Learning to Care for the Rest of My Body

The Lightbulb Moment

It took me decades to learn what people now call self‑care. For me, it started as a lightbulb moment.

For most of my life, I focused on the “loudest” parts of my body. The joints that hurt, the ones that dictated my day, the ones that demanded attention. It made sense. When something screams, you listen. But somewhere in my late twenties, I had what I can only describe as a lightbulb moment.  And that lightbulb moment changed everything. Not a dramatic epiphany, but more like a quiet click. The beginning of a realization that unfolded slowly and changed the way I understood my own health.

It was the moment I understood that the rest of my body had been living through all of it too.

That single awareness opened a door I didn’t even know existed. And once I stepped through it, nothing about how I cared for myself looked the same again.

“Self-care is giving the world the best of you, instead of what’s left of you.”

-Katie Reed

Because adulthood doesn’t erase the past. It doesn’t undo fused joints, surgical histories, or the years your body spent adapting long before you had the language to describe what was happening. Instead, it asks you to navigate work, relationships, parenting, identity, and responsibility in a body that has already lived a lifetime of complexity.

And that’s where the real story begins. In the space between who I was as a child with JIA and who I was still becoming as an adult learning to live with it.

I began paying attention in new ways.

Every surgery, every medication, every flare, every period of stress. None of it happened in isolation. My muscles, my digestion, my sleep, even my mood and energy. They were all carrying pieces of the load. I realized I couldn’t keep treating my body like a collection of problem joints. I had to start caring for the whole system that had been carrying me through this life.

Self‑care wasn’t a concept, a conversation, or a cultural norm like it is today. You had to invent it for yourself.

I looked at my diet. Not in a restrictive or perfectionist way, but with curiosity. I started a food journal to understand how different foods made me feel, what gave me energy, what left me sluggish, what supported my overall well‑being. It wasn’t about “fixing” anything; it was about finally listening.

I started journaling more broadly, not just about symptoms but about stress, emotions, patterns, and the mental weight of living with a childhood disease in an adult body. Writing became a way to process the things I had pushed aside for years. The fear, the frustration, the resilience, the large and small victories. It helped me see myself as a whole person, not just a medical history.

The Everyday Side of Caring for Myself

And caring for the rest of my body didn’t always look like what people imagine. It wasn’t spa days or elaborate routines. It was small, ordinary things that made my life feel a little more livable.

Sometimes it meant turning on my cleaning playlist and letting myself get pulled into the songs that carried me through different chapters of my life. Today, Bruno Mars’ “I Just Might” has the power to make me dance and sing with a smile on my face and a mop in my hand. It’s not glamorous, but it’s joy! And, in my mind, joy counts as care!

And sometimes, it was something as simple as a snuggle with my dog Rocco! Bringing the kind of quiet, grounding comfort that settles your whole nervous system without asking anything of you.

And then there are the quiet rituals. In my thirties, I started doing three to five minutes of meditation before bed. Nothing complicated. Just breathing. Settling, and letting my body know the day was over. It became a small anchor in the chaos, a way to wind down that I still rely on.

None of these things “fixed” anything. They just helped me feel more like a whole person instead of a collection of symptoms. And sometimes that’s enough.

Taking care of the rest of my body wasn’t a single decision; it was a shift in mindset. It was the moment I stopped seeing myself as someone managing a condition and started seeing myself as someone deserving of full‑body care, compassion, and attention.

And while I was learning all of this, life didn’t slow down to give me space to figure it out.

Life Didn’t Pause for Juvenile Arthritis

In between all of this, life kept happening. Fast, loudly, and without any regard for the fact that I was still learning how to care for a body shaped by Juvenile Arthritis. I got married. I had a daughter. I got divorced. I went back to university while working a full‑time job as a single parent. None of it came with a pause button, and my joints definitely didn’t get the memo.

Those years taught me something I hadn’t fully understood before: my whole self needed attention. Not just the joints that hurt. Not just the parts of me shaped by juvenile arthritis. All of me. The physical, the emotional, the mental, the exhausted, the grieving, the determined, the hopeful.

That lightbulb moment in my twenties may have sparked the shift, but the truth is, the understanding itself took years to grow roots. Somewhere in the middle of single parenthood, work, school, surgeries, stress, and the relentless pace of life, I finally understood that surviving isn’t enough. And once that truth settled in, everything about how I approached my health, and my life, began to shift.

Because here’s the truth I wish I had learned earlier: caring for yourself is not selfish. It’s not indulgent. It’s not something you have to justify or apologize for. It’s a necessity!

“Self‑care is health care.”

-Suzy Reading

Self‑care isn’t a luxury reserved for quiet seasons or perfect circumstances. It’s the foundation that allows you to keep going, to show up, to rebuild, to hope. It’s the steady, compassionate choice to honour the whole of who you are. Not just the parts that hurt the loudest.

And once you stop apologizing for taking care of yourself, you begin to understand something powerful: your well‑being is not optional. It’s the ground everything else stands on.