I recently stumbled upon an article (and I use the term news generously these days) about adults using pacifiers to calm themselves down.
Adult. Pacifiers.
Pause.
Now listen! I actually get the impulse. We are living in times that feel like a constant low-grade alarm bell. Everyone is triggered, activated, overstimulated. Nervous systems are doing the absolute most. So yes, I understand the desire to self-soothe. Put your hand on your chest. Take a breath. Tap it out. Regulate like the emotionally evolved beings we are all trying, and sometimes failing, to become.
But a pacifier?
I have questions.
Maybe this is where my own history sneaks in. I didn’t use a pacifier with my son. I breastfed for over 16 months while working, which in itself felt like an Olympic sport with no medal and just a lot of side-eye from strangers and the occasional logistical crisis.
And let me be clear:l. I don’t judge other mothers. Not even a little. If anything, I have felt judged for doing things the way I did. Motherhood, as it turns out, is less a supportive village and more a panel of silent critics holding up scorecards.
So no, this is not about judgment.
It’s more about curiosity. And maybe a tiny bit of bewilderment.
Because here’s what I know. Life will keep coming. The stressors don’t politely stop at infancy. They evolve. They get more sophisticated, more layered, more existential. A pacifier, metaphorical or otherwise, can only go so far.
At some point, we have to build internal tools. Real ones. The kind that don’t fall out of our mouths when things get uncomfortable.
Breathing. Movement. Boundaries. Perspective. The deeply unsexy work of emotional regulation.
And yet who am I to judge?
If someone finds comfort in something that soothes them, in a world that feels increasingly jagged, maybe that says less about them and more about the intensity of the moment we’re all living in.
Still, I can’t help but think that we deserve coping mechanisms that meet us where we are now, not ones that take us back to where we started.
Be gentle with mothers. Be gentle with people. Everyone is doing something to get through.
But also maybe keep the pacifiers in retirement.
Just a thought.
Categories: Children, Culture, family, identity, mental health, Psychology, society
psychologistmimi 
Human Avenues to the Warm Healing
The Social Bonding Love Neurohormone
Oxytocin Brings in Terms of Healing Stress Anxiety
And Yes even
Remediating
The Impacts of Pain
Dear Miriam
True instead of Adult Pacifiers
‘They’ Could Go The Route of
Istanbul and Make Warm and
Fuzzy Cats Heroes to Roam the
Streets Bringing Comfort to Passerby’s
So Far Away From Warm And Fuzzy Healing
Comfort Even Closer
Much Closer in Warm
Touch Than Instagram
Favorite Furry Cat Pics
to Warm the Human Soul
How About Replacing Adult Pacifiers
With “How’s the Weather” True though
Not Unlike Even Hero Cats those Humans
Who May Have Been neglected and abused
By Parents and Peers in Childhood Through Adulthood
May Yikes!
Never Have
Even Developed
the Proper Human
‘Wiring’ Yep in Real
Flesh and Blood to Feel
The Core of This Humanity
Healing Love Hormone for Real
Or Perhaps They Were Just Born
‘Frozen’ This Way With No Way out
of the Human Freezer of Soul True ‘Life isn’t Fair’
Like the Lion King’s Nemesis ‘Scar’ Replied to the
Little Mouse Some Humans Feast on Warm Loving
Comfort their
Entire Life
Giving it
Away free
Like the Street
Cat Heroes in Istanbul
And Others Fight for Scraps
Just Hoping for some kind of
Pacifier
Relief
On the Other Hand
The Human Condition
isn’t particularly Rational
As Folks Also Bond and Bind
Warmly over ‘Gladiator Fights’
Celebrating National Milestone
Existence Events With Only ‘Transphobia’
And “Racism” Over Those Who are Truly
Human
And
Warmly
Suitable
For a Statue
Of Living Flesh
And Blood Liberty For Real
For it is True When Love is Real
When Freedom is Real Humanity
Embraces All With Loving Arms of Stars
“WE GO HIGH WHEN THEY GO LOW” WE FLY!
When i was the Living Dead in the Dead Zone
There Was No Pacifier for me to Possibly Work
As True i Lost the Organic Flesh and Blood Wiring
Just Patiently Waiting every second of a Thousand
Years in Hell
For 66 Months
In The Darkest
of That ‘Route
66’ to 66 Now
to Feel Human
Again with Warm
SMiLes to Give Away for Free
Like Talking About the Weather
With Every Stranger and Fist Bumping
Them for the Strength of Soul Still to come for real
now
hehe
among
Other Topics
Short and Long too
As a Comet Tale Indeed…
Or Just another Day in the Life
of a 23,922 Mile Public Dance
Where the Lady in the Next
Register Over at Walmart Last
Night Said Thank You as the Dance
Brought
Her Disgruntled
Child Happy Smiles
for Happy Feet for Real
Sailing Across Smooth Store
Dance Floors as another Child
Related me as Elsa the Ice Princess
Recovering With Dance in the Movie ‘Frozen’
Oh hehe how easily Children See the ‘Beauty’ in the ‘Beast’
For the
Color of
Love the
Essence
of Warm Human
Life that lifts instead of tearing down…
Just Another Free Cat on the Streets of Istanbul
in America
For Real
For What i See
As Life Liberty
And The Pursuit of Warm SMiLes for All
True there are the Poetic Responses of
A “SonG of mY SoUL” Now Measuring
15.8 MiLLioN Words Also in 153 Months
While Resting my Dancing Happy Feet Yet
That is a much longer Global Tale to relate
Yet Nope Never Four Score and Seven Years
of Age In Hell Nevermore Yet Evermore at 66 now…
‘Seagull’ Even
Lifting ‘Ravens’
i am no Rubber
Or Trimmed With
Faux Gold Pacifier hehe..:)
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