"Mommy, I need a mental health day."

an essay on polarization, mental health breaks, and choosing to become ourselves

greetings from the place of endless laundry,

How are you doing, friend? It’s been a little over a month since I’ve last posted on all the social medias. I’m feeling rested and a little anxious to return. I took a break because I was feeling depleted. Watching how the digital landscape has become more vicious and polarized felt distressing and I wasn’t aware that I was carrying the heaviness of all of it within my bones. I needed a break and, despite my anxious workaholic self, I took it and found myself more grounded and clear minded than I have in a long time.

Speaking of being “clear minded,” I recently completed a trauma-informed care training on polarization as a trauma response. In the training, attendees learned about splitting. This happens when we experience a traumatic instance (be it a big T or little t trauma) our brains seek to categorize the situation by creating two possibilities: what is “right” and what is “wrong.” There is no space for nuance in a traumatized brain trying to survive. Splitting causes us to create allegiances without having all the details or perspectives at hand.

Our allegiances become our identities and, thus, we define ourselves according to the trauma we’ve experienced.

As I relay this lesson to you all I am thinking of that popular quote from psychologist Carl Jung: “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”¹