Today as I was travelling to see one of my clients, I suddenly had a realisation.
As of late I have been watching a series on one of the streaming platforms and is all about supernatural beings. And in this series (at times the plot is a bit tedious), but…in this series one of the beings when overwhelmed they turn their humanity off. And throughout my watching this show I got really fed up with this on and off behaviour the writers incorporated for these beings. This picture tells the story of what being I am referring to.
So, as I was on my way to the client, my mind wondered, and concluded that as humans we too go through the same cycle of turning on and off our humanity. In one episode the character said that they are fed up with the love, die, loose, repeat cycle and so they switched their humanity off to stop the cycle.
In my work I see many clients who appear to have done just that, they got so overwhelmed with their emotions and their cycles of love and loss, that they appear to have turned that aspect of themselves off. And as they detach from the emotions, they become reckless and risk takers and self destructive, and no amount of people telling them to come back, brings them back from the precipice. So today as I was connecting the dots, I realised that the writers despite their tedious style, they were onto something. They tapped into the very psyche of human beings, that we all have that inner switch that we sometimes turn off for our own protection. When everything is just too much, we shut down, we isolate, we dissociate, we disengage from that which makes us humans. And I see this with many clients, and often with those who are neurodivergent, where other people observing them would say they have their connection with humanity switched off. But as I was pondering on this idea, I recognised that they may appear disconnected but they in fact connect too much internally, but seem to be showing maybe limited connection on the outside. Whereas, some of the “normal” people I know, they may appear supper connected but you can see how their humanity switch is off, and they appear to be NPCs in their own lives. The normies, lip their switch so often, that it is no wonder that society seems in such turmoil.
So my question to you today is….how do you behave when your “humanity switch is off?” What is it that you do in those moments? Are you even conscious that you flipped your switch? Do you have people around you to remind you of your humanity and bring you back from the edge of self destruction? Do you know your own limits of when too much is indeed…too much?
In the show these beings could only flip their switch back on if a really emotionally charged memory, or person was able to get them to realise that connection exists and that all emotions regardless of what it is, was indeed the clue for their finding their humanity again.
Who is your anchor in the world, that one person who you care so deeply for, who can flip the switch? Whether it is influential enough to switch your humanity off, or whether that person can flip it back on again, do you know that person? Do you know when that person needs to step in or out of your life? But then again, were you aware of your switch at all?!
Time to take out that pen and paper and jot down your circle, and time to find the circuit breakers in your being… for we can all become the monsters of the night, when we turn off our humanity….
