The Dangerous Game of Fixing Me
Editor’s Note: For Mental Health Awareness Month, our co-founder, Christie Catan, decided to share this deeply personal essay about her mental health journey.
I stare down at the old hiking boots that I’ve had since 2009 and memories flood every nook and cranny of my body. Suddenly, I am 20 years old standing at the edge of a cliff watching the condors float through the sky. Then I’m taking my boots off to dip my tired feet into a bone-chilling and life-giving glacial lake somewhere in the Tetons. With another blink, I’m lying on the rocky esplanade of the Grand Canyon watching the rising sun turn everything around me into brilliant shades of pink and orange. Then I hear the sound of tags clanging together and feel a sense of joy building inside of me as I watch my dogs race through a creek. A second later, I am sitting in a tree above a stream near my college where I know the water would drown out my tears. I feel a wet nose on my face and it brings me back to the present moment. I reach down and pick my right boot up and flip it over to get a better look at the bottom. I touch a finger to the side of the sole and, with almost no effort, detach it from the shoe. I put the right shoe down and pick up the left one. Same thing. I carry both of my boots over to my fiancé, Ben, and ask, “Do you think I can fix these boots?”
Christie’s favorite hiking boots (pictured here) have logged many miles, and she says she will pick them over any other shoe she owns.
But what happens when it’s no longer just the boots that need fixing? What if it’s your dog? What if it’s another person? What if it’s you? That seemingly harmless word starts to pose real danger.
Why Fixing Me in College Led to Years of Feeling Broken
Most of my college years are a complete blur -- just not for the reasons you might expect. I spent a lot of those years in dissociated states to try to protect myself. There are bits and pieces that stick out, but a lot of it feels like I was numb and motionless while the world whizzed by me without ever seeing me there. I remember lying on a public dorm bathroom floor after just one week at college, knowing something was wrong. A few hours later as I lay in a hospital bed, a temporary sense of relief washed over me as I watched people start to busy themselves with the work of fixing me. Surgeries, procedures, and so many appointments all with the hopes of fixing me.
I lived in my grandmother’s basement as I tried to recover. People were constantly on the phone - either telling some friend about me or trying to find a doctor with the magical fix. A new person appeared in my room bearing some new thing for me to eat or drink at a pretty steady interval, but I had lost my grip on time. The fixing occupied so much of everyone’s time that nobody seemed to have time to just sit down with me and feel the weight of what happened. Based on the praise I got for “being brave” and the constant encouragement to “keep a positive attitude,” it didn’t take long for me to conclude that the massive amount of fear and confusion and sadness I was feeling were not okay. I couldn’t find space for my truth anywhere. So I worked hard to lie to everyone else -- and ultimately, to myself.
Christie (pictured here when when she was admitted to the hospital during a recent bout of pancreatitis) doesn’t believe in glorifying pain or trauma. She says she has found invitations in what she’s gone through to slowly come home to herself.
I look back and see so much love around me as I remember people doing their best to care for me. But a funny thing happens. When everyone around you is trying to fix you, it is easy to start to believe that you need to be fixed - that you are broken.
With All of That Fixing There Was No Room For Seeing and Hearing
I returned to school, and in my very first class back, I had the first (but not the last) panic attack of my life. It was bad enough that they drove an ambulance onto campus and took me out on a stretcher. I had always been able to handle pressure, but suddenly, I felt weak. Despite the hidden emotional roots of this event, I assumed it meant that same thing as all of my physical health struggles: I was broken and needed to be fixed.
While she spent a long time believing she was broken and actively trying to suppress feelings, Christie is now a big crier (and often laughs and cries at the same time). She trusts her body to process feelings, and she is adamant that feeling anxiety and sadness are not mutually exclusive with feeling joy.
I walked around the world with a now crippling level of shame. I seemed to sense that I was falling behind everyone else I knew, and a part of me hoped I was in fact as invisible as I felt. Nobody told me outright, but it felt like there was a time limit for how long I had before I needed to get “over it” and back to my “normal life.” I didn’t have the words to tell people that I had no idea what that was anymore. Today I look back on this time with a lot of sadness and a huge amount of compassion for myself. I was so desperately in need of connection and belonging, and I absorbed all of the information held in the fixing and the encouragement as messages about how I would be accepted in this world. No matter which way I looked, I believed I had to be a different version of myself. I needed to be fixed - that is what I thought people wanted. I did my best to pretend to be okay, and if that didn’t work, I think a part of me believed that I could find some semblance of connection if I continued to be broken. And I was lonely enough to unknowingly make that trade.
My physical health issues lingered and later turned into chronic issues without any clear single diagnosis. But what became most pervasive were the mental health challenges that followed. The fixers told me not to spend so much time thinking about it, and I worried that talking about what was going on would be too much of a downer. People did things to cheer me up, bought me books on being positive, and encouraged me to get back into the world. Many of these things were helpful. Still, nobody just sat down and held me while I cried without trying to fix me. I still couldn’t find any space for my truth - for my humanity.
How Fixing Me Actually Led to My Disconnection
I transferred schools hoping to find some sense of belonging. I now know that it doesn’t matter where you go -- if you feel you are broken at your core, it is hard to feel like you belong. But even so, this particular move actually exacerbated so much of my pain. I looked around and saw all the groups that had already formed, routines that had been created, and inside jokes that had bonded them all together. It felt like another universe, and it only made me feel more broken for not being a part of it. At the time, I didn’t have the language I needed to express what was happening, and so I found myself actually apologizing to other people for bailing on them or pretending like I didn’t care. I became more invisible by the day.
My PTSD and depression from college turned into Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) after college. I took over as the main fixer in my own life. But when you think that YOU are the thing that is broken, it is hard to know what you are fixing anymore. I spent a lot of time and energy and money trying, but it felt like a game of whack-a-mole. All the while, very few people had any idea what was going on. By conventional standards, I was successful. But I was drowning inside.
Christie assumed she wouldn’t graduate on time after having to take a semester off and was pretty surprised when she realized she would graduate with the rest of her UVA class. She looks back on college and sees so many things to be grateful for. She also sees a younger version of herself who was so sad about the loss of so many things, but just didn’t know how to say it.
I didn’t know it at the time, but all of that fixing sewed disconnection. It made me separate from the fixer and separate from my truth. It created a false binary as I believed myself less than all of the fixers. And when I became the fixer, it gave me a false sense of control over my world. I was so busy fixing that I didn't have to pause to feel. As this version of me sitting here writing this, I don’t fault myself for all the fixing I tried to do. I was overwhelmed and doing the best I could to survive. And I survived. Slowly over time, I learned how to look at all of me with compassion. I started to heal by simply making myself feel seen without the pressure of fixing.
How Fixing Became a Warning Bell In My Life
It’s been a long journey since that day I found myself in pain on a college bathroom floor. “Fixing” is now one of my warning bells that something is off. If I notice myself doing it or notice it being done to me, I use it as a cue to pause and create some space for what is. Tactically speaking (hello die hard fixers), it is hard to take action in a meaningful way without stopping to really understand what is. Accepting what is does not mean you have to like it -- it means you see reality as it is instead of painting it in some other image. As Albert Einstein famously said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask… for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” But I don’t think that the tactical reasons are the most compelling ones in potentially shifting how we look at fixing. I think the human reasons are.
Fixing often bypasses a person’s humanity and agency (same for dogs). It creates a power over dynamic rather than a power to dynamic. I now know that it can take a lot of courage to create space for what is without needing to change it. But there is magic in that space.
I heard my “fixing warning bell” go off when I first began doing my own anti-racism work. Fixing makes the fixer feel good -- it is comfortable. So it is not hard to see why my reflex would be to fix as I sat with the discomfort of all the harm caused by white supremacy delusions and my own ignorance. But that “fixing alarm” tells me to pause. And in that pause, I remember the truth. I remember to create space to actually see people. I remember that jumping straight to fixing makes people feel unseen and creates more disconnection. I remember that people don’t need to be fixed -- systems and policies do. I remember that people are powerful even if they aren’t in positions of power. I think of Lilla Watson and remember that my own liberation is bound up with everyone else's. I remember that to partner with and serve is very different than to fix.
What Fixing Means For Our Relationship With Dogs
I used to think in terms of “fixing” a lot with my dogs. Years ago when Otis started showing more reactive behaviors like barking and lunging, I skipped straight past any sort of recognition that his behavior had a function and moved straight into fixing. In doing this, I created even more of a power gap between us and robbed Otis of so much of his agency. I also went down a path of creating a bigger problem because I never stopped to understand what was going on. I had decided that certain behaviors were bad, and I set out to control him. At the time, I had actually convinced myself that it was a kind thing to do. Now if I hear a faint “fixing alarm bell” in my head, I respond quite differently. I almost instinctively say (out loud), “I see you.” This helps me remember that he is a sentient being with agency, and I don’t get to rob him of that. And then I start to unpack what function his behavior has and decide if I want to figure out how to partner with him to access that reinforcer in a different way or if I just need to change the world around him to better support him. With dogs and training, it can be so tempting to ascribe more value to some future vision we have for our dogs. Goals are great - so long as they don’t rob us of all that is in this present moment.
For Christie, nature and dogs have been two of the most powerful healers and teachers in her life. When she started meeting Otis’s fear-based reactivity with so much kindness, she realized that it might actually feel good to speak to herself like that. It was a huge ah-ha moment for her.
People and dogs are not boots. That should be reflected in how we care for them and for ourselves. I am not broken. You are not broken. Our dogs are not broken. We have value exactly as we are. Sometimes we aren’t thriving in this world, but that doesn’t mean WE are broken. Do we all need help and support? Of course! I have just found that the love and support we offer and receive feels so much more loving when it isn’t rooted in fixing a person or another being.
I am human and am still on my own healing journey. If I hear that warning bell go off as I try to “fix myself,” I put my hands on my heart, exhale, and say, “I see you. You are allowed to feel that. All of it belongs.” I remember that I was never broken. I remember that I am whole and worthy and belong to everyone and everything else here. I remember that pausing to show compassion for who I am in any given moment allows me to take action that has space for all of me.
One of the most beautiful gifts we can give other people, our dogs, and ourselves is to see each other. Being seen is so healing.
