In discussions with my therapist*, she pointed out that I build very intricate mental models (in her words “fantasies”) of people and use these to predict their thoughts, feelings and behaviours. This comes from a place of fear, where I was scared of how people might act and of being terrified of confrontation.

So I have conversations with these “fantasies” instead of with the people they’re about, and then I make my decisions based on these. Often I get it right.

But I often get it wrong too.

Today I took an active step to speak to a person instead of talking to my fantasy of her. And it turns out my fantasy was very very wrong. As a result, so were my decisions and interactions with her.

The outcome was much better than I’d even realized, and it turns out we were actually on the same page the whole time.

Reflecting on this, part of the problem is the difficulty we have communicating as humans. We build mental heuristics, rules of thumbs, which we use. And these can be helpful. But they can also be very wrong. So we need to make an effort to communicate more frequently instead of relying on our mental models

In her words:

I know [these conversations] are not always comfortable, but slowly we chip away at the things that are holding us back from living our best.

*I was going to pretend that I was chatting to a friend, not my therapist, but when I thought about it I realized that we need to continue to fight to destigmatize mental health issues and treatment. So yes, I see a therapist regularly and she has been instrumental in helping me through mental health issues.

Title of this post is based on Dark Fantasies by Kanye West. I’ve been listening to the album on repeat today

Image is of two friends trying to speak through a horse on Seapoint promenade.