Let's chat Animö with Carö

  ''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 ...