Dostoevsky Says ‘Suffer,’ I Say ‘Self-Care’
White Nights, F. Dostoyevsky
I’ve read White Nights maybe ten times now. Ninety pages of longing, unspoken feelings, and existential sighs. It’s the book I return to whenever my heart aches, this time I read it on a 3 hour train journey, traveling, healing and living. It has become my version of emotional muscle memory: a strange cocktail of comfort and discomfort, I’ve somehow learned to love. But here is the twist: I’m starting to think I need to be careful with it, the more I read it, the more I feel like I might be attracting the very essence of the story, that love arrives like a dream and vanishes just as suddenly.
Going back to the book, the narrator is a lonely dreamer wandering through the streets of St. Petersburg, meets Nastenka, and for a brief, moment, his world is set on fire with the kind of connection we all secretly crave but never find. It’s a love that never fully materialises, but one that transforms him nonetheless. It’s easy to read White Nights as a tragedy. But this time around when I read it, something new surfaced, something I hadn’t seen before. What if, hidden inside the heartbreak, there’s something far more powerful: the beginning of self-love?
Every time I read it, I’m in a different phase of my life. Yes, my mind still lingers on romantic love with a spark that wakes me up from emotional sleep. But now, I see how even after losing the person he thought he needed, the narrator still finds something beautiful in having felt at all. That’s when it hit me…loving someone shows you how deeply you’re capable of feeling, losing them teaches you how deeply you must learn to love yourself. We all chase love like it’s the final destination, the grand prize, the fix. But Dostoevsky’s mentions a quieter truth: the experience of loving even when it ends in silence or sorrow is still a gift. We often fall into a role when we love: the chooser, the heartbreaker, the one who loves a little too much or too little. But I don’t want to be any of those. I don’t want to turn love into a transaction of power or pride. I want to feel it, fully and honestly, without needing to own it or escape it. And maybe that’s the real point not to win at love, but to let it change us without losing ourselves in the process, let it be and it will surprise you.
Now what does self-care really look like? It’s more than a face mask and a new show on a Thursday night. It’s sitting with yourself. Learning your habits. Unlearning old wounds. Understanding why you feel the way you do. It’s recognising that heartbreak doesn’t make you less worthy of love it makes you more aware of the love you already carry within. The hardest part is knowing what you need and honestly, that's okay too. Sometimes, we don’t have the answers right away, and that’s perfectly fine. It can be so hard to follow your advice, all because you are the one feeling it and your mind gets too clouded when you feel, but what I can recommend is this: chase the things that bring you back to yourself. The little rituals, the everyday tenderness, a solo coffee date, your closest friends, journaling, that’s where healing lives, in the daily decision to treat yourself like you matter, because you do. Self-care is also about range, you get to be the soft girl and cry and then pick yourself up, be a bad bitch and maybe tell someone vaffanculo if needed.
I guess change is inevitable and even in those moments of uncertainty, it’s important to remember that growth is still happening, even if you can’t see it yet. Self-care is also unique to each person, and healing is so deeply personal. I can’t tell you what the best way to heal is, because healing looks different for everyone. If healing for you looks like booking the first flight somewhere, do it? But what I do recommend is finding the ways that help you chase that sense of peace, every single day. Even when it feels like the last thing you want to do.
I love how Dostoevsky ends the book with such quiet grace that makes this book one of my favourites. “May your sky be clear, may you be blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness that you gave to another lonely, grateful heart! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man’s life?” With that said, maybe it’s the small moments, a kind word, a deep breath and a bit of clarity that begin the real healing? Maybe that’s what it’s all about? Not chasing constant happiness, but learning to appreciate those quiet moments of peace?
