I have since several times calmed down and fallen asleep while I was listening to the prayers. However, I will refer to another app I have found to be better suited to addressing those issues in another post. If you would like a way to study your Faith and pray to God with a merciful and sympathic approach, I would highly recommend Amen.

Natural Anxiety Relief

It is a good idea to use natural remedies to treat anxiety if possible. Policy has changed regarding the use of benzodiazepines as they are being found to be highly addictive and dangerous. They still need to be used sometimes for extreme cases of anxiety/ panic attacks, but it is best to keep their use as minimal as possible.

One natural treatment that I have found to be very helpful is this £8 “Remedies to Roll” by Neal’s Yard Remedies:

Remedies To Roll – Womens Balance 9ml

It has a very nice fresh and gentle smell which definitely helps me when I am managing anxiety. Also, Made in England!

Pyschiatry, Natural Remedy, or. . . Both?

In treating mental illness different people recommend quite different treatments. In conservative circles natural remedies are usually touted for a myriad of illnesses. While this is a good instinct, both pyschiatric and natural remedies will be discussed on this blog. My medicine saves me from hell every day to which I am very grateful. That said, I have also been on a very strict gluten-free diet for over eight years now which besides helping my physical health considerably improved my mental health. I am not advocating this course for everyone, but rather suggesting that there are different solutions to mental health which should all be respected.

Besides needing Risperidone, which is an antipyschotic, I also take Sertraline (zoloft) for panic attacks and depression. It was quite humbling that before I started Sertraline I was really struggling badly with my faith and with nihilism. While taking the anti-depressant I have found joy in my faith again. Of course, not all spiritual difficulties are chemical imbalances, but mine probably was – leftover trauma from the past pyschosis that I am having trouble healing. My faith is now growing beautiful and comforting again.

I have also started using the free App SmilingMind. This is a simple meditation App which concentrates on calm breathing. It helps to reduce anxiety and aids sleep. The meditations are mostly very short and are a good break during the day when one is allowed to completely stop worrying.

There are many other things I do to take care of my mental health. What are some of yours? (judgemental comments will not be published.)