Midnight showers are therapy
I run steaming water and step into my tiled panic room, letting the worst of my thoughts circle the drain
I turned 26 this week and have been reflecting on how drastically different my mental health has been in my twenties compared to my teen years—mostly, of course, due to the pandemic, recession and inflation. Last year was especially challenging and in the thick of it, I found that the simplest forms of self care are what most effectively help me get back on track after debilitating episodes of anxiety. I’m grateful to be medicated and to have access to such a lovely therapist. Happy Monday and I’m wishing us all good mental health <3
At some point last year, I reached such a low point in my mental health that I challenged myself to shower every day. A self-described overly productive personality, depression pummeled me so far to the ground that I was motionless against any inkling of discipline to my basic regimens.
The importance of routines in relation to our health and well-being has been long exhausted, and I admit to being a sucker for a good 20-minute Morning Routine Youtube video. I’d heard of people walking every day for a year and watched others boast the benefits of meditating before the sun rises each morning. Others swear by their afternoon matcha or evening yin yoga, but when it comes to my mental health, I can sometimes barely get myself to brush my teeth before 1 pm.
On my worst days, anxiety replaces my appetite and I won’t eat breakfast until 2:00 in the afternoon—and feel guilty about even calling it breakfast because it’s more accurately oatmeal for lunch. There were days in that year where no matter how desperately I needed clean socks, I couldn’t get myself to pull my hamper to the washing machine until 8 pm.
As a schedule-oriented, tightly wound person, “wasting” productive daylight hours was hard for me to accept. Like most college students, I used to boast of how little sleep I got each night; how I’d finished a graphic design project at 11 pm before waking up at 5 am the next day for my barista job. Years removed from academia, I now identify this diligence and productivity as high functioning anxiety.
When I first started taking Lexapro, I could barely stay awake. My body felt immovable every time my alarm gently blared and my eyelids were like tiny bags of wet sand. In those early weeks, I was getting around 12 hours of sleep while still needing an afternoon nap.
After describing this to my doctor during a follow-up appointment, she said she believes my body was used to operating under such high anxiety that now with the medication, it can finally rest the way it needs to.
My lifestyle changed then, as I became more lenient and in-tune to what my body was asking of me. I permitted myself to drift to sleep on the living room couch in the middle of the afternoon and graciously pushed tasks to tomorrow if my eyes felt too fuzzy to stare into a laptop screen.
This is when I recognized that sometimes I needed to play chicken with my depression; to patiently wait it out until it’s too weak to inhibit me from doing basic tasks. I decided that it’s never too late to do just about anything: it’s never too late to get out of bed, wash dishes, cook a meal or take a shower. It’s never too late for that first sip of water or washing your face, and while anytime after 5 pm might be too late in the day for a cup of coffee, I’ll drink it knowing full well what I’m getting myself in to.
The wellness industry has boomed in the past five years, and self care has become less of an inward practice and more of an outward promotion of a product or service—most of which are marketed towards a young, female audience. Bath bombs, expensive face masks, yoga leggings and pay-walled meditation apps bombard our feeds and advertising to distract from the truth that sometimes we might just need a high pressure shower head.
When I feel an oncoming anxiety spiral after the sun goes down, it usually corresponds with an itchy, dirty scalp and an oily, worn face. I run steaming water and step into my tiled panic room, letting the worst of my thoughts circle the drain.
Feature Photo by Dan Smedley on Unsplash