Caring For Yourself.

I'm very good at caring for other people. People have often felt safe talking to me about things, even when they didn't know me that well. I'm good at making people feel safe, and cared for, and listened to. 

I'm not so good when it comes to finding time for doing that for myself - at least in some ways. 

Self-care I'm fairly good at. Things like making sure I rest well, eat well, don't work too much - I do that pretty consistently. But I'm less good when it comes to actually talking to other people about stuff that's happening for me, and cluing people in to what's going on in my brain.

At one point I was seeing a therapist fairly regularly, and that helped. But that's unfortunately expensive, and so when work stopped, so did that. More recently I've found another therapist I can see - for free! - but only for a little bit while I'm still a student. So I'll need to find another option for next year.

But this is a fairly consistent pattern for me with other people - so much of the time, I'm giving a lot more than taking. I'm putting more energy and time into a connection, into the time that I have with someone, than I'll receive. 

Unfortunately, though, I perpetuate this problem myself. I'll be the first to defer to other people's choices, ask other people to choose things, because I want to be considerate of them. I'm the type to say that I kinda like everything, or that anything's fine. I'm not good at actually voicing my own desires or wants or needs - and often, because of that, I'm also not great at actually knowing them myself.

There's a line from the game Life Is Strange: True Colours that hits me like a truck every time. It's in one of the later episodes, from Steph Gingrich to the main character, Alex Chen. 

"I've seen you give so much of yourself to make sure other people get what they need. And I guess I wonder if you've thought about what you need."

I've spent a lot of my time and energy caring for people. Hell, I've spent the last two years of my life studying for a job that's specifically about that. And, like, I don't want to stop caring for people 😂 that's not the point. The point is to care for myself better. Try and prioritise myself a bit more, voice my own desires and needs more - and find people that are able to give me time and energy more consistently as well.

It's a hard change to make. And chances are, some of you reading this might struggle with this too. I know this is something that I've dealt with for a while. Hopefully, it's something I can start making some headway in. Maybe you can too.