Goldfish Flashbacks

Help! My daughter won a goldfish and now I'm 8 again! Emma returned from the fair clutching a plastic bag with a tiny orange fish, my initial reaction of dread quickly transformed into a childhood flashback. Let's talk emotional support animals and "ugly" sandal summer tans. 

Whether you're navigating summer with kids, processing your own childhood memories, or simply looking for ways to find mindfulness in everyday life, this episode offers gentle reminders that healing and connection often come from unexpected sources.

Subscribe to Mental Health-ish for more authentic conversations about mental health, parenting, and finding meaning in the messiness of life. Have your own pet story or unexpected memory trigger? Share your experiences—we'd love to hear from you!

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Chapters

• 0:20 Welcome and Summer Break Plans
• 2:21 Simple Summer Activities
• 6:46 Emma's Fair Trip and Friendship
• 9:08 The Unexpected Goldfish Prize
• 11:34 Childhood Pet Memories Resurface
• 15:46 Finding Mindfulness Through Fish Care
• 18:10 Episode Wrap and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Hey y'all, welcome back to Mental Health-ish. I'm Susie and I wanted to record today because it is officially summer break and so you guys know what that means it's summer activities time, it's time to figure out ways to keep the kids busy for summer break, and so I'm really excited about that. I think for this year I usually have something that I plan where I'm like okay, I want to take Emma somewhere, whether it's a road trip or, you know, catch a flight. Not that we travel anywhere like too crazy, but you know, we tried to. We went to Florida last year, I think twice, and so other years we've done road trips, we've gone to just different national parks, things like that.

Speaker 1: 1:06

So for this year, I think I was just so caught up with work and I've just been so busy, not to mention that, as you guys know, I got emergency gallbladder removal surgery at the beginning of April and so that kind of forced me to be on leave from work for two and a half weeks. So I don't have a lot of save time like to go on vacation or do things like. Right now I'm literally in save mode. I'm trying to save up as many vacation hours as I can for the fall Cause I know like for Emma's birthday we usually always do something. She wants to go places. So I'm still trying to figure that out. Right now I'm just trying to save enough vacation hours so that maybe we're able to like take a road trip, or maybe we're able to I don't know. Like I still haven't figured that out yet, but that's what I'm doing right now. So for this summer I've had people ask me what are you guys doing for this summer? Do you guys have any plans? And I'm just like, uh, no, like there's no plans right now. There's no, no plans, no planning.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Like I really for this summer and just really looking forward to being like just chill, like just hanging out, not doing much. Like I literally just bought a patio table with chairs the other week because I feel like I'm just never home, um, the other week. Because I feel like I'm just never home, I feel like I'm always just busy, I feel like I'm always at work. I feel like I I never really truly get to relax, even with Emma, on my days off. Like, if you guys follow me on Instagram, you guys see we're always at Disney, we're always out and about doing stuff, we're at the movies, we're at the playground, we're always out and about doing stuff. We're at the movies, we're at the playground, we're at the mall, we're shopping, we're like we're just always out and about. And so I don't really feel like we really get to just be home and just enjoy our home that we're living in and so, or like we're always cleaning, like I'm always on cleaning mode on my days off, so we don't really get time to just relax. And so for this summer, I just miss the beach, I just miss the sun, I miss getting a tan, like I miss getting an ugly sandal tan, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 3:31

Like I remember, before Emma, I used to always be at the beach. Like I used to be at the beach pretty much like almost every week, multiple times a week, and you know we used to go fishing a lot with her dad, you know, when I was still with Emma's dad and things like that. And that's not to say like I know I'm at a different point in my life right now and I know that I'm not going to go fishing, right, like every week, I'm not going to be going fishing several days a week. And like I have a job now, I have responsibilities, I have Emma, I have clients now, like I have my private practice, and so I know it's not going to be the same, but I do want to just do things more like be outside more, and so I think that's my big plan for the summer is trying to at least go to the beach twice a month, hopefully even once a month, depending on what we got to do. And so I went ahead and bought us like a beach canopy, have chairs, like I'm trying to get our little setup situated to, so that we are able to go and maybe just go for a walk at the beach, maybe just sit and tan, get our feet wet, take some snacks, just stay there, you know, see some sunsets like that's what I want to do this summer. I don't have any like vacation plans. I'm not going to be catching flights, driving places, maybe a little road trip here and there. I'm not going to lie Like sounds nice.

Speaker 1: 5:11

I just went to go get my hair cut today and I was talking to my hair shout out Priscilla. I was talking to my hairdresser about summer plans and she mentioned Catalina Island or something. I was like you know what? Like Emma hasn't been to Catalina Island, and that is like like I can't even believe that. I'm saying that because Catalina is like one of those things where you would figure that we have done already with Emma. But no, like Emma has actually never been to Catalina. So I was like you know what that sounds like a nice little like weekend getaway, you know for the summer, like maybe just taking Emma to Catalina, getting jumping on the ferry, you know that little boat ride, like she loves that type of stuff. So I think that might be a contender for the summer activities list. But but yeah, I think for the most part we're probably just gonna chill at home, go to the beach, enjoy our outdoor patio in the backyard, maybe do some water balloons, do some art activities, some painting, some crafts, maybe play some board games, some cards, like just be very chill, and maybe go get ice cream, you know, but nothing too crazy, and so yeah, like just trying to do really fun activities like that.

Speaker 1: 6:33

Speaking of that, emma went to the fair recently. She went to the fair this weekend and she went with one of her little classmates and they had so much fun. Like she had a smile, the biggest smile in her face. I was getting videos and pictures while I was at work and she just looks so happy and it's just like friendships are so important, like even for kids, and especially if you have a kid who is neurodivergent, like Emma is like Emma was just diagnosed with ADHD. I'm not sure if I've shared that in previous episodes, but we went through the whole testing and everything was very difficult, challenging, but yeah, she was just diagnosed with PTSD. Whatever I say, oh my gosh, no, she does not have PTSD, she was diagnosed with ADHD.

Speaker 1: 7:24

Um, you know, if you have a neurodivergent child, like they could be a little socially awkward and if you guys have any experience with that, you know what I'm talking about. Like it's just something like where they're just awkward and so sometimes they're very socially awkward and they have a hard time making friends. Okay, okay, and sometimes I feel bad for Emma because I she doesn't really have a friend that she considers her best friend. Like I don't see her hanging out with like the same kids every week, like there's not really like a close friend that she has and she is socially awkward sometimes. Like she doesn't know personal space, like if she's really excited, like she'll be like all in your face, like even at the grocery store, social cues, things like that. Like sometimes she just doesn't realize, and so she'll get super close to people or she'll be like overly friendly, which is good, like I don't want to shut her down. Like she'll talk to the cashiers and she'll be like, how's your day going? And I'm like, okay, like she's, she's very friendly, she's very outgoing, completely opposite of me, cause I'm just like don't talk to me, no, but any who?

Speaker 1: 8:42

So that was very nice, you know to see that she went to the fair and she had a really great time, and so while she was at the fair, I get a picture message of her holding a goldfish yes, a goldfish. So she played one of the little games at the fair and she won a goldfish. So you know my immediate reaction when I saw that goldfish I was like no, no, no, like no, no, no. And then I just it's like something clicked, so something that a lot of people don't know about me, because obviously, like I don't really talk about my childhood or my past, like it's something that I just kind of keep to myself. I've always been kind of like a very private person and I don't have contact with my family. So I think, like you know, it's just not something that I talk about a lot. But when I saw that goldfish, after my initial reaction of no, no, no, like I got flashbacks.

Speaker 1: 9:46

Yep, I got flashbacks of my childhood because something that nobody really knows is that I actually, growing up, I had a lot of goldfish out of all the pets that we had growing up and we had a lot of different ones, and just thinking back with the pet situation, I was like that was really messed up because somehow every pet that we had would suddenly go missing and you know my mom would always say something like oh, the door was left open and you know he ran away or she ran away. So it was always something. So now, as an adult, I'm like did those pets really run away? You know what I mean? Or did you just get rid of them Because you didn't want us to have any pets or you didn't want to deal with pets? So now, as an adult, I see it like in a whole different lens.

Speaker 1: 10:40

But yeah, like, growing up we had, I had a cat which was very traumatic. Traumatic because I remember one night, late at night, middle of the night, like it was late night, like there was no cars in the streets type night, you know, like that's how you know it's late when there's no cars around. I remember like all of us my mom, my brothers getting into the car with our cat and I didn't realize what was happening, but it was so sad Like my mom was actually driving us to the middle of like nowhere, like in this kind of industrial area where there's a lot of factories, things like that, and she was driving there to pretty much abandon our cat and get rid of it because she didn't want the cat anymore. And that's horrible Like I just even thinking of that situation now as an adult, like I couldn't picture putting Emma through that. When you have a pet that you're attached to as a child and then, like your parent is just literally throwing it away, like all I remember is I was just crying, I was crying, I was so sad, but yeah, she pretty much just like I was crying, I was so sad, but yeah, she pretty much just like let the cat, the cat out of the car and just drove away. So super sad situation and I'm sure that's something that people still do is like abandon their pets, like you see videos online right of people just like dropping their dogs off and like this empty road and then just driving away. But yeah, so we've had pets, like I'm saying, and like they suddenly disappear. So now it has me questioning right, we also had a bunny, and that bunny the door was left open and it ran away, right, but we actually had him also for like a really long time, cause I remember we got him when he was a baby and then when he disappeared he was like a full grown rabbit, you know, adult if you will.

Speaker 1: 12:35

But any home the pets that we actually ended up keeping were the goldfishes. And so from a very, very early age I think, when I was probably Emma's age, we got goldfish and I don't remember how it started. I don't remember if we also got started with one that we got at a fair and then it just kind of grew from there. But, yeah, just, we had, we actually went in and we got a fish tank and we kept goldfish for a really long time and our goldfish lived forever. I'm talking about you'd be surprised at how long goldfish live, like I'm not even joking, like I had to look it up just to like make sure it's normal, because the goldfish that we had grew, like they literally grew, like they started off as small little goldfish and then they grew like maybe the size of almost the size of a small hand, like they were kind of big, and we had those goldfish for, I think, 15 years or more, even because when I moved out of my mom's house, I was 18 years old, we still had the fish and I remember visiting her, like when I would still visit her years after. The fish were still there. They were big. So those were literally the only pets that we kept out of. All the pets we had was the fish. And so, yeah, like those fish, like we fed them, we cleaned them. I remember like cleaning the fish tank several times, changing the water, cleaning the pebbles, the decor right for the fish tank. So I thought that was so.

Speaker 1: 14:20

Here comes Emma, right on this Saturday night with a little goldfish and for me what started off as like an initial, like initial, was like no, no, no. The more I start I was like, oh crap, like here comes the memories, the childhood memories, because then I started thinking about, you know, my childhood, because we had so many fishes. And then now here I am right reflecting on pets and all this, and now I'm like, well damn. So anyways, there's gonna. It's just crazy how there's just gonna be. There's situations in your day to day life that will trigger so many childhood memories and like even like traumatic memories from your childhood and it's just so crazy how it could just happen so fast. And how do you deal with that? Right, thankfully, I'm at this point now where I did the therapy and things like that. So now when these things come up, like it doesn't affect me as much, it's just kind of more like a oh, like I remember that, like oh, like it kind of just brings memories up and it's just so fascinating and interesting how the mind works.

Speaker 1: 15:36

But yeah, something like this, like before, would have had me in tears and just like overthinking and you know, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, so we have a fish, a goldfish, and his name is Steve. I'm gonna name him Steve. That's a cute, interesting name, right. So here I am, like like clockwork, like it, just like muscle memory just kicked in, right, with the goldfish, and I ended up buying a little fish tank for Steve, some pebbles, some decor, and now we're here, right, changing fish tank water and feeding the fish, making sure the fish eats every day, right, Changing fish tank water and feeding the fish, making sure the fish eats every day, right? Isn't that just so crazy? How things could just like, like, what? Like who would have thought I was gonna have a goldfish, like a week ago? But craziness, right.

Speaker 1: 16:34

But anywho, let me know what your pet stories are and what your childhood experiences were with pets or just anything pet related. Your child brought home a pet and you didn't know about or, like you know, whatever, whatever you guys want to share, but that's my pet drama and experience for this week. I now have a, a goldfish, and I guess here I am, eight years old again, taking care of goldfish, like I was right with my own, eight year old now. But yeah, I mean, pets, as we know, can be so soothing and, like we know, a lot of people use pets as their emotional support animals and it's crazy how that works Because, like, as I'm changing and I'm fixing this fish tank and I'm making sure the pebbles are perfect, and you know, I want this color pebbles and I want to place the plants here and I want to like. It's just crazy how it actually, now that I think about it, like it was kind of a stress reliever because in that moment, like I wasn't thinking about anything else, about any other things that are stressing me out. I was very mindful in that moment. So, hey, go pets. Okay, go pets, go pets, okay, go pets.

Speaker 1: 18:01

But, anywho, make sure to please subscribe to this podcast for just some real stories, some real experiences, real mental health talk and go ahead and share with your friends, with your family, and share your own pet experience with me for this week's episode, and make sure to check out all of the past podcast episodes that are posted. The previous one was a really good one where we talked about abusive relationships, things like that. So if you haven't checked it out, go ahead and check it out, and I hope you all have a great rest of your day. But thank you for listening and go ahead and hit that subscribe and that like button and leave a five-star review if you like the past episodes and yeah, thank you guys, go ahead and check out our YouTube page, mental Healthish, where I will be uploading some of the podcast episodes, such as this one. If you haven't subscribed, go ahead and subscribe. But yeah, thank you, have a good one.