Almost Canadian

Yesterday I went to the chiropractor. Turns out my spine is a mess! My neck is curving the wrong way and my lower back is very obviously tilted to one side and things are compressed that shouldn’t be. The chiropractor took one look at the X-ray of my neck and said, “You’re 25. We shouldn’t be seeing this.”

Oops.

The thing is, I knew I should probably go sooner. But it’s expensive and I was able to ignore the pain I was having. I’d do the occasional stretching, sometimes consistently, sometimes not, usually in reaction to a flareup of pain.

That was it until two things happened.

One, I had a baby. That’s expensive and we paid the entire deductible at once. This means my healthcare for the rest of the year is free. Two, my back started hurting really badly, not just kinda badly. After weeks of avoiding making the call I finally scheduled and got in.

It’s scary to me to think how bad my back is and how I only went to the chiropractor because we met the deductible. Thank goodness I caught it in time before my bones deteriorate even further. If only I would do the same for my mental health.

See, I’m realizing I do the exact same thing to my mental health. Most of the time it’s manageable, with low levels of self-hatred or overwhelm that I can push through, as I have for most of my life. I have the occasional flare-ups where it’s harder to handle and emotions escape and life feels heavy. Like the chiropractor, I haven’t gone to therapy because it’s expensive and I don’t think I’m worth the expense. Better to just do what I can at home, sometimes consistently and sometimes not.

But then I think of my back, which is now a mess with irreversible damage. I’m getting the care now but irreversible damage is, in fact, irreversible. I don’t want to make that same mistake again. It’s time to actually do something to take care of these problems I’m having.

This is a wakeup call, for me and for you: take care of yourself. This is the only you you’ve got.