When Self-Care Is Used to Justify Harmful Behavior
As a long-term therapy patient and future psychologist, I find issue with the self-care community today.
Self-care consist of practices meant to nourish your physical and mental health. The actions and mindsets heralded in the self-care community all serve to nurture and strengthen your love for yourself. This includes things like working out, meditating, and reading — or even treating yourself to some chocolate or cake.
The notions and practices within such self-care are all noble, of course.
But oftentimes, they are twisted to serve damaging or unhealthy lifestyles. Instead of creating positive change, they perpetuate harmful patterns. And all the while, these messages are played under the guise of self-care.
In my experience, the following three are particularly misconstrued.
1: “No one is perfect”
As the saying suggests, we all have certain flaws.
This underlines the fact that we cannot — and should not — expect others or ourselves to always perform at our best. We cannot always be brilliant and smart, nor are we always the best people or parents or partners or friends. Not to mention, not all of us are charismatic or nurturing or talented — and these natural shortcomings ought to be forgiven.
However, this notion does not mean that we should continue to maintain our harmful imperfections.
Despite their occasional inevitability, our personal flaws are things that signal future improvement. We can always choose to become better people, and to strive to learn from our faults. Sure, hiccups are no reason to beat ourselves with shame, but we should acknowledge our flaws and actually work on them.
Otherwise, we might end up giving ourselves permission to perpetuate the very habits and behaviors that continually hurt ourselves and those around us.
2: “I deserve to treat myself”
Everyone ought to pursue their impulsive desires every once in a while.
In healthy and infrequent doses, eating a snack or skipping a workout session can be beneficial. It can reduce stress, prevent negative health outcomes, and increase satisfaction of life. Overall, treating yourself in ways you would otherwise abstain from can help balance out maladaptive or extreme versions of self-control.
But this notion is problematic for two (ironically, opposite) reasons.
(1) It builds under the notion that you have to “deserve” something nice to enjoy it; and thus, it upholds the rigid self-control that the treat is meant to stabilize. And (2), it is often used to justify indulgence or overconsumption. We can always find a reason to eat another slice or skip another workout on the basis that we have earned it — but in these cases, we are putting our health and progress on the line.
Thus, we are making what has once been an occasional “treat” into an unhealthy habit.
3: “Toxic people have no place in my life”
It is okay to end a social relationship.
It is okay to place boundaries with people, and it is okay to leave those who overstep these lines. At the end of the day, you deserve respect and love and care. People who are negative, hurtful, or outright dangerous do not inherently deserve your time and energy.
Despite this truth, the term “toxic” has become such a widely used label that it now encapsulates even the tiniest and most redeemable of mistakes.
We have become so focused on how we want to be treated, that we demand perfection from others. We mark the offenders as “toxic” and cast them aside without trying to just listen and understand. By putting a label on their actions, we give them no room to change — even though relationships of all kinds require constant work and occasional conflict.
Even worse, when we use the word “toxic” to also mean “flawed” in a more general sense, we disregard the very real abuse and mistreatment present in a lot of relationships.
And when these kinds of things occur, our motive to do self-care develops into something ultimately destructive.
