International Self-Care Day

More Than a Moment: Self-Care as Survival for Women Who’ve Endured the Unimaginable

Self-care has been co-opted. In popular culture, it’s been reduced to bath bombs, spa days, face masks and scented candles—an aesthetic of temporary relief. But for the women supported by Anah Project, self-care is not a luxury. It’s a necessity. It is the difference between being consumed by trauma and carving out space to breathe again. On International Self-Care Day, we reclaim what self-care really means for women who’ve survived domestic abuse, sexual exploitation, addiction, and systemic oppression.

We’re not talking about something superficial. We’re talking about radical, practical acts of survival.

When the world demands your pain, rest becomes a radical act

For Black and minoritised women, the idea of rest—physical, emotional, spiritual—is often denied. Cultural expectations, gendered caregiving roles, racism, and the pressures of survival leave no space for self-prioritisation. For many women we support, exhaustion is not just a condition—it is the result of years of being stretched too thin, hurt too often, and unseen too long.

Women arrive at Anah Project carrying the weight of abuse, shame, silence, motherhood, immigration systems, poverty, court cases, housing insecurity. They don’t just need support—they need permission to care for themselves without guilt. Because for so long, they have been told that their needs don’t matter. That their pain isn’t real. That their rest must wait until others are safe.

At Anah, we say: You matter. Right now. Not later. Not when you’ve done enough. Now.

Redefining self-care: beyond products, towards healing

For us, self-care means access to:

Safe housing where a woman can close a door and know no one will hurt her

Trauma-informed therapy that acknowledges her culture, faith, and language

Legal advocacy so she doesn’t have to face the system alone

Childcare support so she can breathe, sleep, attend counselling, or go to work

Culturally safe spaces where Black and minoritised women are not tokenised but centred

Time. To cry. To pray. To rest. To not perform strength for someone else’s comfort.

Self-care also means creating space for joy. For some survivors, it’s painting again. For others, it’s walking in nature, speaking their mother tongue without fear, eating food from home, or laughing without apology. These are not indulgences. They are acts of resistance against systems that tried to erase them.

The cost of denying care

When women are not given the tools to care for themselves, the consequences are devastating. Trauma festers. Physical health deteriorates. Mental health declines. Many survivors live in a state of hypervigilance—always alert, always bracing for harm. Without rest, there is no recovery. Without support, self-care becomes another thing to feel guilty about not achieving.

And yet, many services still focus on outcomes and productivity—”Are you working yet? Have you left him? Why haven’t you moved on?” Survivors are pressured to appear healed before they’ve even had a chance to process what’s happened to them.

At Anah Project, we resist that pressure. We centre process over performance. Healing over haste. And we recognise that sometimes, the most powerful thing a woman can do is pause.

Self-care is community care

The popular self-care narrative often places the burden on individuals. But when you have survived violence or neglect, self-care is not a solo act—it is deeply connected to community.

When a woman at Anah gets support from a peer mentor, when she is offered a meal she didn’t have to cook —it sends a message: “You are not alone. You are cared for. You are safe to be soft.”

And that matters. Because healing happens in relationships. It grows through trust, reciprocity, and consistency. That’s why we work collectively—with survivors, with community partners, with frontline staff—to embed care into everything we do.

Barriers and breakthroughs

Of course, not all self-care is easy. There are still many barriers: stigma around mental health in some communities, fear of judgement, language limitations, immigration status, financial insecurity. There are days when survivors feel they don’t deserve care at all. And there are institutions that reinforce that belief—punishing women for struggling, for relapsing, for being vulnerable.

Our role is to break through those barriers, not build new ones. We remind women: You do not need to be perfect to be worthy of care.

Rest as Resistance

Self-care is not something we earn. It is something we are all entitled to. For the women we serve, it’s often the first step toward reclaiming their bodies, minds, and futures. But it cannot stop with individuals—it must shape how we care for one another, how we build organisations, and how we design the systems that claim to serve us.

At Anah Project, we will continue to protect space for rest, restoration, and recovery. Because self-care, in the hands of women who were never meant to survive, is not self-indulgent—it is revolutionary.