Mental Health Self Care.

As well as looking after yourself in the moment, self-care is about making life easier for your *future self*.

Let's imagine you've built up some debt. Worries - about how much money you owe, how long it will take to pay off, the effect on your credit rating, what others will think of you - are causing you a serious amount of stress, stopping you from sleeping and making you snappy.

Although well-meaning, some of the messages on social media give the impression that self-care in this instance would mean having a hot bath, meditating, and going to bed early. But, this would only address the immediate *symptoms* of the problem (sleep, mood, stress etc).

In this example, real self-care would look much more mundane: admitting to someone that you're struggling, booking an appointment with your bank, setting up a budget spreadsheet, making your lunch instead of buying it. Self-care might be finally opening your credit card statements or calling the National Debtline. In short, it would be REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE.

I guess I want to make the point that self-care is really a kind of self-parenting. And in the same way that good parents will sometimes indulge you and sometimes make you do your homework, much of the time, and especially for those in crisis, mental health self-care is boring AF. It means keeping your doctor's appointments, telling someone when your mood drops, going to your therapy sessions when you really don't want to, taking your medication on time, cutting back on alcohol, smoking less weed, going for a walk, eating a meal, cutting down on social media...

Of course, not everyone is in a mental health crisis, and the popularised self-care activities can be important ways of looking after yourself more generally and helping to make it a habit to slow down. They have their place. But I suppose I don't want people to go away with the impression that mental health self-care is always glamorous, fun or Instagrammable. Brushing your teeth, making your bed and opening your bills can be enormously important even if they are unworthy of a hashtag.