I love animals. I love dogs the most, but I do feel bad when bugs get squashed or when I see those CSPCA commercials on TV. With that said...enter the creatures called mice. I'm sorry but I do not care, I CANNOT care, if mice die. There, I said it. Ok. actually, fine it doesn't even have to die it just needs to stay out of my personal space bubble which includes a very large radius of property, land, and people. Now I would never torture a mouse by putting down a sticky trap for it to get stuck in; and I really don't even like those snap traps because of the nastiness that those things create. I don't want the mouse to suffer, I just want the mouse to die. Since moving to our current residence my husband and I have had numerous encounters (all very terrifying in their own way) with mice. I can remember the first time that my husband and I found a mouse in our house (haha, that rhymes). Our dog was barking non-stop and scratching on this stand we have in our living room so we thought that a toy of his had gotten behind it, my husband reached his hand back there to try and grab this 'lost toy' and heard a "hisss"; we looked a little closer and discovered the beast. I was immediately standing on the couch, holding the dog and refusing to come down. My husband was frantically trying to figure out how to get the mouse out of the house without hurting it. He ended up making this "run" that looked like a maze with boxes. He then used a broom to scare the mouse (and his wife); the mouse ran out from behind that piece of furniture and then we watched it scramble through the run/maze and, by default, out the door. It was like a real-life game of 'Mouse Trap'. Woo-hoo we win!
Like I said, horrifying!
The second mouse encounter was death by snap trap in our garage, since neither my husband or I wanted to touch it or even recognize the fact that it was there, it just stayed there until the weekend when my father-in-law came with nerves of steel to dispose of it. Denial is a very happy place. We no longer use snap traps.
We've had a few other encounters but nothing of real significance, though still horrifying in their own way. The next notable encounter was one night coming home from somewhere (can't remember where, probably blocked it out but I do remember we had Ernie with us); we walked in to the house to see a dead mouse lying in our living room. Inappropriate. My husband decides that he better "hold the dog" back so he didn't try to get the mouse which left me to dispose of the mouse. I'm still mad at him for this. So I took the snow shovel from the garage and scooped him up, then threw him into the field across the street (the mouse, not my husband). Horrible experience, just horrible. The next memorable event was probably a week or two later when I went to switch the clothes from the wash machine into the dryer and a mouse ran across my path and behind the wash machine. Ugh, ok, enough recall of past trauma -you get the point... they're in our house, they are disgusting, they scare the crap out of me, and I hate them. End of discussion, I hate them.
That brings us to this morning, 4:00am central standard time. Our dog wakes me up to go outside and like a good pet parent I oblige. Once he finished going and came back inside I said "oh good boy", rubbed his little belly, and then I walked, barefoot, into the kitchen to get him a treat. I stepped toward the the counter where the treats are and something catches my eye and I look down...DEAD MOUSE!!!! It was literally centimeters from my big toe, CENTIMETERS! This is where we begin the discussion about the power of self-talk...
My first thought was to scream and jump on the counter, I was able to control both of those impulses and I stood there for what seemed like hours and just stared at the floor (NOT the mouse) thinking and developing a dialogue of self talk to keep me from totally losing my cool. I told myself (verbatim):
"it's o.k., you're fine, it's just a mouse, it's fine, it's fine"
My next thought was to wake up my husband, but remembering the last couple times that we had a mouse inside I did not feel like making a mouse maze for it to run through (I shouldn't have to mention that since the mouse was dead that wouldn't have worked anyway); and since our dog was not even a little interested in the mouse (he was cuddled up on the couch completely unaware of my distress); I knew that the only help my husband would be is to actually physically pick up the mouse and I knew that wasn't going to happen so I concluded that it'd be pointless to wake him up. I even thought about leaving it there and pretending I never saw it so that later that day when my husband woke up he would HAVE to deal with it, but I decided that wasn't a good idea either. I continued my self-talk as I pondered all of these options:
"you're fine, it's just a mouse just like the ones you and Riley looked at at Pet Smart the other day, it's just a mouse, a mouse, it's dead...a dead mouse".
It then occurred to me that I should see if it's truly dead or maybe just playing dead (it made sense to me in the moment), so I put on the closest shoe I could find which was my slip-on dress shoes; not so sure about the intelligence of that choice presently but apparently it appeased my mind at the time. I half-sat/leaned on the counter in case the thing jumped up and ran; I gave it a little nudge and...nothing, the thing was definitely dead. First, I had to calm myself down again-
"o.k. it's dead, it's dead, it's just dead, you're fine, it's dead"
More thinking...I decide that I needed to go out in the garage and get the snow shovel. So in my sweatpants, which I have now rolled up, a t-shirt, and my black dress shoes I go out into the garage and get the snow shovel being very careful of every step I took. I grab the big orange shovel and come back inside. More thinking...more self talk.
"ok, ok, you can do this, it's just a mouse, it's dead. It's just a dead mouse. You're a mother now you have to take care of these kinds of things. If you leave this mouse here Riley will pick it up because he doesn't know any better. It's just a mouse, a dead mouse, dead, you're fine, it's dead."
More thinking..I couldn't open the garage door to take it out the back door because that would wake everyone up since our rooms are above the garage. I'd have to take it out the front door. More self talk
"I can't carry this thing through the living room! What if I drop it? How will I get the front door open so I can just run straight out?" Panic starts to surface. "You're fine, it's just a mouse, stop. You have to do this., stop. It's just a mouse..."
I grab a boot (which in hindsight should have been on my foot rather than dress shoes) and prop open the front door. I take a deep breath, grab the shovel, scoop up the mouse, run/walk through the living room and out the front door. I step onto the side walk and step back to launch the mouse into the field and slip a little. No catastrophe occurred, the mouse flew through the air and I ran back in the house as quick as possible so I wouldn't have to hear the "thud". I close the front door, more deep breathing, lock it (you know-so the mouse can't get back in), spray the area down with Lysol, wash my hands, and run/walk back up to bed. Of course as soon as I was back in bed I kept picturing myself slipping and falling and the mouse flying through the air backward at me and hitting me or worse, landing on me!! More self talk:
"That didn't happen, you were fine, you're fine now, stop thinking about it".
AND DONE, crisis over! See how easy that was?! (*note sarcasm here) Now I understand that this story may feel slightly sarcastic and maybe a tad dramatized for entertainment purposes (of which I want you to note that it is not either of those...well okay a little sarcastic but definitely all TRUE). In all seriousness though, using self-talk in stressful and/or (in my case) traumatic situations is very helpful to keep your "flight" response from taking over your "fight" response. When you think you are going to freak out and totally "lose" it, give it a try! Just calmly talk yourself through the situation-it can even be just one word or one phrase over and over again, such as "you're fine, you're fine, you're fine" or "it's just a mouse, a dead mouse, it's dead". I promise it will get you through the experience itself, you can process it and freak out later if you need to but it definitely a good technique to get you through the moment. For me, I'm kind of glad this all happened so early in the morning, because by now it almost seems like a nightmare I had. IF I would have actually stepped on the thing though, this would be a whole 'nother kind of blog that would be written from my room on the behavioral health unit at the hospital. Just sayin'
When we got back to his daycare (we call it "school") after lunch it was nap time. I didn't want to upset him and disrupt all the kids already sleeping so I thought to myself "Well, I'll just stay a little while so he doesn't cry and once he's asleep I'll go." Well about 10 minutes later my sweet boy says "bye, mom" I thought for sure he doesn't know what he's saying, he doesn't want me to leave! So I asked him, "you want mommy to leave?" and he said "yea". Heartbreak!! So I think to myself that if I stand up and start to leave he'll for sure make a fuss because he doesn't want his mommy to leave! So I stand up and just kind of look at him waiting for him to start whining for me to sit back down...but no he just blew me a kiss then turned over on his tummy and started sucking his thumb. So I walked out and kept looking back at my little boy who is independently laying on his cot with not a care in the world. Of course he's still my cuddle bug who adores his mommy and daddy but for that moment I really had to grab a hold of the fact that he won't always be my "baby" no matter how much I say he will!
