Could you tell me a time when you cared?

The last two years have been unprecedented, with the COVID-19 pandemic, school strikes for climate, Black Lives Matter movements, headlines of child hunger, racism and inequality, all of which highlight, there is a lot in this to world to care about.

During this time I have felt myself grappling with the concept of care. As someone who has always felt to be a positive, outgoing and quietly confident within themself, the emotions I have contended with have represented un-chartered waters to me. Anxiety, lonliness, hopelessness, stress and uncertainty. I found myself pondering how if my cup half full had turned half empty how others with pre-existing mental health strains were faring, those vulnerable, ill, worse off than me.

I put everything I had into caring for those in my life, checking in on my friends, calling the family who were far away and isolated, working as a residential child carer, studying inequality for my masters, becoming vegan, the list goes on. Caring about people became my whole life however I realised that taking on the responsibility of caring was making me weak. The worry of shouldering the children’s problems at work, the stress of impending university deadlines, the ache of missing distanced loved ones, I was emotionally and physically exhausted. Ticking everyone’s boxes except my own. My tiredness and anxiety was overwhelming, my ongoing health diagnosis deteriorated, I crashed the work car, and I found myself emotionally unstable.

The cumulative of which really drove home (pardon the pun) that I needed to care for myself first and foremost, that whilst I couldn’t stop the inate inclination to care, I had to look after myself in order to be any kind of support to those I cared about.

Fundamentally I feel that care comes full circle. Everyone has the capacity to do it, and everyone needs it. The mental health repurcussions of recent international events do not discriminate and everybody will be effected in ways they may not even understand yet, manifesting in a multiplicity of narratives, unique to each person. If you are reading this blog, take this as a little reminder to care, care for yourself, care for your family and your friends. Care for a stranger if the opportunity presents itself. A text, a smile, a gesture of kindness goes a long way, because the world can never have too much care.