Psychology Today: Addressing Your Health Is a Fundamental Self-Care Skill

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What is fundamental self-care?

Fundamental self-care is often the hard, consistent, unglamorous, non-Instagrammable actions and behaviors required to take care of ourselves sustainably and consistently well as adults.

And attending to our medical health is a fundamental self-care step with which so many survivors of trauma backgrounds struggle.

Why is self-care often so hard for those who come from relational trauma backgrounds?

In my personal and professional experience, this may be because of a few reasons:

• We perhaps didn’t have this modeled for us well (if at all) as children by our caregivers, who had their own mental health and logistical deficits.
• We perhaps grew up in financial scarcity and still don’t have the insurance coverage or money required to attend well to our medical health.
• We perhaps grew up with a fundamental and maladaptive belief that we’re broken and not worthy, so, really, what’s the point of taking good care of ourselves?
• We—like many—perhaps have had negative (if not traumatic) experiences with the medical community that further reinforced our childhood trauma histories.

And perhaps the reason why it feels hard for you to take good care of yourself medically is for another reason altogether.

What does it mean practically to attend to our medical health well?

Practically and tangibly, I’ll share what I anecdotally* believe attending to our medical health looks like:

• Make sure you have regular, annual physical check-ups with your primary care physician and medical care team (such as your OBGYN, audiologist, optometrist, etc.), and then follow up on the suggestions and guidance given to you by your licensed medical professional after this is complete.
• Make sure you are regularly filling and refilling any prescriptions you are prescribed so there are no gaps in your medication treatment (which could lead to adverse consequences).
• Seek out professional support to help you address any long-standing health issues and injuries, which, even though you’ve grown accustomed to them, could, if resolved, greatly improve the quality of your life.
• If and when you experience dismissal or insufficient service from your medical providers, ask/demand that your presenting concerns and requests for specific next steps be put into your medical records for that visit; then ask for a copy of those records, and if necessary, seek out a second opinion, a third opinion, and/or speak to the department head that that medical professional reports to.
• Rearrange your finances and spending and budget to prioritize having medical health care coverage so that all of the above feels more possible.

This list is not exhaustive, but it is, I find, a great way to begin actively practicing the skill of attending to your basic medical health.

Read the full article here!

Reflection:

Would you say that you attend to your medical health well?

#Health #SelfCare #Trauma