I have talked about how I think self-care is a myth. How we have been conditioned (especially as helpers and empaths) to give all of our good away and then use self-care to fill ourselves back up. I have developed my thesis: self-care is a way of life, not the pampering activities or self-soothing techniques you engage in.
Today, I’m giving you a glimpse of what this actually looked like in my life when I thought self-care was a repertoire of activities to offload stress.
Trips to my in-laws
We live 2+ hours by plane from my in-laws. Not too far away but far away enough that it takes effort to visit.
Cue Problem #1
During our marriage, my husband and I have been expected to travel to them. Not because they are ill and cannot travel or because they are financially limited and cannot afford the cost.
Instead we have been expected because we are the compliant, sensitive ones, the “children” in the equation. They are the ones in control who set the rules. The unspoken message is that we are to comply.
They have taken the effort and left their comfort zone to visit us once in 17 years. Despite the imbalance of who makes the sacrifice of time and resources, my in-laws complained when we did not make timely visits, when we did not visit “enough,” or spend holidays together.
Somehow the visits we made, the time away from work, the used PTO and lost weekends from our normal routine, were not enough to satisfy their need. And yet they rarely budged from their comfortable lives to make an effort. It was clear that the effort-making was ours to endure alone.
Do you see the problem with this? Does this sound familiar to your life or to someone you know?
My husband and I both work full-time, and yet we were still expected to take time from our schedules and visit them, when it would have been easier for them, in their retired lifestyles, to take the time to visit us.
I am not alone in this dynamic. I know many people who are in the same situation – that in their families, they are the ones expected to do the traveling. To make the sacrifices. To incur the expense. To make the effort. Rarely do their families make the same effort.
Resentment inevitably builds, and understandably so.
Let’s move on to Problem #2 – –
While we were there visiting, we were expected to insert ourselves into their schedule, into the normal scheduled programming. Not activities we do together. Not activities that we have discussed. Not activities that could be special or even enjoyable.
Instead we are supposed to follow along with normal schedule of activities in their lives, with no consideration of our needs or desires or preferences. No consideration of how tired we may be, or if we are hungry, or if we do not want to engage in said pre-scheduled activity.
The time together was not really spent together. We may be at the same child’s soccer game, but we are not really communing or connecting. Instead we are the out-of-towners, the outsiders, who do not really fit.
There is no attempt on their part to consider us. No considerations made. Maybe the expectation is that we can fend for ourselves.
Here’s the kicker – we would “request” to visit months ahead. We asked “What would be a good weekend to visit?” and asked when THEY wanted us to visit. And yet when we were there, the schedule revolves around them, not the shared time together.
I have spent too many visits to count at soccer games early on a Saturday morning (when I’m severely allergic to grass and much too hungry to pay attention). Too many visits eating at some greasy lunch spot or eating around someone’s kitchen counter. Too many visits going along with the flow, a flow that does not honor my sensitivities and nervous system.
Has this happened to you? Where the expectation is that you visit and when you are there, you are treated as an afterthought or with no thought at all?
Why is this acceptable in relationships? Why is it that there is no mutual consideration? What happened to the mutuality in relationships?
On to Problem #3 – –
These trips would be marathons. Land at the airport, drive to the hotel, check-in, drop our bags, grab a bite to eat, meet up with family at some pre-planned event, casually chat, go to the next event (usually a child’s sporting event), a second sporting event, eventually have dinner, collapse at the hotel. Day 2 – repeat day one. AND find time to split between divorced parents.
This continued until we flew home, exhausted and depleted. The trip wasn’t connection. It wasn’t intimacy. It was two people added to the dinner table.
Instead it was obligation disguised as relationship, masquerading as connection.
Returning home, exhausted and spent, I jumped back into the work with little time for recovery. Being depleted from it all, I white-knuckled through my days, trying to fit in self-care. This would continue until I felt a little better, only to be depleted again by the next thing.
Why is it “normal” that in certain relationships, specifically in families, that we are expected to spend of ourselves with little reciprocation? That we are expected to push past our capacity for the sake of the relationship?
Last problem – –
When our tolerance runs out for this type of arrangement, when we are depleted from years of this pattern, we pull back. We visit less. We do not make as much effort. A new problem unfolds – the family complains more. “Why do you not visit more? Why are your visits short?”
If you don’t continue to go along with the flow, the conflict continues until there is an eruption. Or until the relationship fades out. When you set boundaries and limits with your time, when you protect your energy, you end up with no connection at all.
Why is it acceptable to guilt someone into changing their behavior?
Instead of a healthy conversation, when you can discuss how exhausting the trips are and how challenging it is to be inserted into regularly scheduled events, there is avoidance and passive-aggressiveness. We are guilted, even shamed, like we are doing something wrong by caring for ourselves and setting limits.
Many families do not know how to have conflict. There are the aggressors, the narcissists, and there are the compliant ones, the sensitives. We get pegged in these roles and it is difficult to redefine ourselves. If we dare to change the role we play in the family, often our family has no space for us. We may even be disowned from the family and cast out for speaking up and asserting ourselves.
This leads to thinking that “self-care” is the answer. Yet we are caught in a cycle of depletion and told that self-care is an answer…rather than setting limits, confronting unhealthy dynamics, protecting our capacity and holding on to more of our good.
At the risk of having no connection, many empaths and sensitives stay in unhealthy dynamics, enduring intolerable circumstances for the sake of relationship. They convince themselves that a small taste of connection is better than a full seat at the table.
They maintain a compliant role in the family for fear of having no connection at all.
This is a snapshot of a cycle I frequently found myself in. In truth, this type of relationship economy, was handed down to me in my own family. Be compliant. Go along with the intolerable. Ignore your own needs. Keep pushing yourself no matter the cost.
I began to see the inequities in my relationships and saw the cycles of depletion that I lived in. The cycles that felt as normal as breathing. This new vision was an opportunity to set myself free. To hold on to my own good. To not give it all away and think that I could self-care my way back in to balance.