When self-care feels selfish

Crying because Lilly Singh aka Superwoman, one of my favorite Youtube personalities, recently announced that she’s taking a break for her mental health. I’ve laughed along to her videos and seen her grow for the last 4 years, and now, hearing her talk about the importance of taking care of yourself has struck some chord in me that lay dormant for a while. 

She said, “Taking time for yourself and addressing mental health is positive. There’s nothing to feel guilty about. There’s nothing to feel bad about. It is what it is.” 😭

I’m thinking, if Superwoman can take a break and not feel bad about it then maybe so can I.

During my uni years, I keep dragging myself through thick and thin and thick again, wearing myself down until I reach the point of utter exhaustion. During the holidays, I’m almost dysfunctional - sleeping late hours then not getting out of bed because I don’t have the energy to do anything. This is me right now, more than halfway through Thanksgiving Break, having done none of my school work and having spent the majority of my days in bed. 

Stanford is beautiful. The stress is not.

This quarter, I’ve been struggling to balance things, to adapt to a new role and chase after my writing dream while facing the daunting reality of graduation and trying to keep up with the pace that Stanford demands.

Every single week has been a grind, and I can’t seem to catch a break. Because when I do catch a break, I feel guilty about it and it barely feels like I’m resting at all.

I joke a lot about “treating yourself” and justifying things in the name of self-care, but that’s only when self-care is something prettily packaged like painting my nails, or doing a face mask, or eating extra dessert. The quick fixes that make me feel better. But when it comes to the type of self-care that addresses root causes and actually eases my stress, I feel bad. I hate having to turn down an opportunity, or say no to someone, or cancel a lunch or meeting because I’m overextended. Yet, that’s what this quarter has come down to.

About five weeks in, I made some drastic changes to my schedule in order to regain control of my sleep and sanity. The only thing I could control at that point was my social calendar, so I canceled every single social engagement I had, even if it was just a short lunch with a friend. Yes, I still ate, but on my own schedule. And those chunks of time that I saved were the difference between a bad week and a hellish week. 

things I have to ask myself to stay functional

But to cancel on my friends, I had to send several texts that went something like this: “I'm so sorry to cancel but I’m sleep deprived and behind on everything and trying to get back on track. I’ll check back in next week. Again really sorry for flaking 😟".

Yeah, it felt awful, but also freeing. I knew it’s what I needed to do. And of course, everyone was super supportive, wishing me the best, telling me that they understand and I should take the time I need. 

The problem is, I still haven’t caught myself, and I haven’t really checked back in with people. It’s more like they checked back in with me. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I’ve reached my limit.

There’s a part of me that wonders if people will eventually get frustrated with my failure to invest time and energy into spending time with them and just give up on me and our friendship. 

people I care about up on my wall

It doesn’t feel right that I’m sacrificing one of the things that is most important to me - human relationships - in the name of self-care.

Can I really claim to care about community and connecting with people if that’s the one thing I can’t handle when I’m stressed out?

I feel like I’m just disappointing people, and myself, and I’m not really sure how I got to this place. I keep trying to think of what else I could give up…what commitment can I drop in order to regain control of my life? No matter how many times I go through the list of things I’m doing, I realize that there’s nothing I could back out of at this stage in the quarter. It would either make someone else’s life way too hard, or create a huge mess for someone else to clean up, or would mean sacrificing my personal goals and dreams.

So I’m sticking with what I’ve committed to this quarter, while brainstorming ways to make my next 2 quarters better. I don’t want to leave Stanford more burnt out and anxious than I came in, but with my current trajectory, that’s exactly what will happen. To avoid that, I already have a list of concrete things that I will not be doing in order to free up my schedule in the Winter. This feels like progress. There is definitely hope for improvement.

But in the meanwhile, I’m mentally exhausted and emotionally drained. I’m overthinking everything because I have no time to process things. I’m staying up late because the late night/early morning hours are the only hours I have to myself, and that’s when I can finally breathe. 

my room finally feels like a home

That’s why I mostly blog at 4am - because my mind is free enough to get the creative juices flowing. A couple weekends ago, I stayed up until 3am decorating my room because I finally felt calm and present enough to do it.

On the outside, I appear to be functioning okay - to be thriving even - albeit noticeably sleep-deprived. People often describe me as “put-together” or “chill” or “handling things so well”. I take these as compliments and roll with it, but it sometimes feels like a front. On one level, I suppose I am thriving because I get stuff done and submit assignments of decent quality (even if they’re late or right on the nose of the deadline). But what people don’t see, and what I also underestimate, is the personal toll on my health and sanity: the late nights and sleepy days and difficult moments.

I’m running myself down down down, and when I have a break, I try not to hate myself for being in bed all day doing nothing. That’s been the cycle this entire week.

I need to get over myself though. The only person making me feel bad about resting is me. Everyone else fully supports rest, and I fully support my friends when they rest. The support has been rollin' in all week.

One friend told me, “YAS. We deserve it,” when I told her I’d been in bed all day.

When I texted another friend saying I’d been sleeping a lot, he said, “Good, I hoped you were.”

And my mom, out of the blue, messaged me: “Next week this time you would already be back to classes. This week will fly, please rest & enjoy.”

Everyone is fully on board with getting rest, and I guess it’s time for me to be too. There’s still a small part of me that feels bad about being a flake, but I think the truth is that it's not selfish to take care of yourself when you need to. Especially at this time in my life when my obligations are mostly to myself. Right now, there are few things worth sacrificing my health for. I'm thinking that things get more complicated as I get older, but for now, I have to do the best I can for myself.

Besides, yes, I work hard. Yes, I go above and beyond when I don’t always have to. Yes, I deserve a break. Imagine, I sometimes forget that!

At the end of the day, I have so much to be thankful for, and the privilege of being able to stress about university life is not lost on me. I like to describe Stanford as hard, and stressful, and a high-pressure environment (not because it’s competitive, but because everyone is so internally driven), but also comfortable. We’re stressing out in the comfort of our dorm rooms, surrounded by (mostly) great weather, readily available food, and support and resources for every situation. This doesn’t minimize the exhaustion I feel, but it puts things into perspective, which is important. I can take a moment, look around me, and find a reason to smile. Not everyone can do that. 

Most of all, I’m thankful that I can take a break when I need to. I just have to be brave enough to let myself rest.