Emotion Animals

Now I will admit, the title of this blog might be strange, and you might be wondering just what it is I will talk about in this blog. It's not emotional support animals or animals that are emotional, but rather animals as a way to express my emotions.

At my first occupational therapy session after being diagnosed with autism, ADHD, and PTSD, we discussed the various arousal states and built a graph of my personal arousal states. The graph is a basic distribution line graph with a single jump like the positive side of a sine graph. 

The x-axis (or horizontal axis) was split into the five arousal states, starting at low and moving up to mid, then optimal where it humps and starts going back down to high arousal and reaches the bottom again at hyperarousal.

The goal of the exercise was to identify what are the things that are happening and what am I feeling in each of these arousal states. While it was easy enough to identify activities that I might be doing in each state, I really struggled with the emotional states. 

We were discussing my low arousal states when we had a huge breakthrough and I jokingly said "I feel like a honey badger...you know, honey badger don't give a sh!t."

My OT wrote it down and asked if there were any other animals I could assign to the arousal states. And to our delight, I could very easily assign animals to my "emotional states". Thus the birth of "emotion animals".

So in this blog, I'll share my "emotion animals". Perhaps it will help you understand my emotional states, or perhaps you can use this technique to understand and communicate your own emotions and arousal states.

Low arousal:

Here I identified the honey badger. This one might confuse some, and some friends even guessed that was my high or hyperarousal state. But this is what I identified with that low arousal state. For me, it really is the "don't give a sh!t" part. When I visualize the honey badger, I see it standing there nonchelantly and then just killing the rattlesnake, so calm and cool and collected, and then going back to its hole like nothing happened. When writing this, I think I'm realizing that this is my masking so you can't tell I'd rather go back to bed, so to speak.

Honey Badger Eating a Snake

Mid-arousal:

I actually identified one animal and one stereotype. The animal was the wise old owl. I visualized the white owl wearing glasses, so thoughtful and careful and ready for the day. The stereotype was the "soccer mom" which perhaps is more relatable. This mid-arousal state for me looks like list making, ready to conquer the day, but maybe unsure of where to start or what to do first. 

An owl wearing glasses and a graduation cap split with a photo of a woman in a car with a child in the back seat

Optimal arousal:

The panda bear. Oh, the panda bear 🐼. I just want to ask, have you ever watched a panda bear video without smiling? I mean they are just so happy, so chill, just munching on their bamboo. Rolling about and playing and napping. I have no visions of sad pandas; if you do, I'm sorry...we can't be friends. (Just kidding).

I dare you to not smile with a collage of cute pandas around the outside

High arousal:

This is the arousal state I identified the most with. The one I spend the most time in. It was easy to identify with the cat, typing frantically. I'm hopeful you know the GIF I am referencing, but just in case I've included it here. If you're a coworker who wonders how I get so much done, it's because most of my day is spent as the cat, typing frantically. But it certainly comes at a cost.

A GIF of cat typing frantically on a laptop

Hyperarousal:

For this state, I identified two animals. For me, this is the separation of fight or flight. For the fight, I'm the meerkat standing on its hind legs, boxing with another meerkat with my tiny T-Rex arms. But when I was in flight, I identified with a ground animal like a mole or groundhog, just peering out of the hole. 

A photo of two meercats fighting that reads FIGHT and a picture of a groundhog peeking out it's hole that reads FLIGHT

So, now that you know my animals, perhaps I might describe animals to you. Or maybe you can think about your own "emotion animals" as a way to express yourself.