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Image credit: photo and edit by myself.
5 months of composition result in a 1,316 words long entry, as well as 4 previous entries and 3 articles in hyperlinks, grab a cuppa if you intend to read them all, and some elements have a trigger warning, both here and elsewhere.
I intended and labelled this blog both for mental health topics and lifestyle, talking at length about my traumatic life experiences and struggles, but seldom about lifestyle. To correct this imbalance, I had posted
entry 417, where I introduced you to my personal grooming routines. I can now explain how this self-care and my overall lifestyle link with my mental health and more specifically, to healing and post-traumatic growth.
Let me start with a typical quote from entry 364 (titled living in a religion cult 4 - health edition) , to illustrate the topic :
"...difficult to maintain my physical exercise routines (due to the fact it wasn't a normal activity for me in my earlier life, and also due to the low-self esteem that comes with depersonalization" (do check the other points relevant in that section for a fuller understanding), which is, I'll add, in direct relation of cause and effect, with my traumatic experiences, and is a component of the resulting cptsd from which I suffer.
Now that the preliminary steps have been taken, I can dive a bit further into this subject:
My life growing up and surviving in my father's religious cult had the basic guideline of 'soul first', the 'body's a mere vehicle' and any 'action' to promote the latter's health and well-being were actually viewed as sins of pride and depriving oneself of the suffering needed to empower one's soul for spiritual purposes. So, with such a view, I wasn't encouraged to do sports, nor even take care of that 'body, the vehicle'- at least, not beyond prayers to sanctify food prior to its ingestion or prayers-asking-for-forgiveness-for-my-sins-when-sick, or the prayers asking my soul to be stronger in the pain that I endure in the multiples names of my father/god, or, this other form of prayer in the face of the (un-named) devil's adversity.
Between lack of self-esteem that is the direct result of all my traumatic life within this cult, and never practicing any self-care routine, as pampering is probably among the worse sins (=vanity) one can do in that cult, I had to learn to take better care of my body really late in life, and not to feel (as) guilty about it as I would have been, had I remained in the same path- had I remained a disciple and follower of my father in his cult.
With age, and a rather sedentary lifestyle, especially these past few years, have created a host of issues : more fatigue, more visibly patchy and tired skin, aches in my body - especially the back.
Guided and encouraged by my wife, I started to take better care of my body, to learn to pamper myself, aiming to improve my overall appearance, through these self-care routines.
Apart for 'pampering' with showers, shaving and the like, I also like to hike in the mountains, giving me proper physical exercise as well as the creative outlet of digital photography, getting fresh air away from the city and some solitude as I rarely meet people up there. Sadly, I haven't been able to go these past 3 years, due to various reasons, but plan to resume as soon as possible (we're in covid19 period at the moment).
Although I'm irregular, I also do some limited stretching and similar physical exercises at home - I just need to be more proactive and practice these more often, instead of bursts of a few days/weeks, interruptions for months or years....
Self-care routines have two main effects : the one that comes from the action itself and how it changes the physical body, and the other is how it affects one's mental health. I think it's easy to guess or find how each alters the body, so I'll now pass to the second effect, in a personal experience.
Learning to take care of my body is :
- unlearning the lies and associations of body=mere vessel, and pampering=sins of ego and vanity,
- by improving the condition of my skin, face, hair, body, I improve their overall appearance, feeling less of a hobo who didn't care, and add a pinch of improved self-image
- learning to appreciate the body as my body, as part of me, and that it's not a sin but a necessity and that I am worth the time, energy and funds to get my routines done,
As my grooming includes shaving, it's a personal choice not to grow a beard, nor to look like my father, or at least, not as much. Not looking like him, in turn, helps some of my healing, though am not sure how much % I can attribute, as I find healing from trauma to be somewhat unquantifiable.
Some of my grooming is about expressing my gender queer, non-binary identity, which has the positive effect on my mental health in displaying - at least at home - something that is more in tune with my inner feeling.
If research finds benefits such as improved immunity (provided nothing else contradicts that for the person), making us less susceptible to stress, depression, anxiety or other emotional health issues, as stated in this article, I think one of the immediate and notable benefits for my practice of self-care in general is that I am taking time to focus on my own well-being, on my appearance, and improving my body's shape. In this, I combat the indoctrination, and the prison of self-contempt resulting depersonalization that I endured.
On the other hand, I think that the general benefits to my emotional health issues - namely my depression, GAD and overall stress- aren't as noticeable, due to their severity, and the fact they're chronic, and ongoing. My depression struggles are somewhat mitigated and better coped with thanks to the antidepressant treatment I started in February, whereas those with GAD are reduced, either by as-needed anti-anxiety (pill form at first, liquid in the past few months), but mostly, through new coping skills learned in CBT, and improved through multiple exposures, which reduced some of the triggers of my anxieties - but far from all, evidently.
As for the benefits stated in this second article, the boost to my self-esteem, gained from taking that personal time to groom and self-care, help with a very important issue I had, which is the keyword in the linked article : relationships. If you recall, I had posted about in entry 425 about having accepted unacceptable toxic friendships, linked to my traumas. It might be odd, but I feel that having done more self-care in the past few years, at the same time as I started to respect myself and not accept such toxic people in my life anymore are intertwined in my healing process, each self-care boosts self-esteem and thus, promotes standing up for myself.
In addition, as explained in this third article, self-care counter-acts one's neglect over oneself, and thus, I find that I am indeed more able to listen to others and be a caregiver, as much as my other limitations (such as phobias) permit me to offer.
Personal grooming, self-care routines are therefor far reaching, directly and indirectly : when these routines incorporate healthy diet (I am vegan) and lifestyle (I do not smoke or do drugs, for instance), physical effects can be explained via the chemical/hormonal changes we promote with them, especially when (I'll let you find those, I was unable to find the mechanisms, only assertions), whereas emotional effects are those that pertain to taking time for oneself, disconnecting from a busy outside world to concentrate one our inner one, and, in my case, also those choices to counter indoctrination in a conscious manner to fight my past, use the present, and build a healthier, better future.
Thus, these elements reflect portions of my post-traumatic growth.
(1,316 words long+ 43 intro)
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