Care

This is so obvious that we miss it. If I turn up looking dirty, with my hair unkempt and bad breath, what am I presenting to the world? Add to that bad skin from poor diet, circles under my eyes from sleepless nights and holes in my clothes.

I start to tip over the edge to the point where any employer could see that I have problems that will almost certainly affect my work. They might not know what the problem is but they can see there is one. It’s not really their job to find and sort out.

In itself, being desperate is not a problem. It's the desperation when someone has lost all ability to take care of themselves at a basic level that's a problem. Dirty teeth can be a short term issue, but deep down could show that a person has never considered themselves as important enough to do basic care.

Travelling in poverty-stricken countries I have been struck by how clean their clothes are when leaving the slums of Bangkok or the shantytowns of Cape Town. They manage, without a home or washing facilities. But then in richer countries, I see this same level of impoverishment with people in debt. They have a home; somewhere to do their laundry. But it becomes a state of mind to not take care of oneself.

Long-term stress has huge health implications: insomnia, heart issues and diminishing concentration. From that, other health issues can follow. Doctors are left to try and deal with the symptoms with pills for depression, inability to concentrate and assorted problems of high adrenalin. Self-care at its most basic is good food, sleep and warmth. Then comes keeping clean, grooming and human contact. Without these, we become odd, eccentric or just ‘funny’.

Having no money made it hard to be as well kept as I wanted, yet I thought no one could tell. But of course they could. I see it on the faces of so many I work with, grey from exhaustion and stress, bad breath and spectacles held together by glue. Shoes that need repairing or replacing and hair that a friend has helpfully tried to trim, as well as small health concerns like skin problems and of course the bad back. How can I go into any environment with real confidence when I feel so rubbish? I can fake it but those around me can sense my real state of mind.

Self-care for those working at stopping debt is vital. Eating green vegetables rather than takeaways at five times the cost, wearing clean clothes from the charity shop rather than old rags originally from a designer shop and sucking on breath fresheners rather than brushing smelly teeth. These forms of self-care show to myself, as well as everyone else, that I do have a basic degree of self worth.