Most healthcare professionals working with our families rarely inquire about how we are coping. Several years ago, in those early days of Nai’s diagnosis, one of the first things to fall away for my husband Kes and I both was traditional self care; for me, hair and nail appointments became sporadic, and retail therapy (shopping on lunch breaks was cardio y'all, lol) became unrealistic. And it’s because, ultimately, Moms like us require something deeper than fleeting escapes and empty consumption; we need radical self care.
According to Learn & Unlearn: Anti-Racism Guide: “Radical self-care is the prioritization of placing your needs before someone else's. Radical self-care is carving out a space for yourself by defining your own self-care. It is radical because it is the act of fully engaging in self-care and ourselves. We know ourselves the best, what we are feeling, and what we need. It is because we know ourselves best, that we can assert what it is that we need. When we are addressing ourselves, it positively trickles out to the community and the environment around us. It is healing. It is self-acceptance. It is radical.”
