I am a total tomboy. I do have long hair but I work on a farm (previously worked retail) and typically wear men’s clothing. I don’t have a problem cleaning up for say a date (with H) or something and I clean up pretty good. But I have never been the pink, foo foo type. My mother used to dress me all up when I was real little but dad kinda raised me as a boy and I took to the jeans and outdoors.
H knew I had a trauma history before we married and said he was familiar with trauma and trauma work. This all started when T told me to take care of my inner child. I had a baby blanket when I was really little that I took everywhere so I made a replica of that. As I got a little older I had a specific stuffed animal... now, this was 35 yeas agoand the store only made that specific animal one year. I saw one on eBay that, even after 35 years, was almost new condition so I bought it to comfort the slightly older inner child. I still have the original one but he is a bit tattered. H got real judgmental even though I keep all that stuff in my craft room and set up a safe feeling spot for hard days. Anyway, H was so judging about the stuffed animal T suggested leaving the new one at his office so I didn’t have to deal with H!
The only other thing that is changed is before if I was in a bad mood/space we just called it a bad mood. Now if I am in a bad mood I stop and think about it. Am I just having a bad day? Is it hormones? Did something from my past get kicked up. I am discovering that most of my bad days are days when something happened that would have upset me as a 5th grader and I am still reacting out of a 5th grader mentality. But I have always done this I just never bothered to look any deeper than saying it is a bad day.
In Hs world self care for a woman means getting your hair done and/or going shopping. Not even things like a hot bath or curling up with tea and a good book make sense to him as self care.