The Weather of Our Minds
and the relentless work of accepting it
Good morning beautiful Human,
I’m back on my Friday morning schtick. I know that Friday is the worst time to send a newsletter, but it’s about time I choose myself over the capitalistic hustle culture that is perpetually trying to ‘optimize optimize optimize’. So yup, best marketing practices be damned.
Of course, prioritizing my well-being is a messy matter — something you all have had a front-row seat to as I weather the hurricane that is life with PTSD and ADHD. I liken my life to the weather here in New England. One minute it is sunny, the next it is freezing raining on top of ice and I am falling smack on my tailbone, and then the next it's a blizzard with zero visibility that I can’t make heads or tails of which direction I’m walking and then it’s shockingly 65 degrees on a Thursday and feels like late May even though it's only mid-March.
When I liken my life to the weather, and my well-being to the seasons, I am far kinder to myself. It’s a practice I am trying to reconnect with as I ride highs and lows galore – presenting in front of the WHO Department of Mental Health, being shamed by a Yale faculty member to my boss, being interviewed for NPR’s ‘It’s Been a Minute’ radio show, sending Waffle into surgery to remove three mysterious nodules in her right middle lung, and speaking with the digital health team at The VA Center for PTSD. Suffice it to say, it’s been a lot – in the analogy of weather, there have been many passing thunderstorms – and today, I thought I’d invite you all into this practice with hopes that it helps both of us.
The power of the weather and the reason I gravitate towards it is that it is a global phenomenon that is universally accepted. It is nature in action and though some in this society might doubt global warming, they will never doubt a blizzard or air quality so poor it turns the sky bright red. Now, herein lies the healing – the radical acceptance of simply WHAT IS. Sure, we might hate the weather or be completely done with a season, but we accept that this is the course of nature — this is the chaotic rhythm we walk through life to.
There is no doubt with the weather and this is only but one of the reasons why I find nature so healing. It has also been my refuge since I was a young girl and its vast beauty and perpetual change teach me how to move through the world as it does — one day of survival, one minute basking in the sunlight, and one sip of water at a time.
Of course, accepting the whims of nature and its many seasons is far easier when the world accepts it right alongside you.
When the roads are icy and treacherous, everyone agrees — stay home, stay safe.
When the sky is red and hazy from smoke, everyone agrees – stay home, stay safe.
And when the sun is shining on a rare random Thursday afternoon and it feels like summer even though it's not even yet spring, everyone agrees — close your computer, get outside, soak it in, the sun is here for only so long.
But when it comes to serious mental illness — when it comes to the chaos of unpredictable sleep and endless disruptions in time, place, identity, and emotion, no one is there accepting it right alongside you.
When you’ve weathered a night of night terrors where you were raped over and over again — no boss, friend, or societal structure says — stay home, stay safe.
When your body is so dysregulated, you are defecating yourself and dissociating – no boss or friend or societal structure says – stay home, stay safe.
And just the same, when you find yourself on a rare afternoon when the flashbacks disappear and you are present in mind, body, spirit, and soul, no one says – close your computer, get outside, soak it in, take this undeniable gift of momentary well-being and seize it with joy and abandon.
I know this is no surprise to you. You all live it — just like me. You all fit the chaos and hell that is our own internal weather into a world that does not see it, does not allow it, and more often than not does not accept it either.
And I understand that. I even accept that to a certain extent. We live in a broken society. We do not prioritize the human being. Instead, we prioritize human doing – human hustling – human producing, like cogs in a wheel instead of crocuses unfolding in the sun.
But today, yes today – on this Friday where I am back on my good Friday schtick, I say,
What if you and I, together, started holding space for our internal weather a bit more?
What if you and I, together, started honoring the truth that we live in and through our own seasons?
Yes, what if –
What if we just accepted that like an icy road or a blizzard or muddy ruts so deep there is no way forward, our pain and hardship simply is?
It is not good.
It is not bad.
It is.
And with that understanding, even without the world’s understanding alongside us, we held ourselves a little more lovingly today?
We accept ourselves a little more fully?
And we honored ourselves with the truth that I have come back to time and time again since I was 16 years old and first diagnosed with ADHD and depression…
I do not have to love my mental illness. But, I do have to accept it in order to love my life.
So yes, today, I begin again – I start a new season where I accept it – where I allow myself to hate it but still say – I acknowledge your presence, I will pack and dress accordingly, and even if the world has yet to join me here as I battle my own weather and seasons, I tell myself over and over again,
You – my whole being –
Yes, you.
You are safe with me.
In case you missed it
Surviving Madness from The Outside
This podcast is with my younger sister — Josie Fisher MD. In the episode, we discuss how Josie navigated my struggles, what she learned along the way, and how she continues to apply these lessons as a doctor today.
Allow me to reintroduce myself...
This podcast episode includes my entire mental illness story in full. I am not my diagnoses. I am also not the medical experiences I have lived. I am, however, the resilience of my fight that survived all of them. If you are new to my corner of the internet, this is a great place to start.
Cold Plunging 101 is out in the wild!
Your feedback has been so kind about this exhaustive guide and I am thrilled to hear that so many of you are trying it out and better yet, enjoying it. It is beyond exciting and I am getting quite fired up for April when I start hosting cold plunge meet-ups. The guide is an offering for paid subscribers but as always, if being a paid subscriber is untenable and you are interested, don’t hesitate — just send me a note with ‘subscribe’ in the subject line and I will add you for free. I mean it — I absolutely want these resources to help people. That is what I care about most!
