Why Is The Idea Of Caring For Myself So Disturbing?

[Rumors]

I bet you were a great mom. Thanks for sharing.

I too struggle with caring for myself in a healthy productive manner. I relate in that I am not sure I had a lot of support growing up or anyone who really taught me the value of loving myself enough to WANT to take care of myself. Coming to that realization has been as hard on me as anything in this process. I simply haven't been able to deal with that. My parents loved me to the moon and back but were just not available for those types of lessons. Perhaps they didn't know how, I don't know but I sure have paid the price and I am sad and angry all in the same breath. I don't like to admit that. All I can do now is try and resolve that in my mind and not make that mistake with my child!

Thankful to read this. It makes sense! It relieves me to know I am not the only one who struggles this deeply with this issue.

 

[ms spock]

I can feel the enormous burden of pain in that sentence. I wish I had any worthwhile response; all can offer is that we bear it it together.

Bearing it together is much better than bearing it alone. That is for sure. That is a worthwhile response stenni. Thanks for that offering. It is a lot less alone feeling that comes with that response.

 

[Mayday]

What you said about the survival instinct reason really resonated with me, although I'd never thought of it that way, it's one of my reasons too, I also find self care difficult and threatening

For me, some of it is that I had a very invalidating childhood, and in a way, I feel like if I take care of myself well, then people will use that to invalidate me again, like what happened must not have been that bad, because look, you are coping fine. Or something like that.

I can also be very self-destructive (I guess that is kinda the opposite of self-care) and it's almost a reckless thrill that I get from being self destructive, I don't know how to explain it. Some how I think that is tied in with my struggles with self care

I guess because self care is something that I have to focus on to do, as in it doesn't come automatically or naturally to me, it makes me more aware of why I have to do this, and that makes me angry that I have to do self care...probably unresolved anger about everything that happened.

Thank you for talking about this, it's something I struggle with too

 

[JustBe]

I am following along here because I have spent decades trying to be invisible and so much of this rings true to me.

 

[Pencil]

Pencil,

Abstract, I'm afraid to tell you this post irks me. But to respond to it would mean going way off topic.

 

[Eleanor]

i) It's morally wrong
My head says - Nobody should need to care for themselves. we should be able to set ourselves on a course and run it. I could do it for years so I should be able to go on doing it.

Stenni I don't know if this will help but, on the chance it could; Can I speak to your head for a few minutes?

The statement of yours quoted above doesn't actually make any rational sense, nor does it correspond to reality. That is a fancy way of saying that "nobody should need to care for themselves" HAS to be false. Add a context of morality to it and... well, it is 2+2=79.

Why? What makes a rule or principle *moral* is that it applies to everyone at all times. Should people need to care for themselves EVER? Well, yeah. Everyone should take responsibility for getting their basic needs met - sleep, eat, blowing your nose etc. I say this because the alternative (that we should rely on other people to meet all our needs) is absurd. Should I sit on my couch this AM with snot running down my face from my runny nose because there is no one else to wipe it off for me? :eek::roflmao: Obviously not. Ah, but perhaps you say I shouldn't even HAVE snot running down my face! On that, my friend, we agree, but I am at a loss as to how to do that trick. Perhaps you could help me out? (gentle sarcasm.) Human beings are biological and social beings, we have needs. If they don't get met we are at best crippled (temporarily or permanently) and at worst we die. Would it make sense to have a rule that says "Everyone should refrain from doing what they can to avoid being crippled and dying?" I think not. I don't even thing we COULD do this in any consistent way. Never mind that it doesn't make sense to want to.

Perhaps, though it is simpler than that. Ought implies Can. That is to say - when we claim that someone ought to do something it kind of goes without saying that we think they CAN do that thing. It wouldn't make sense to say "I think I ought to fly to Cleveland... without an airplane." Obviously I CAN'T do that. So it doesn't make sense to say that I ought to. To require anyone to do something they plainly cannot is not only pointless but seriously unfair and even sometimes cruel.

The other thing about thinking something is moral - to go back to the universal applicability thing - is that we can test whether our beliefs about morality are true by testing whether we actually think this is true of OTHER people. If it is just a rule we make up for ourselves then it is not moral. So would you say that OTHER people are wrong when they do self-care things? I suspect not.

End of sermon.

Thank you for your list, by the way - it is MOST helpful to have these things articulated. I don't suffer from all - but some - and even as a supporter I struggle with self-care daily... I think it is really important to bring these kinds of thoughts/feelings out into the open and take a look at them. Good work, stenni!

 

[Pencil]

To require anyone to do something they plainly cannot is not only pointless but seriously unfair and even sometimes cruel.

Eleanor, would you mind explaining?

 

[Eleanor]

Hey Pencil, sure. If I can't do something - say, fly without wings or identify a pitch if I am tone deaf, or lift an object beyond my strength to budge, then another person (or God, or whomever is doing the expecting and requiring of me) cannot reasonably ask me to do it. If it is unreasonable or unrealistic to ask me to do something - then there is no point in asking me, right? I guess you COULD ask me to give you a million dollars (I don't have it to give, and if I did I wouldn't give it to you in any case! Sorry.) but you would just be wasting your breath, wouldn't you?

"Requiring" me (or anyone) to do something means that you expect me to do it (other things being equal) and are willing to punish or penalize or blame or disapprove of me for not doing it. If I can't do the thing you ask, then punishing, or penalizing, or blaming or disapproving of me is unfair, and if you punish/penalize me in a way that is important to me it is cruel. (Cruel = intentional unjustified infliction of harm.) The unfairness comes in because no rational responsible person signs up for a game they are assured of losing when the stakes matter to them. Who would play if she knew the deck, as it were, is stacked against her?.

Setting other people up for failure is a reprehensible game. Setting ourselves up for failure is a tragedy of the first order.

 

[Pencil]

Thanks Eleanor

 

[Sandstone]

Why? What makes a rule or principle *moral* is that it applies to everyone at all times.

The trouble is that my head does apply it to everyone at all times. I am irritated by people who say "I'm pacing myself" instead of going on until they drop. I know it doesn't make sense, but knowing doesn't make it any easier to overcome. As said back at the beginning of this, I recognise that these reasons aren't logically true but that doesn't stop them hanging around being reasons.

I feel like if I take care of myself well, then people will use that to invalidate me again, like what happened must not have been that bad, because look, you are coping fine. or something like that.

I recognise that so well. On good days I can argue back that living my life is a victory over the abusers. On bad days I just despise myself for even having needs

 

[Pencil]

On bad days I just despise myself for even having needs

I relate to this.

 

[JustBe]

I get it. My Therapist says I have to learn that I too deserve to be happy, warm, loved, cared for etc. Somehow I seem to be forever punishing myself for everything...feeling that I don't deserve anything good, kind or approving.:(