When I got sick, I learned about caring for myself first. Most of the time, we experience this as a principle – we know it’s important, something we should do – but I experienced it as a physical reality. It took everything I had to get through to the next moment. I literally could not think about other people.

About a month in, I squeezed out a list of things I needed people to do or not do. I asked them not to tell me about their life. That’s because my brain couldn’t do empathy. I couldn’t extend myself imaginatively into another’s experience. When my thoughts went there automatically, I felt like I was being electrocuted. It took the breath out of my body and left me shaking. No matter what happened, no matter how great the need around me, or how desperate I was to help, I had only to care for myself.

As I healed, I imagined my brain as a garden. You couldn’t see the changes day to day, but month by month, little greens started to bud. No flowers yet, no food, but something happening, life emerging from soil.

Now that I don’t experience such strict physical limitations, caring for myself first has gone back to being something of a principle – a day-to-day choice, not a requirement. So, sometimes I feel confused. With outbreaks of war, the rise of a demagogue, or even just the needs of people I love, sometimes these make me feel I should do more, extend myself further. Sometimes I look at what I’m doing – making jewelry, playing with dogs – and I think I’m not contributing.

But the wiser parts of me know that, if I want to give something, I have to let it grow. That’s why I’m choosing my own garden first.