I tricked google.

Well, I’ve at least figured out how to reduce its level of concern about my document structure by starting separate documents for threads, and grouping the racing thoughts into categories.

Maybe “buy apples” for the grocery list and a deep insight on a childhood trauma don’t belong together.

Unless of course it is the precise food item that will make me feel like I’m loved from the inside and stifle any need for external validation.

I forced myself to focus on work this week – and things went really well. I channeled the lingering amped-up-energy-surge into some high priority work and invested my time and focus in some really good conversations with my team. I was truly present in my life this week – at work, with my kids. My husband may beg to differ as there was definitely some snoring on the couch next to him as each day drew to a close.

So I’m feeling good, a bit calmer than last week. Of course, now that leads me to wonder if I’m on some sort of slightly manic yin and yang cycle that is a bigger problem than I am willing to admit. Overthink much? Most people don’t have a good week and worry if that isn’t really a good thing, but the other side of a coin that is also the double edged sword of mental illness.

Mental health can be the elephant in the room that can’t be named, a la Voldemort, except that instead of being some crystalized antagonist of a story, it is a creature living inside of you. 

I once played a game with my team at work. We had everyone assign themselves a spirit animal¹. Yes, I’m that kind of boss.  For the record, I didn’t go into the meeting intending to play a game – it was just that kind of team, and we went where the conversation went.

One guy was an octopus. He was absolutely brilliant, with a steel trap of a memory and a cleverness that we used to do way more than open jars. He also had a habit of waving his arms around when he talked.

We assigned squirrel to a guy I’d had to recently manage out of the team in homage to his persistent level of alarm and nervous energy. This was most often evident if I dared ask him for an update on a task he’d been assigned. He had a habit of investing more energy trying to get out of the thing than to do the damn thing.

They assigned me as a lioness – because of how fiercely I would protect the team. Not quite sure I bought in on this one, but it was a nice ego boost.

But back to the Voldemort creature inside you – I’m thinking about the animal that represents the behaviour you adopt in any kind of emotional conflict.

Taylor Tomlinson has a great bit where she self describes as someone who behaves like a racoon trapped in a trash bag in a fight. This got me thinking,  what is my “fight” spirit animal? First things first, even the word “fight” triggers me a bit – I do not DO conflict.

At first, I thought perhaps of the turtle. But that would intimate that I actually try to protect my head and limbs. That is a stretch for me in any conditions.

A possum? Play dead, and hope they move on? Yea, that sounds about right.

When you’ve grown up around people with deep, persistent mental health struggles,  it can be really tough to express yourself without mentioning or triggering the elephant in the room – either their mental illness itself, or the narrative that they’ve built to protect themselves.

Don’t poke the bear. How many animal metaphors can I work in? This is now a game.

I would try my hardest to have an even-keeled, steady logical conversation. It always felt like trying to solve a math equation, but one where you’re not allowed to name the variables (Voldemort). You have to adhere to the rules that align to their defined confirmation bias or risk setting off a turn of events that you can see unfolding in a myriad of ways none of which involve calm responses like “thank you, that was helpful, I hadn’t looked at it from that angle”.

If my words were at odds in any way with their version of events, it could be taken personally, as an ad-hominem attack. Though I might have been trying to discuss something I perceived to be a benign fact or event, sometimes it was foundational to the house of cards they had built, and they would fight with everything they had to keep it from being blown down.

So in a story that may be familiar to many people pleasers around the globe, I learned to possum at the first sign that any conversation might be going off the rails. I learned that no conversation could be trusted. I learned to stop trying to tell my story. Here in the anonymous land of internet blogging, I pledge to begin letting it out, and hope that it will translate into courage in my day to day life – or at a minimum help let some things go.

What animal are you? What animal do you aspire to be?

1. This was quite some time ago – it now feels a bit icky, like a bit of cultural appropriation from the indigenous. That said, was intended in a nice curious, playful & exploratory way. ↩︎