Soliloquy from a Rainforest Mind
Traits of the unrealized rain-forest mind: these are traits I used to call myself before I adopted the analogy of the RFM.
intuitive, moody, dramatic, vague, deep-diving, obsessive, messy, slapdash, procrastinating, cold, reserved, awkward, lazy, undecided, softie, dork, bleeding heart, mind-reader, yielding, patient, savage, judgy, non-verbal, complex, introverted……..sound familiar?
I never felt gifted was the right word; it implies people can see your abilities and for me that’s rarely true. I have so many frameworks to understand my personality, my moods, my place on this earth. They form an overlapping matrix of meaning that doesn’t even scratch the surface of my complexity. I don’t say this to be a snob; I say this because it’s frightening, exhausting, and complicated. I took the MBTI test when I was 17. It was eye-opening, thrilling, validating, and real. But it wasn’t enough. I was diagnosed with what was then called Asperger’s when I was 22; again it was like a flood light was flipped in my brain. I felt seen, understood, documented, and real. But it wasn’t enough; I didn’t resonate with all the symptoms and found the advocacy FB pages too much. It was part of me but it did not define me. I could just as easily call myself a Gemini, an HSP, an introvert, clairvoyant, indigo child, chaotic good, Empath, INFJ, or just a weirdo. A freak. All my life I have been paralyzed by fear of becoming a dud, a stunted obsessive, an idiot savant yet I knew in my bones I was different. A panther among the housecats. I pushed against. I ran the gauntlet between two freezing white-hot fears: that I was not enough (a slacker, lazy, average, normal, dull, deluded, depressed, and slow) so I believed the people I looked up to would never want me; and that I was too much (an exception, a rule-breaker, a visionary, a witch, an alien, otherworldly, strange, cold, nonhuman, intelligent, wise, ancient, and old and alone) so that I was too strange and other to be wanted or known, better than my peers, more at ease in solitude, more at home in the black space between the stars. This chaos defined almost seventeen years of my life, exacerbated by a dysfunctional family system and an oppressive schooling regime. At home I walked on eggshells, at school I shut down. School was a great burden, like a sickness, a chronic affliction of the body, spirit, soul, and mind. Home was like being pinned beneath tidal waves; the moments I felt peace were the seconds when one wave receded and another prepared to crash down on my head. Overwhelmed, frozen, and plagued with constant migraines–I see now I was gasping for air all my life, ruled by the emotions of my parents, the tsunamis that ripped through our house.
So why do I now gravitate to the RFM metaphor, have I finally found a big enough circle to live inside?
It feels bigger than any other system/framework I’ve used so far; it feels expansive and full of possibilities.They say the cure for cancer is lying undiscovered in the rain forest, after all. What other treasures lay sleeping on the forest floor. My mind is a crazy place. Like a bad neighbourhood (you shouldn’t walk through it alone). I have howler monkeys in the canopy, boas in the under-story. I have bio-luminescent plants, and healing flowers, there is more to me than meets the eye. I have more life in one square metre than most people have in their entire ecosystem. The trouble is, like the rain forest, there is so much we as a people do not know. I don’t think I will ever meet a mind who can really know and discover all there is to know about me. As much as I think I want a scientist, my Jane Goodall, my David Attenborough, my Jean-Michel Cousteau, David Suzuki, for example. I know I am multifaceted, multi-potent, complex, and constantly evolving.
I must become my own scientist, my own forest technician. Is there a better word for those who love and study rain forests? I’d love to find one, or make one up.
Source: Prober, Paula (2019) “Journey into your Rainforest Mind: A field guide for gifted adults and teens, book lovers, overthinkers, geeks, sensitives, brainiacs, intuitives, procrastinators, and perfectionists” Luminare Press: Oregon.
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