The Tip of the Iceberg [Part II]

Rewriting the Voice in My Head

On the drive home from Sea Island, Brant and I listened to an audiobook about something called the Shame Triangle. Four hours later, I had a lot of feelings and a nickname for the man who’s been living rent-free in my head for twenty years.

Three Characters, One Familiar Triangle

The theory, from Jessica Fern’s work, goes like this. We all get stuck playing roles in an emotional triangle: the Perpetrator, the Victim, and the Rescuer, the one who swoops in to make everyone okay again, usually at her own expense.

You don’t play the same role everywhere. Home might be one role. Work, a different one entirely.

I didn’t have to think hard about mine. In almost every part of my life, I’m the fixer. And when I asked myself what voice keeps me there, I already knew the answer. I’d heard it before. Word for word.

The Voice From Residency

An older attending once asked me, point blank, about my plans for having kids. Then he answered for me: he’d hire someone like me, sure, but women always end up wanting to work part-time once the babies come. I was taking a job from someone who wouldn’t do that.

I had maybe one kid at the time. Maybe none. Didn’t matter. He’d already decided who I was going to be.

I remember the shame of it. Underneath the shame, the defensiveness: you don’t get to assume that about me. I fought so hard not to become his prediction.

Twenty years later, I’m still fighting it. Still trying to prove I can raise five kids and be fully present for all of them and also be taken seriously at work. All at once. All the time.

I don’t think I’m the only woman in medicine carrying this. So many of the women I know are hauling around the same belief. They think that wanting a family disqualifies you from being serious about your work. Half the time, the voice isn’t even external anymore. It just runs in the background.

The Whoop Doesn’t Lie

At this same conference, my son was with me. Beautiful hotel, and I barely made it to the pool. When I finally sat by the water, I had my headphones on, listening to a lecture instead of playing with him. I felt guilty for that too.

Not guilty for working too much. Guilty for not looking, from the outside, like a mother who was fully present.

My recovery score was in the toilet the entire trip. I couldn’t figure out why. I was sleeping. I was in a lovely hotel. But being “on” that whole time, teaching, networking, mothering, all at once, takes something out of a nearly-45-year-old body that it didn’t used to take. I need actual recovery now. Rest isn’t optional, no matter what that voice insists.

Turning Lumbergh Into a Joke

The book’s suggestion: when you find that voice, reframe it. Change the character. Turn the tragedy into a comedy.

So I did. I pictured that attending as Lumbergh, from Office Space, the boss who’s always sidling up with a “yeah, I’m gonna need you to come in on Saturday.” I imagined him saying, in that same flat voice: “Yeah, I’m gonna need you to, uh, not have babies.”

Suddenly it wasn’t devastating. It was absurd. Because it is absurd. I could take a step back and breathe.

What I Wish I’d Known Sooner

Rest is not something you earn. It’s something you’re allowed to take.

The voice telling you that you can’t have it all usually isn’t yours. Someone handed it to you, on a random Tuesday in residency, and you’ve been carrying it ever since.

You don’t have to believe every prediction someone makes about you, especially the ones made by people who’ve never walked your path.

Busy is not the same as important. Sometimes busy is just a place to hide.

I come from a long line of women who don’t let themselves rest. I’d like to be the one who breaks that. I’m working on it. Lumbergh doesn’t get a vote anymore.

Dr. Braden’s Recommendations

Transforming the Shame Triangle by Jessica Fern is the book that introduced me to the idea of the Shame Triangle and the roles we can unconsciously take on in relationships, especially the Perpetrator, Victim, and Rescuer. It gave me a really useful framework for thinking about the role I tend to play, the fixer, and how that role can keep me over-functioning for everyone else. Highly recommend if you’re interested in understanding your own patterns and where they come from.

I’ve talked about WHOOP before, but this post is another reason I love it. My recovery score gives me objective information about what my body is actually experiencing, even when my brain is telling me I should keep going. After a 24-hour shift, seeing that my recovery is low can make it much easier for me to give myself permission to rest. Sometimes we need the data to counter the voice in our head.

For lounging in the sun, a dermatologist friend posted about a clear kids’ sunscreen spray she swears by, Sonrei. I found it in a shop at the hotel and was over the moon. It’s a mist, and it’s fast.

Her rule, now mine: don’t use it as your first layer. Put on a real lotion base first. But for reapplication, which none of us are ever actually good about, this is a game changer. No scent, no white cast, quick enough that you’ll actually do it.

If a grown woman with a dermatology degree is using kids’ sunscreen, I’m on board too.