If you only knew self care from Instagram, TikTok, or Pinterest, you might think it’s this magic cure-all for mental illness. Self care is important for mental health, but it becomes a lot more complicated when you’re dealing with severe mental illness.

Mental health and mental illness are not the same. Mental health is something everyone on the planet has to manage. Mental illnesses, however, are diagnosed conditions that can sometimes last a lifetime and only affect a portion of the population. Lifelong mental illnesses aren’t something you ‘overcome’ or ‘move on from.’ No amount of self care will cure you. In some cases — something I’ve unfortunately learned over the last few days — it might even be problematic.

I’ve written before about my struggles with avoidance, and I’ve come to realise that, for me, self care has become just another tool for unhealthy avoidance. Self care is supposed to rejuvenate you, ground you, and make you feel better. But when I’m severely depressed, those feelings are completely out of reach. I don’t feel joy or grounded. I feel unsafe, hyper-vigilant, fearful, sad, numb, and overcome with grief.

How Self Care Can Turn Into Avoidance

Self care is always sold as healthy — on Instagram, in mental health advice, even by medical professionals. It’s marketed as the ultimate solution, the cure for burnout, depression, grief, everything. But what no one tells you is that even something as healthy as self care can become avoidance if you’re not careful.

I’ve learned to spot avoidance in other areas of my life. If I’m sinking too much time into gaming or any other escapist activity, I have rules: I’m allowed to do it, but ONLY after I’ve completed my responsibilities for the day and checked in with myself emotionally. I moderate it and have boundaries because I know how easily it can turn into avoidance.

How was I supposed to know to do that with self care? It’s only ever been sold to me as inherently good. No one told me to look for the signs, to ask myself, “Am I doing this to feel better, or to AVOID what I’m feeling?”

Self care is not supposed to be something you have to moderate and put up boundaries to protect yourself from. But here I am, realising that even using bath bombs and putting up string lights can turn into escapism when I overdo it. And the crash afterward? It hits just as HARD as any other form of avoidance.

Why I’m Still Glad I Tried

That said, I’m still glad I tried. If nothing else, I felt, “At least I can still do something, I guess. Maybe I’m not entirely useless. Now, please excuse me while I fall down HARD physically and mentally.”

I’d love to share with you some of my Pinterest-worthy self care attempts, so you can see just how hard I tried to make it work. Spoiler: it didn’t fix me and led to me questioning it as a method for avoidance. But at least it made for some nice photos. Let’s talk about what helped, what didn’t, and what left me staring at my ceiling wondering why it all felt the same.

The Dream Come True – The Lush Gift Set

My son bought me a Lush Yog Nog gift set for Christmas. Let me tell you, being presented with a Lush gift set was a life-long dream of mine — I’m not joking. I’ve always wanted to be gifted the fanciest, and best smelling gift sets money can buy. So when he surprised me with it, knowing he’d spent more on smaller items just to give me this dream moment, I was overwhelmed. I felt so LOVED.

On Christmas Day though, we had a power cut that lasted most of the day, meaning no water, no cooking, and basically no Christmas spirit until 6pm. We were so hungry (the lack of food felt ILLEGAL for Christmas Day), and by the time we finally ate, I was ready for the most indulgent bath of my life.

Cue Yog Nog HEAVEN: Yog Nog bath bomb, Yog Nog shower gel, Yog Nog body moisturiser, and Yog Nog body spray. My entire flat smelled like Yog Nog, and honestly, it was the greatest bath I’ve ever had. When I got out, my body was composed of 60% Yog Nog instead of water. If any bath could have cured me, or made me feel better, it would have been this one. And yet, the reality is, as perfect as it was, it couldn’t touch the heaviness I felt inside.

It was still special, though — not because it magically fixed everything, but because it reminded me how much my son loves me, and because it gave me a small moment of relief in the chaos of depression and also a power cut on Christmas Day. That, at least, made it worth it.

The Cosy Room Among the Stars.

I had prepared my room for the Christmas Day Yog Nog bath, too. I cleaned up the clothing mountain ranges on the floor, washed the sheets on the bed with extra fabric softener and scent pearls, and added fresh batteries to all of my string lights. It was a cosy haven. I thought, after having the best bath of my existence, how GREAT it would be to also sleep in fresh sheets.

My room looked like it had been pulled straight from a millennial grey Pinterest board. It was stunning — the stars everywhere made it feel like I was going to sleep in space, which happens to be my favourite avoidance strategy: imagining I’m far, far away in the peaceful void of space, far removed from the UTTER mess of this dystopian hellscape (with it’s YouTube ads of, “Want to buy your son a pushbike for Christmas? How about a loan” yikes on bikes). In hindsight, that should have been my first clue that all of this was avoidance, but this wasn’t what triggered my “Self-care is avoidance?” questioning.

Getting into fresh sheets that night, completely covered in Yog Nog, was indeed sensory heaven. But in reality, I’d just created a really nice room to cry in — and cry I did, multiple times since. The effort I put into wrangling a double fitted sheet onto a bed against the wall, battling as each corner popped off the moment I secured another, while feeling utterly depressed, should have cured me. Instead, it gave me another reason to cry. Seriously though, why are fitted sheets so ANNOYING?

At least, if nothing else, it’s so MUCH nicer to cry in a cosy haven than in a room filled with the chaos of my depressive inaction.

The Penguins Get Married.

I have a large Jellycat Percy Penguin named Pesto, after the hecking chonker of a baby penguin born in Australia. He’s INCREDIBLY special to me. Penguin plushies are how I celebrate my connection to my best friend, even though she’s no longer with us.

Pesto sits pride of place on my shelf, and since I bought him, I have been too afraid to hug him because of how special he is. I also bought him in Cardiff on a special adventure to celebrate my son starting university, and every time I looked at him, I’d feel a pang of sadness knowing he was just sitting there, unloved. Poor Pesto!

One day, this sadness gave me what I thought was a brilliant idea — questionably brilliant, according to my bank balance: I decided Pesto REALLY needed a wife. That way, I’d have one to keep perfect on the shelf and one to hug.

This little plan brought me some unexpected comfort. My friend’s anniversary is in January, and this time of year always feels heavy with the memories of how awful cancer got for her in the end. But now, at least I can hug my large Percy Penguin and think of her. Pesto is the perfect hugging size, and in some small way, it feels like she’s with me when I hold him.

Dripped in Macramé

I started doing macramé again because I had this idea to make something special for a friend. Honestly, the thought of her smile when I send it to her is what kept me going. I started with small practice bags to get my muscles back into muscle-memory mode. Even though it felt like a chore — every knot dragging on FOREVER — the idea of delighting someone I care about helped me push through.

Making others happy is, in its own way, a kind of self care for me. When I feel like I should isolate myself, like I’m a burden, it reminds me that I’m still connected to people who love and value me. It doesn’t make the work easier, and it doesn’t ‘fix’ how I feel, but it gives me a reason to keep trying — and sometimes, that’s enough.

While it really did feel like a chore, each little bag and bow I made took FOREVER (when usually, I lose myself in the process and time flies). But when I finished, I couldn’t help but think, ‘Wow, I actually managed to finish something!’ And now my bears look fresh, dripped out in the finest micro macramé bags.

Now that I’ve gotten back into the rhythm, I can finally make what I’ve planned for my friend. Hopefully, it will make her day. If I can’t feel great right now, at least I can help someone else feel great — and that to me is always worth the effort. Plus, how CUTE do my tiny Jellycats look? Look at them rocking their swag (remember swag? Gosh I feel far too old to use drip but here we are).

Was This Self Care Or Avoidance?

After I finished the macramé frog bag (and even more self care activities I haven’t even mentioned here for brevity) I had completely depleted my energy and resources, so I was forced to stop. I crashed HARD. The severe pain and fatigue flared, and I was overwhelmed by the barrage of emotions I’d been avoiding by making self care my priority. Ironically, if I had used one of my usual avoidance methods like escaping to Night City in Cyberpunk 2077, I would be in less pain and less exhausted than I am right now.

That was when I realised the distraction it had been mentally – how mentally, it was actually the same as running away to Night City and how it helped me run from my feelings. The crash was EXACTLY the same as when I use more obvious avoidance methods.

I’ve been avoiding the triggering memories of my best friend that surface at this time of year. I’ve been running from how I feel about Christmas, having no family except my son, and how lonely and isolated that makes us feel every year – more so during a power cut with no electric or water for most of the day. I’ve been escaping from how hard I fell last December and January, which led to an anorexia relapse that has only worsened since then. I am worse off than I was last year when this started.

Self care feels really insidious to me now because it was sold to me as ONLY healthy, but it’s been continually falsely advertised and misrepresented — especially online. It’s supposed to be nurturing and grounding, and for many people, it truly is. Self care can help bring you back to yourself. But when you’re battling depression, especially with anhedonia, it can feel like just another chore with little payoff — or worse, another unhealthy coping mechanism. You’re told it will make you feel better, but when it doesn’t, you’re left wondering what’s wrong with you.

People don’t always, and won’t, see the work behind the pictures. The photos look effortless, but every knot, every light bulb, every tiny detail was a battle against my own brain. Depression doesn’t mean I don’t try — it means trying feels like climbing a mountain while carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders (*Sings* “Oh poor Atlas, the worlds a beast of a burden” – thanks Florence and the Machine). And still, I did it. It feels even crueler that you don’t get much back for it, because again, I am depressed.

Why doesn’t the BEST bath of my existence work? Why doesn’t the perfectly curated cosy space bring me peace? It’s like I’m chasing something I can’t catch, and honestly, I feel bad for anyone else in the same boat. Likely, if you have mental illness, you feel this too and you’ve felt that crash of stopping. And it’s NOT your fault, just like it’s not mine.

But even though the crash hit hard, I’m still really glad I tried. I’d much rather cry in a cosy haven than in a space that doesn’t feel safe or comforting. At the end of the day, when all is said and done (I have been watching too much Gavin and Stacey) I think trying to care for myself even if this is avoidance, is better right now than giving up entirely. It wont fix me, it might even lead to a crash, but it does do something — it’s all I can do now that I am lost in what to do for the best. I also know, one day in the near future, self care will feel how it’s supposed to feel again.

“Changed My Mind” by E-Dubble feels like the soundtrack to this post and an anthem for how I’m feeling lately — honest, reflective, and a bit of a middle finger to the struggle. It’s messy, but it’s mine.
“Pushing forward even though this life sucks sometimes, fucking with this noose I promise I can get it untied”.