About Sanne
I am the published Danish author of 2 novels, 4 theatre plays, 5 librettos for new operas - and a great deal of non-fiction about how new media are challenging our mental welfare. I also tried my hand as the artistic and managing director of a small experimental musictheatre in Copenhagen where I live.
But after a nervous breakdown some years ago I have come to think of myself more as a “connector of dots”. Understanding that all the symptoms I was suffering from were actually like the burning pain that tells you to get your hand off the burning stove, I had to start connecting the dots in a new way.
More than anything else I have come to think of myself as a “connector of dots”.
Connecting dots in ever new ways is what I do in my thinking, in my writing and in my art. My hope is that my work across genres and art forms may inspire others to connect the dots in their lives in new and more satisfying ways.
Connecting the dots of self, of body, of soul, of family, of nature, of place, of society, in a meaningful way that will allow you to come home to yourself.
For many years I was constantly feeling lost and low. Sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow - basically just out of sync with other people and more often than not, on the edge of depression.
I spent a lot of time trying to find out what was wrong with me.
Was I highly sensitive? Was I bipolar? Was I on the autism spectrum? Did I perhaps have ADHD?
It was only after collapsing with burnout and subsequent anxiety that I realised that pain was not something to overcome but something to listen to. That I was not a machine. That I was nature. That perfection was not an option - but a killer of creativity.
Then I began to notice how many other people were collapsing too. How many people were struggling and overwhelmed. How many people were also haunted by feelings of not fitting in.
It struck me how the majority of the symptoms listed to describe these diagnoses sounded like very natural reactions to unhealthy conditions.
That the whole thing was really a matter of perspective.
That it was only the perspective that wanted people to fit in, that had a say. Never the people who didn't fit in. We were just either sick or failures.
No matter how mad and inhuman the system - anyone who couldn't or wouldn't adjust, got a diagnosis - and a bad wound in their self-esteem.
To me it was beginning to sound a lot like asking the rainforest to be resilient, or the coral reefs to be robust…
That was when it began to dawn on me how much this looked similar to the climate crisis.
And the idea started to crystallise : What if the psyche is actually an ecosystem, a mental ecosystem?
Suddenly it was like I had gotten a new pair of glasses that made so many things clear to me.
And so I began 7 years of research into Neurobiology, Ecology and Systems Thinking trying to connect the dots and develop what has now become the theory of the psyche as a mental ecosystem, which I want to share with you.
Because I think these glasses can inspire and help us all to move:
From burning up and out - to getting our hands off the hot stove
From feeling lost - to coming home to ourselves
From feeling like a failure, a misfit, a looser - to feeling worthy, entitled, and an equal part of the neuro-diversity of a thriving socio-mental ecosystem
From loneliness and disconnection - to feelings of belonging and entanglement
From numbness and sedation - to enlivenment
From reactive autopilot - to resonance, response and participation
From anxiety - to action
From passive acceptance - to active resistance
On bad days I suspect I would still qualify for any number of diagnoses from ADD and Aspergers to OCD and anxiety.
I still have melt-downs when there is too much pressure, but this is the thing : when I manage to regulate and balance my mental ecosystem - and embrace its multidimensional nature I feel fine.
Then it is possible for my creativity to move freely in a great number of directions.
This has turned out to be essential for me to generate a feeling of meaning and feeling at home in the world.
So I deeply acknowledge the amazing luck and privilege I have had in having the opportunity to follow the needs of my mental ecosystem.
Thanks to somatics coach Rachel Blackman for the juicy explorative conversation from which you will find bits and pieces spread around all over these pages.