MS and Self Care

The world is so full of awesome beauty products, exercise inspiration, healthy eating plans and more… but what about those days where we wake up and just can’t even take one single second to care?

I don’t know about you, but the days where I can barely get out of bed and down the stairs, I sure as heck don’t plan on doing a full-on home spa day, let alone spending hours on end in the kitchen. There are some days I wake up ready to take on the world–I have a productive day at work, I throw some eyeliner on, and I even hit the gym! But then, after my gym session, I am exhausted. This doesn’t happen every day, but it happens frequently enough. I get home, I sit down, and I am not moving from that spot for the rest of the night; buh-bye healthy meal for the night. Bring on the grilled cheese sandwich with tomato!

As a woman, no, as a human, self-care is an important and very revitalizing thing. I feel so much better when I’m freshly showered and cozy after a workout, or if I took the time to meditate and eat my greens that day; it can become extremely taxing when my limbs shut down, my brain fogs up, and my eyes go googly (thanks Diplopia). I do my best to take excellent care of myself, but when the internet is constantly shoving new information, products and photoshopped images of people in my face, it can be a real downer and incredibly discouraging.

There are days where I just wanna say “nope!” and skip the gym, eat peanut butter straight from the jar and binge watch Netflix. Right before I’m about to carry out my night of rest, I make one crucial error: I check on my social media. Images of athletes in the gym flood my screen, videos of people exfoliating and preaching about how important skin care is fly across as I swipe through, people sharing their newest healthy recipe for “the BEST MS diet because SOMEONE wrote it in a BOOK once so it HAS to be TRUE” messages pour into my inbox. I cap the peanut butter and I drag myself to the gym because I should.

NO! This is a crucial aspect of self-care that many people seem to miss out on: self-care is different for everyone, and if one day, you need to just lay in bed and forget the world exists, you can DO that! Because it is good for you in that moment and is exactly what you need.

My point is that self care is important to everyone and should be taken seriously; self care to you may not be what someone else interprets it as. Now I’m not telling you to down a jar of peanut butter (but ohhhh I definitely could) and give up, do your best to keep active and eat right, but do what works for you, your personal symptoms, your personal life, and not necessarily for everyone else! This is your journey, so make it the best it can be.