Let's chat Animö with Carö

  Dear beloved child, As your mother, seeing you or any of my children suffer is unbearable. Over the years, I painfully understood that it is impossible to take your distress and make it mine, just like I cannot take away an infection you already have to spare you and have my body's immune system fight it on your behalf. I cannot even fix the situation nor rush the healing that is happening in you. So I must see and hear your pain. Let your whole being process it at your own pace.  At sixteen, the energy of that suffering can be dense and look like anger, irritability. Even though some anger seems directed at me, I know you might be angry at the whole of life sometimes. I just happen to be in the way. And, do I dare say, safe enough for you to feel like you can just be. And you might notice I am not saying your anger. Because how can we be certain it is not a parent's own unprocessed anger, or even an ancestor's ? Remember that we all have a little bit of our grandparents...

Have you been the target of distasteful comments and offensive jokes from people comparing your face to a pizza for instance ? Are you waging a war against pimples, pustules, cysts, black dots on your face, neck, and even back ? Do you let a verdict from your reflection on the mirror dictate your worth or even your dating potential ?  This predicament has been my reality most of my adolescence and all through my mid-twenties, I'm afraid. If this is also your struggle, do not despair. I got sick of people telling me it was because of my diet (eating chocolate DOES NOT cause acne). I have been through the trial of antibiotics to no avail, and the next recommended step was the dreaded medication that is in fact vitamin A in toxic doses, which I ended up refusing, too scared of the side effects, and despite being deeply afraid that my face would be scarred for life if this skin problem kept worsening. But eventually, after several years of dreading school pictures or other events where...

  ''Oh no. Not again. My chin is starting to tremble... my vocal chords want to betray me, and I feel the one-way faucet of my eyes being turned on...'' Have you ever experienced this automatic response called tears at the most inopportune moment ? By the time I was a teenager, it had happened countless times. I seemed to cry for no reason. But it is because I was crying for every reason: sadness, of course, but also anger (for having bottled up frustration against situations, people, and especially myself for not have asserted boundaries), panic, overwhelm, and yes, joy and elation. I would cry upon hearing that someone I didn't even know had died, or during commercials, or while watching the Olympics, or at weddings, or if I had a disappointing grade, or if I felt left out. It didn't matter, it seemed like the energy of the people around, their own emotional intensity, expressed or not, was sufficient for me to feel it and embody it. To say it differently, af...

As a young kid, I really loved a Japanese series called Candy. It was a kind of Animé (although we didn't really call this Animé in the 70s) and the main character was an orphan girl who became fond of a boy, the ''Prince'', and who once told her, as she was crying (because she was going through some hardship and injustices, as many orphans do), that she was more beautiful when she laughed. This line stayed with me my whole life after that.  Due to the tension between the need to emancipate and to stay close to family, discomfort towards puberty, peer pressure, embarrassment towards our parents, or heartbreak after a first love, adolescence is not particularly a time when we feel like in a smiling mode in a consistent way. At least it was not my case. Even though I am a generally joyful and positive person (who sure has her moments of grumpiness too !), in my teenage years, when around certain people, I didn't feel like faking a smile. So it was particularly ann...

Dear son, A chapter of your life is quietly closing. You are officially turning the page on adolescence. I have this urge to give you a dense package stuffed with all the wisdom and advice a mother can think of... I know it is futile, because learning doesn't happen through the reception of words and concepts but through experience. But maybe my words will serve as a validation tool one day, if you are ever confronted with the challenges and dilemmas that led to those words I am about to utter for your benefit... Leaving the nest, even if you come back on the weekends, is a huge milestone. Even though I know you are very capable and self-sufficient (you have always been eager to assist from a young age), having to do laundry, get groceries, cook, pay bills, problem-solve often all at once can be a little bit of a shock. College or university means bigger school, more people, more competition. You might struggle to keep your excellent grades (I certainly did, when I went from commun...

Dear son, Halfway through the puberty, this can be a pivotal stage. It has been for me. I was in the middle of high school. My academic future became more precise. I attended a talk given by a missionary physician and I thought it was my calling. My interest in closeness with boys became distracting but I continued to prioritize school work. I started becoming more fashion-conscious. I tended to copy my friend who got nice clothes, she must have found this a bit annoying but never mentioned it. I had no sense of style yet so I was exploring by relying on what I perceived as her good taste. We were really good friends, she lived on my street and we walked to the bus stop together. Her parents took me and my friend, an only child, to Wildwood, New Jersey, on a road trip that summer. I realize now I didn't have a passport, it was not required, I guess they used another ID, I cannot remember. Times have changed.  I remember vividly going to New York on the way there and we visited a ta...

  ''Adolescence is characterized by a form of inertia, which is necessary to prepare the person for the major transformations that are about to occur''. I don't recall the exact words Dr Daniel Bordeleau used (plus, the message was in French), but I vividly remember the impact they had on my awareness. When I was in my mid to late twenties, Dr Bordeleau, also a Jungian psychoanalyst (or a counselor who had training in depth psychology which is a discipline looking at various aspects of the unconscious, like dream symbolism, synchronicities, or archetypes like the shadow figure) was a popular mentor who was teaching us during my residency program in psychiatry. When he made that statement, it forever reframed an aspect of my self-concept I had struggled with since my adolescence. I was often feeling like I was not doing as much as I should in life. In the most painful shame-inducing situations, I even thought (or was prone to perceive that others thought) I was simpl...

For most of my adolescence, and many years beyond, the two dimensions of my life competing for my attention were school and romance. Naturally driven and goal-oriented (in other words, addicted to dopamine !), I dedicated a lot of my time studying to get good grades and go to a university program that was aligned with my passions (which went from theater to health sciences within a few years). But also an incurable romantic, highly sensitive person and life-lover, my mental space was often filled with fantasies of embraces and kisses that would turn my whole being into an earthquake.  Since then, my conception of love (including romantic love) has gone through quite a few profound permutations. As a teenager, even when we think we found ''the one'', it is rarely for eternity (the ''high school sweethearts'' phenomenon is exceptional, and not the norm). I think we need to normalize breakups, because every person evolves throughout a lifetime, and so does ...

Dear son, Last of the year but not least. Your turn, my dear Advent boy. Celebrating the anniversary of your arrival in this world is an opportunity to pause and reflect about my own 13 years of age that feel like centuries ago. Compared to me, you seem to be navigating some of the youth challenges fairly well. For one thing, I was not the skilled soccer player that you are. It is always such a joy for me to see my sons succeed where I struggled.  That is from the outside, I get it. Everything might look great: good grades, good soccer performance, satisfying social life. From the inside, I have no clue. Only you know. And I want to remind you that I am there. That there might be chapters of my story that you can relate to. For instance, as I was reflecting in anticipation of my birthday wishes for you in the form of this blog, I remembered losing a grandparent when I was about your age. My first significant loss of a family member. At that age, I saw people sad around me. I felt ...

 ''Who will I eat lunch with ?'' This was the silent question, not even admitted to myself, that arose upon arriving at a new school, at a summer program to learn English, at a part-time job, or starting university, and not knowing anyone. And there was an even more dreadful question: ''will anyone notice me if I eat alone ?''  This is not an uncommon experience. We almost have the self-consciousness of a dandelion growing alone from a sidewalk crack (assuming the dandelion is self-conscious and concerned of what other dandelions think of it !). A friend of now 35 years once admitted she had hidden in the bathroom to eat her sandwich in order to not be seen eating alone. I wish we had learned sooner to not care so much about what others think. Also because what we think of what others think (especially of us) is often a projection of our own opinion. What I mean by that is that we attribute our own (usually negative) thoughts towards ourselves to others...

Me at 15 yo. Not every child's or teen's potential is expressed the same way as anyone else. Therefore, we see a wide distribution of grades and performances in the report cards. There are three scenarios that should worry any parent or educator though: very poor grades that cannot be explained by a developmental delay or learning disability, sudden drop of grades after a typical baseline of good or above-average performance, and track record of outstanding grades. Yes, you read me right. Even the kiddo who is at the top of the class. Why should we worry about a student who does consistently excellently? Because this could indicate an overcompensation for low sense of self-worth, stressful home environment, or strong internal or external (parental) pressure. Going through adversity (poverty, violence in the home, abuse, neglect) can affect grades in various ways. We can easily see how stress can lead to poor grades, but we have to be aware that good grades can also mask that. I...

Back-to-school night for two of my sons was the 26th of August 2024, or the last 8-8-8 portal of this month, if you are a numerology geek (honestly, there are worse geekinesses to have). As I wander among other parents, trying to find my way on campus, I can't help but reminisce about my own back-to-school days, or ''rentrée scolaire.'' I also cannot resist comparisons, as if to justify my feeling of being so out of place... And in all honesty, I cannot imagine my boomer parents doing a version of this intellectual treasure hunt, year after year, times three... The weather is at least a solid 32 C, and even if not particularly humid, despite my minimalist attire (light summer dress and flip-flops), I feel like the air is a flaming cape around my body, which is also concomitantly experiencing both a mirroring adolescence by having its period AND hot flashes from peri-menopause. Not fun. So I imagine what it is like to be a student at that school, changing classes at ...