Sometimes self-care is, actually, NOT getting onto the computer and little treats and watching youtube videos. Sometimes those things are self-care, but sometimes they're also avoidant behaviors.

Sometimes self care is waking up and just. Fucking getting in the car. And driving to the bank. And the store. And buying the cat litter. And changing the cat boxes you've been avoiding because your brains been stuck in a hole. And picking up the trash you've been piling up. And getting a load into the wash. And mowing the lawn before the village council sends you a formal complaint and potential-fines warning.

Like its hard and annoying to do because it sucks. It sucks so much. But if I don't start working on this pile of bullshit I've let build up because it stinks and i was stuck in deer-in-headlights mode, I risk letting it turn into fuckery. I do not have the patience for fuckery that I once - foolishly! - thought I had.

This mentality helped me so much. Framing my "chores" and mundane tasks as self care and something I can do for myself, really helped me. On a good day I feel like I can genuinely enjoy basic to-dos because I get something nice for myself afterwards, even if that nice thing is just a better living environment. And sometimes it's still too hard, and that's okay too.

PRACTICE URGE SURFING

falling in love makes me want to eat

& actually its romantic and intimate to have someone in ur life who wants u to eat, who reminds u to eat, who treats u to snacks bc they want u to be happy and full way more than they would ever care about u keeping thin, i think wanting someone to take care of themselves and eat without shame or fear for their appearance is like the worlds closest thing to unconditional love

My secret, btw, is that I love unabashedly. If we've had enough positive interactions that I consider you my friend, I would say that I love you.

Whenever I meet up with someone and we hang out for the weekend, I try to tell them I love them. And I mean it every time.

The pain of losing the people you love stings, yes, but the more love you have in your life, that sting won't stick around as long.

not speaking from experience, but you should address and communicate when u feel unheard or betrayed in ur relationships instead of becoming contemptuous and using that contempt to annihilate any connection u had with them like some kind of nuclear core meltdown powered by trauma instead of uranium.

it is really weird what like. 4 years perspective on something you believed fully to your core will do

“yeah disappointment and heartbreak when plans or friends or romance doesnt work out hurt me too badly so now i just dont do that stuff or really hope for anything or get invested in anyone/anything anymore that way i can be surprised by nice happy things and bad stuff is just expected”

and my roommate at the time looked horrified and said “thats bad Bee??? thats so sad” and i didnt know what to say because id thought what i said was normal/a positive coping mechanism

btw this is, in my instance, the result of autistic burnout and childhood neglect. if you get so used to your needs and expectations not being met you learn to not have them because it is your only means of survival.

some people get angry and express their pain and are called ‘difficult’, some people shave themselves away until theres barely anything left and disappear to become ‘easier’. learning that disappearing to be easier on those around me was not kindness but, meaningless self destruction was a core part of learning how not to die.

i think one of the most misunderstood and misused "therapy speak" things is I Statements.

I Statements aren't just about starting with "I feel...." they are about identifying, specifically, the emotions you're dealing with, and acknowledging your subjective experience instead of making objective claims about the other person that you can't possibly know.

"i feel like you hate me" is not an I statement. "you hate me" is not an emotion. "i feel insecure in our relationship" or "i feel vulnerable," or even "i'd like affirmation," those are I Statements. you can't just slap "i feel" before an accusatory sentence and call it good. you need to actually pay attention to the spirit of the idea too.

Coming back to add a thought to this: most people aren't born with the innate ability to identify their feelings, WHY they're feeling those things, or the ability to coherently convey those things. If you use "I feel like you hate me" statements, please don't feel bad.

Use those statements as a jumping off point. Explain to the person you're with that you're still learning how to be emotionally mature, and you know it's not productive to say things like "I feel like you hate me," but you want to be better. Ask them to help you stop and think about this if you need it.

SO! You feel like your partner hates you! And you've said it out loud! What next?

Think of a specific example. Did you feel this way because your partner went into the next room to play video games? Okay, okay, I see. What makes you feel like someone hates you if they leave the room? Is it that they are simply leaving your company? Is it that they left without saying anything? Is it that they're in a bad mood because of something ELSE, but the combination of grumpy-vibes and leaving the room triggered issues you have?

That's fair! That's fine! Say THAT to your partner next!! Tell them "hold on, let me figure out why it hurt my feelings for a second" and hold their hand and rub their fingers with your thumb while you sit there and think about it. Then say "even when I know you're in a bad mood because of something else, it still hits a sensitive spot in me when these behaviours combine" and explain that when they got mad at something else and left the room without saying a word, you got stuck in a spiral.

Relationships are give and take. Each partner HAS to learn and adapt to the other at least a little bit for things to be healthy.

For example - in similar situations to the one I've listed here - the bridge between my partner's brain and my brain manifested in the form of two questions: "Did I do or not do something that contributed?" Followed by "Can I do or not do something that will help?"

Maybe this wouldn't work for other people, but it works for us.

But the whole point of adapting your language (using "I feel" statements) is to improve your communication with others, and - just like any skill - it takes time to get properly good at it. If you're doing it badly, that's FINE. But try to improve. Have an honest heart to heart with your partner about it. Ask for help.

Sometimes a partner is willing but not able to help (like, if their issues overlap with your issues), that's okay. But ESTABLISHING such a thing is important. If you [BOTH] still want to make it work, you will have to seek help elsewhere.

If a partner is not willing to help - like if they aren't in a mental place to take on another person's struggles - or is expecting you to be perfect every second of every day, or if they're expecting you to do all of the adapting and they're not willing to help build a bridge between the two of you... Well. Make your best choices in that regard. It's perfectly healthy for two people who would otherwise be great partners together to say "I quite literally can't emotionally handle this at this point in my life." I've KNOWN people who dated, established that they can't support each other emotionally, broke up, and then got back together later when they were both single (and the couple I'm still in contact with has been re-dating for three years now!!!!!!)

Anyway. The point of this novel is just to say: it's okay to be bad at communicating. Work at being a better communicator. You can do it. It just takes time.

are you ever like damn why is literally everyone else scared of openly communicating and being direct and truthful and honest

i'm kind of bored of subliminal messaging or vaguing or being anything but truthful and blunt and forthright. every miscommunication that has ever befallen me is a result of jumping to conclusions or not giving the benefit of the doubt or just not being open to hearing the other side. i am so bored. i just want communication. i want straightforwardness. i want here is why i'm bothered. here are the facts. here's what i think. now tell me your side. let's talk about this. let's start a dialogue. there's no reason for either of us to be guessing. languages were meticulously crafted over the years for a reason. so let's use them! let's talk! let's communicate!

btw you can be straightforward AND kind. i'm not sure why people seem to think it's one way or the other. either way a lot of people need to not only internalize this mentality but practice it bc i feel like so many people are willing to BURN BRIDGES ??? rather than just communicate and be honest. and some people don't communicate and end up fostering resentment and bitterness and dislike for the other person that cause them to snap out of nowhere and the other person is like ?? bc guess what. it was NEVER commuicated

learning lately that a lot of confidence is about owning up. like "yeah i'm a little addicted to my phone right now" or "yeah i'm not really over this person yet" or "yeah i still get pretty anxious in crowds" just saying anything at all but then following it up w "but i'm trying to get better" and being super nonchalant and unaffected. so powerful. you would literally be undefeatable in the face of even the most judgmental person. no one can judge you for things you already know about yourself and are trying to improve on. the trick is to know yourself from the inside out, to hold yourself accountable, and to actively improve every day. like that is literally the secret to never feeling like you're at the mercy of somebody else's judgment

if i can impart any one piece of wisdom to y’all, it’s to, whenever possible, assume good intentions

assume people are trying their best, want to be good and treat others well, and that when their behavior doesn’t align with those goals, it’s because of outside factors that are pushing them to their limit

it’s hard to do, it doesn’t always come naturally, but it’s worth it

before anyone jumps in with an “op has clearly never worked in the service industry,” i work in a public facing library job

i have a patron who is mean as a snake. won’t respond when you greet her, barks orders at you, and is generally nasty

i couldn’t stand her & dreaded the moment she walked in the door, until i stopped one day & went “wow, to walk around feeling unhappy enough to treat people so horribly every day. what a difficult way to live.”

and so my tactics changed. i made a point to be extra kind & friendly to her. she changed her hair color one day & when i complimented her on it, she was very caught off guard & said “oh, thank you. my whole life i’ve thought i was ugly.”

now we’re at the point where she shows me pictures of watercolor paintings she made & says hi when she walks in the door. she’s not my favorite patron, but she’s perfectly okay. most unpleasant people aren’t inherently rotten, they’re just unhappy & coping with it poorly

assume people are always doing their best, even if their best happens to fall a bit short. assume good intentions

Once I spoke with a girl who told me a friend had invited her to a pool party, but she didn't want to go because the friend's mom had HIV.

I told her that this was a common concern, but HIV can't be transmitted by sharing a pool, and in fact HIV is such a weak virus that it can't even survive on a table for more than a few hours, and it can be killed entirely by bleach.

She asked me, "if you can kill HIV with bleach, why haven't we cured it yet?"

I told her, "because we can't put Bleach into people without killing them".

She said that this was interesting, but she still wasn't going to go.

(We did not become friends.)

The other day, I saw a group of teenage boys climbing all over an electrical box in town.

I walked over and asked if they were aware this was an electrocution risk.

One of them asked what I meant. I pointed to the large yellow image of a stick man with a lightning bolt through its chest and repeated, "it has an electrocution warning on it. Don't get blown up."

The kid laughed and said, "hey, play at your own risk, right?" And went back to his buddies.

I went back to what I was doing, but kept an eye out, and did notice that within the next five minutes, the whole group had removed themselves from the box and were now gathered several feet away from it.

I can't make people do things. I can inform, and support, but I cannot make their choices.

This is something that is hard to learn.

The second story is also a great example of the way people can seem completely resistant to what you say to them, but with a bit of time away from you they take it on board and act on it. I work in guidance and sometimes see this happening, but often you don’t get to know what lasting impact your words have on someone once they go their own way.

hope is a skill

hope is a weapon you are trained to wield

favourite additions

You cannot hide this in the tags, bestie. This is too lovely to keep a secret.

It may not be apparent to everyone how to easily find out who wrote the poem in the tags, so: @mumblesplash

(an instant-classic example of a Tumblr thread where so many people add value!)

made a poem i wrote into a comic. anyone else angry that you have to yearn

㋡🥀

This deserves a reblog!

Coming from someone who is in therapy, this is just speaking the truth

@thoughtstherapy