Teach me how to "Self-Care"

I didn't grow up in the kind of family where, if you got a cut or a cold, you went straight to the doctor. Slap a Band-Aid on that boo-boo and call it done. If you can imagine the opposite of a helicopter mom, that's my family.

I haven't been to a proper doctor since my last school physical. I do my annual visit for women's healthcare, and I tell myself that it's for the health of my breasts and my cervix, but it's really just so I can get birth control. At my last annual exam, my Pap smear came back with abnormal cells and I was told I have a strain of HPV that could cause cancer. I was scheduled to come back in six months for another exam. After battling with the hospital billing due to some confusion over changing insurance plans, I was reluctant to return. And then, a sudden promotion for my husband moved us out of state before that appointment rolled around. I would need to find a new doctor. But that's not really why I didn't go back. In truth, I was scared. And it seems like a giant waste of money to be told my cells are still abnormal and I just have to wait to see if they turn into cancer or if it goes away on its own. So six months past and I didn't go and then another six months and I still didn't go and I knew that eventually my prescription for birth control would run out and I would have to go for that reason alone. But then CVS Caremark, remarkable service that it is, simply asked my former doctor to renew my prescription for me, and they did.

But I'm not writing to talk about women's healthcare. I'm writing to talk about self-care – this buzzword in the mental health world. And it's something I was never really taught. See my family suffers from mental health issues, but our solution isn't really to take care of it, at least not for our own sake. My mother says she has to take Lexapro in order to be nice to others. She'd probably never admit it and would hate for me to be telling strangers this. She hates the fact that she has to take it at all and sometimes she doesn't take it. I try to avoid her during those times. She doesn't take the Lexapro to feel better, she takes it to act better. But I don't want to act better, I don't want to feel like this. The few times that I've suggested that I have mental health issues, or any health issues really, she dismisses my notions. Maybe she wants to believe that I am a perfectly healthy, normal daughter. But I am her daughter. And her insistence to dismiss these notions in her attempt to make me feel better serves only to invalidate my feelings and, essentially, gaslight me. She told me that everyone feels like that sometimes and that it's reasonable, that it's my job getting to me, that it's my introversion – all reasons that I've used myself to justify not getting help.

And it's not just her. My husband, head full of right wing conspiracy theories from the internet, warned me not to tell the doctors that I have a gun. But the conversation twisted and turned and devolved into a warning that "they" will come take our guns someday. Maybe they should, I said, because maybe I shouldn't have them. Indignant, he replied that they're his guns too. The implication: That my recieving mental health care would cause him to get his guns taken. Now I'm not sure who needs help more, me or him. I kid, of course, but behind this conversation lies the heart of the mental health stigma. If I get help, if I go on anti-depressants, I'll be on a list somewhere and people might know and what if it prevents me from being able to do something in the future and what will people think if they find out. 

But I have a bigger, more important question: What if I actually start feeling better? 

I booked a doctor's appointment for a general check-up for the first time in my life. I don't really know the proper way to do this, to ask for help dealing with these feelings of depression and anxiety, but I figure this is a good first step. And though I really want someone to hold my hand and call the doctors for me and tell me, "You're doing a good thing, you need this, and I'm here to help and guide you through it," I understand I'm on my own. I always have been. I'm scared and nervous and lost. But if I can put aside my protective, secretive nature and open up to this doctor, maybe I can open the door to a future free from this black dog. 

(Hey, maybe you can help me find the courage — if you've been there, walk me through it. I hate walking into something not knowing how it's going to go. Let me know I'm not alone.) 

(Also, don't worry, I'll book a Pap while I'm there.)