Living with Monkeys in my Mind
Annalyse and I met at the Bearwater Brewery, halfway between our homes, to read her new poem.
1. A Sudden Twist of Fate
At the Bearwater Brewery, downwind from Canton’s historic paper plant, my daughter worries over what impact the first line of her poem might have on me.
I wanted to meet face to face so I could explain, she tells me. I don’t want you to take the first line wrong. I changed it a number of times, reworded it, but it didn’t feel right.
For the next few minutes, she desires to make clear her poem’s first line in no way betrays the love and respect she feels for me.
Thanking Annalyse for her integrity and loving context, I reassure her –
Don’t worry, I’m pretty hard to offend, and I am thrilled to read your poetry again.
Reaching for her open journal, my daughter gently places her hand on mine.
I would like to read it to you instead, if that’s OK.
As I nod approval and swallow hard, I feel the monkeys in my mind begin to stir.
•
With my encouragement, she reads the first line of her poem:
My dad thinks he’s going to commit arson to put out the fire.
Annalyse looks up, allowing a respectable pause for such heavy words to sink in.
For some unknown reason, a childhood hero of mine – Wile E. Coyote, a Pre-PC cartoon legend, enters my dazed mind, precisely expressing the surprise over such a quick and unexpected twist of fate.
Dad, are you OK?, my daughter asks, studying me like a doctor executing concussion protocol.
I’m fine, I lie.
Truth is, uppercut by one line of poetry, I fight to rise from the count, most likely to be scored a TKO. Sounding like Rocky after Creed beats the shit out of him, I manage to mumble some words to my daughter –
Whoa … wow … ahhh …. that’s…. it’s just a lot to take in.
From pitchblack caves hidden deep below frontal lobes, I hear my monkeys chatter an alarm.
As one familiar with paralysing bouts of anxiety as well Annalyse tells me the name of her poem to lighten the mood —
Fuck the Amygdala!
At just the right time, my daughter knows how to make me laugh, a habit of hers.
It’s perfect, I tell her, fuck the ama, mig … ga … duh … allah.
As I fake a cough to cover my stuttering, my daughter scans me for pupil dilation as the monkeys in my mind gather round the Fuhrer, screeching out the most high name —
a·myg·da·la!
a·myg·da·la!
a·myg·da·la!
a·myg·da·la!
a·myg·da·la!
Ad infinitum.
əˈmiɡ-də-lə, Annalyse precisely enunciates, proof of summa cum laude, a master’s degree in Clinical Social Work, and work as a therapist.
Isn’t it some primitive gland deep in the mind? I say, and feel a sudden urge to slap my forehead like Chris Farley used to.
My daughter laughs politely because she’s kind.
The amygdala is the part of the brain that sends out a distress signal to the sympathetic nervous system when there is a perceived threat, she explains.
’Perceived’ being the key word, I say, and we both laugh.
We also share an understanding about anxiety disorder — how the Amygdala is the father and mother of lies — issuing threats perceived but rarely real. Even certain of a lie, we both understand the panic that ensues when we ask a fair question —
What if this time it really is real?, which is exactly what I think now.
Over the sound of grinding of blade on whetstone and monkey warchants, I say too loudly to my daughter.
I mean, it’s got such a compelling title, please continue.
She laughs and explains the rest of the poem is not about me.
The first line was important because it provides a framework. In the face of trauma, we learn different coping mechanisms. You may commit arson to put out the fire, while I throw myself on the flames.
My daughter continues to read —
There is a chain of events
that causes us to react
erratically
irrationally
Some of us
in times that should be
reasonable
measured
calm
absolutely no need for alarm
cannot keep the buzzer from ringing in our ears
The words of my daughter’s art disappear into a cacophony of sound in my frenzied mind.. My monkeys, acting on emergency orders from the Most High Fuhrer Amygdala, wings unfurling, take flight into the night screeching —
bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad dad bad. Ad infinitum.
When Annalyse’s repeated question finally finds me, I have no clue of time or space.
Dad, are you OK?
Like trying to find a compass dropped in a pitch black cave, I search without luck for the best thing to say.
It would be a lot better, I tell my daughter, if the monkeys in my mind wouldn’t go all apeshit.
As a counselor, Annalyse quietly delights in diagnosing another of my mental illnesses. Psychopathic Delay Disorder, she said just the other day with the same smile and comment — Call you Legion.
I prefer see it as a smorgasbord. A little taste of anything you got, but nothing yet where the story ends with me chewing grass under a full moon.
You describe your anxiety as monkeys in your mind? she laughs. My experience is bees. Swarms of them.
In her job, she encourages her clients to describe how anxiety manifests itself in the body.
I had one teenager say to me – needles in the skin, Annalyse says.
Wow, I respond, that’s powerful.
As we grab our coats to leave the Bearwater Brewery, I compose myself.
When I’m thinking a little more clearly, I will give you some feedback on your poem, but for now, I just want to thank you for your courage for trusting in the relationship and the power of art.
My daughter laughs, relieved. Thanks for listening; I was so afraid you’d be pissed.
When I tell Annalyse I could never be angry with her, I lie again; I was just then.
Stepping into the parking lot, papermill smoke backlit by a setting sun, we say the same thing at the same time – gotta love the smell.
When we hug goodbye a few moments later, I whisper to my daughter –
Please forgive me for my arson.. I see how my anger has hurt you. I am so sorry.
She holds me tight and tells me –
Of course, I forgive you; I love you. Try not to beat yourself up. You and mom have always been such great parents.
With her gracious and costly forgiveness, it’s as if my daughter opens a lovely spring garden for me to grow as a person, spreading seeds of doubt about old dogs never learning new tricks.
2. Comically Missing the Mark
On my drive home after meeting with Annalyse, halfway between our homes, the monkeys in my mind declare Def Con 3, and the first line of my daughter’s poem haunts me.
My dad thinks he’s going to commit arson to put out the fire
I think of a small frame photo I have of my daughter on my desk, slightly out of focus, wearing a blue-and-white checkered dress, red cheeks and ruby sneakers for her 6-year-old Wizard of Oz birthday party, a girl who took months to speak the first word to her kindergarten teacher, years to a stranger on the phone.
How could I not see how such a sensitive child, her senses often overwhelmed, would not suffer through my frequent displays of anger?
Racing through networks of synapses like Hans Solo navigating the Death Star, my monkeys race to blockade all entrances to frontal lobes.
In a rush of panic, my back to the wall, I turn to my go to dysfunction — floating down Da River Da Nile. A friend of mine, Scott, believes denial should be listed as one of the fruits of the Spirit, right up there with kindness and generosity, and I incline to agree.
Over the decades, I have practiced its central grace — the best way to deal with a problem is to refuse to own one. A simple password launches the boat - The Big But.
Of course I have anger issues, But …
Take a look at the pee in my gene pool.
It’s mostly always directed at things.
I would never physically hurt anyone.
Winding down I-40 through fog and rain, I build my defense. I recall childhood gatherings seated around a campfire under stars, telling stories of generations of Wilkins males – brothers, cousins, uncles, dads, grandfathers, sincerely the kindest people you could hope to meet, none of them would hurt a flea – giving collective and comic voice to a gut-busting rage.
For a family of brilliant storytellers, anger is complicated by the reality of how well it delivers punch to a punchline. Whether the plot unfurls with an exploding toilet, a run-in with a cop , another tennis racket smashed for failing to deliver, or a chat with foreign tech rep, the stories unveil some of the hilarious things sure to happen when the amygdala takes center stage spotlight in leather and spike.
As a practical matter, our family tends to downgrade anger as a sin – somewhere maybe between holding a grudge and stealing a candybar, but nowhere close to being a communist or lesbian.
If Hammer Throw Through Sheetrock ever became an Olympic event, I believe a good many of Wilkins males, in their graves or currently living, would receive invitations to participate. To our way of thinking, we could come home with nothing less than comic gold.
On my drive home, my denial, as it inevitably will, fails me. Annalyse speaks as a loving eyewitness to the repeated and random tantrums over anger — a screw that won’t sink, another asshole who won’t listen, Dak’s second straight playoff interception, a too-loud argument with my wife. Ad infinitum.
Circling me with spears, the monkeys in my mind demand the unconditional surrender of my reason..
Guilty as charged., I confess, waving a white flag, imagining fetal position on my living room couch with a soft pillow, two shots of Jack, and a Xanax on a Parks and Recreation binge again.
•
Just miles from home, I recall Wile E, Coyote again. He shows up for another untimely end. As I look back, I think about how often the poor creature just misses his target. Acme-equipped with the latest-and-greatest weapon –. anvil, gun, tank, explosive, cannonball, missile, or a deadly host of spring-loaded gadgets, he often manages to get close enough to just taste Roast Roadrunner, medium-rare, with a glass of fine Chianti. It’s the just miss that keeps him coming back, ad infinitum, for another episode with an inevitable comic and deadly end.
In the original Greek, the biblical word sin means – to miss the mark. If theology provides a definition, psychology names legions of dysfunctions, defenses, addictions, and obsessions preventing us from taking hold of what we truly desire.
In the scorched-earth places of Wile E. Coyote’s inevitable ruin, religion and science gather to share stories of humans repeating the doomed creature’s self-destructive cycles.
Driving through the gorge of the Great Smoky Mountains, in panic and despair, I realize how my anger causes me to miss my real target — protecting my sensitive daughter.
No real option remains to me, and I pray for forgiveness.
Repent, Spirit reminds me, means to turn around. To move in a new direction.
Taking the next exit on I-40, I pull my Miata off into a parking lot, stare into the fog for a few seconds before starting to laugh at the title of my daughter’s poem. In a swirling rain, I pull down the top of my ragtop, and scream as loud as I can —
Fuck the amygdala!
For a moment, my monkeys go strangely silent, dropping weapons like the melting Wicked Witch’s goons do.
I pause, letting go of my anger, and say it again softly –
Fuck the amygdala.