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What are the costs of neglecting my own needs?

Something I’ve done for as long as I can remember, something taught to me from a very young age. “Your Mom works hard to give you the life you have, the least you can do is …….” Given tasks way too advanced for a young child, too difficult to accomplish and bound to fail. Alas, they were still given. A way to prove your worth. By no means am I saying that children should not be given responsibilities, or tasks to help teach them to care for themselves appropriately in the future. Instead, we need to recognize that sometimes, because of our own workload as parents, we expect them to work just as hard, if not harder than us. We cling to this ideology that if we can show them the “right” way, they won’t turn out like us. Thus, repeating the same broken lessons our parents, and their parents before them taught.

So, what is the cost of neglecting my own needs, within myself. Not simple things like ensuring dishes are all washed before I lay down for the night. But the deepest needs.

Putting everyone else, including my children and ex-partners, even friends before myself has led me to the point of exhaustion. Two years ago, I had reached such a low point in my life that I, for the first time in almost a decade, struggled with suicidal ideations. I thought that everyone around me, including my two beautiful children, would be better off without me. That they had enough of a good support system, that I could finally just check out and be done struggling internally. This was very much, not the case. I believed it though, neglecting myself and what I needed the most had me truly thinking that life would be better off unlived. I wasn’t showering regularly, I wasn’t sleeping or eating right. I wouldn’t exercise; I barely even left the house for the most part. I’d gained so much weight that I didn’t even bother looking in the mirror anymore. I was done.

Thankfully, I was given the opportunity to go back to my home province for a while. Which, in turn came with its own challenges but it helped propelled me into a new mindset. What could be possible if I chose to honor myself for once? If all I had to think about was myself (and of course my children)? It was exciting, rejuvenating and also terrifying. For so long I had put an entire household before myself. I couldn’t remember what it felt like to just do what I wanted anymore. Slowly, as those four months went by, I rediscovered who I was, the things I loved, what made ME feel good about myself. The weight fell off, my smile returned, my hair thickened and my mood improved. I felt like myself again.

Unfortunately, without even realizing it, I was still being put in positions that didn’t honor myself. Doing things for others, being guilted into certain things that went against this new found mentality crept back in. Picking up workloads that weren’t mine to pick up. Compromising my own wants and needs to placate others around me. I still tried my best to honor myself when I could, when I had the time, or when I demanded it and didn’t take no for an answer. Because at the end of the day, I’d returned home to find myself again. Four months past and the day came to return home, a trip I should’ve done by myself but again I put someone else’s needs and desires above my own. I was too scared to do it alone. Something I’ve struggled with my entire life. Doing things alone.

My ingrained fear of failure has always been the root of my own demise. Petrified to even begin a task, allowing myself to get so overwhelmed by the idea that something might be more difficult than I expected. Hopeful that I could get to the finish line, but coming up with every excuse in the book as to why it won’t work out. I’m excellent at it, calculated and so self assured with my ability to think of every possible way it could burst up in flames before I even cross “Start”. Too concerned with how I will look in the eyes of others if I fail, or allowing others to convince me that I can’t do it. Ruminating on the words from partners past, “you know you’ll just give up”, “what’s the point?”, “yeah right.” As they rolled their eyes at my ideas for home-based ways of making income, or my desire to start working out, my dreams were crushed. I began to think to myself, “Maybe they’re right, what’s the point? I’ll just fail at that like I’ve failed at everything thus far…” So, the cycle continued. But what if? What if I chose to not keep myself in a cage of self-doubt and self-abandonment?

What would I ask for if I no longer saw my needs as flaws or a burden?

-A.