Speaking Gently to My Body

I’ve always criticized what I’ve sometimes called the chocolate-and-bubble-baths model of self-care, where a series of supposedly “pampering” actions is supposed to somehow replenish you and make you ready to face the world again.

But I think I’ve found the usefulness of these types of activities, and the answer, as usual, lies in mindfulness and intentionality rather than escapism and consumerism.

I used to have a lot of body image issues, and then I found feminism and did a lot of personal work and (I thought) resolved them. Then cancer hit and a lot of that work completely undid itself. Suddenly I was standing in front of the mirror saying shit to myself that I hadn’t said for a decade. That was weird.

But by 2019 my body and I had arrived at a sort of uneasy truce, held together by 1) it not having cancer and 2) me practicing intuitive eating and engaging in regular movement that feels good to me.

And then I got a severe flu, went to urgent care, was not diagnosed with the severe bacterial infection I also coincidentally had, and ended up hospitalized for two days on a near-constant drip of IV antibiotics.

If getting hospitalized for two days due to medical mismanagement isn’t perhaps the most on-brand thing that can happen to me at this point, I don’t know what is. I mean, it’s not like I’m writing a book about that or anything.

That said, the other really on-brand thing that happened was that I rallied and got discharged from the hospital just in time to get a good night’s sleep, keep my travel plans, and hop on a plane to Austin, where I’m now typing this in a backyard wearing nothing but leggings and a tank top. (I deserve this.)

But before all that, I was home from the hospital in a shitty mood with barely enough energy to stand up without something to support me. I also needed a shower. I’ve now done it several times and if you haven’t experienced this, I can absolutely assure you, the post-hospital shower is the best shower you will ever take in your life. It beats post-camping showers. It beats “the landlord finally fixed the sputtering showerhead” showers.

In the shower, I shampooed my hair, used two different kinds of conditioner, and used both body wash and scrub to exfoliate my severely-neglected skin. When I got tired, I sat down on the floor of the shower and let it wash the conditioner out of my hair.

When I felt ready to be done, I grabbed a towel from the towel warmer (I should mention, this was at my parents’ house, by no means do I personally own a towel warmer) and slid the shower door shut again so I could dry off in the remaining warmth.

I noticed that I felt compelled to dry myself more gently than I usually do. Of course this was probably in part because of my recent infection, but that had only affected a small part of my body. I realized I wanted to pamper myself—not in the mindless sense of showering the body in fancy products or putting it through a particular set of actions (no shame if you enjoy mani-pedis, but to me they are painful and awful and I have no idea how that came to abstractly represent self-care for anybody who does not enjoy pain), but by treating it with the sort of gentleness I would treat a loved one returned from the hospital.

After I finished drying off, I found myself saying, “Now, my dear, you are good as new.” I continued: “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. You fought hard and you won.”

Then I started tearing up.

Then I left the shower and started asking myself why I never thought to speak to my body this way after (let alone during) cancer.

I mean, if what I said was true in this situation—and it certainly felt true—how the fuck isn’t it even more true for the process of going into remission from cancer, regrowing my hair, losing the bloat and swollenness of chemo and steroids, and healing my surgical scars?

The truth is, as miserable as it was to suffer through both a viral and a bacterial infection at the same time—and it was literally worse than chemo, by the way—I didn’t hold it against my body that it happened. It wasn’t something my body “put me through.” It was something we got put through together. I felt awful when I was sick and I felt awful for my poor body. My fever spiked to 105 at times. Almost my entire face turned red and swollen. My lymph nodes ballooned. My head hurt so much I could barely find a way to set it down on the pillow so I could sleep. After my dad made me drink TheraFlu one night, my body violently rejected it into the toilet. (Kids: do not have TheraFlu be the only thing you consume all day, unless you’d like to use it to expel an accidentally-injested poison.) It was just an awful six-day slog of fucking misery.

And I didn’t blame my body for it at all.

I could’ve—immune system failure and whatnot. But I didn’t.

Cancer and surgical trauma felt entirely different. Cancer seemed personal and internal two times over—once because it involved my flawed genes, once because it involved my own rogue cells. After surgery, my muscles seemed to attack me and nobody listened to me.

This time, nobody denied that I was sick and hurting. I felt able to complain, to lie in bed and moan, to seek emotional and medical help. (Half-assed as the latter was at times.) With surgery, my medical care was absolutely top-notch, but that and practical assistance were pretty much the only forms of support I had.

As it turns out, it’s much easier to not to blame your body when your non-physical needs are being heard. It’s easier to care for and even move toward loving your body when you feel fully cared for and loved by others.


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Speaking Gently to My Body
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