Why the Flower Metaphor for Mental Health Doesn’t Work
In today’s psychological discourse, we paint people as two kinds of flowers.
Some flowers — and people — survive through thick and thin. Others are fragile and need constant care and attention. These are the metaphors we use to distinguish between “strong” and “weak” individuals.
However, I think this is an outdated way of looking at things. It is also completely misguided. It misunderstands the mental, emotional, and social mechanisms borne in more sensitive individuals.
Indeed, those we see as weak might very well be the strongest among us.
Dandelions and orchids.
To some degree, you are a product of your childhood.
Your genes, upbringing, and environment have shaped your experiences and personality. In a way, the current you has been molded from the past you. Therefore, the person you are today is reflected in the metaphorical flower you were as a child.
Psychologists differentiate between these two kinds of children:
- Dandelions are individuals who are resilient. Much like a dandelion sprouting through the cracks in a pavement, these people can overcome harsh environments and handle stress and adversity well. Dandelion children seem mentally fit and strong enough to shrug off whatever challenges stand in their path.
- Orchids are individuals who are affected deeply by their surroundings. Like their flower counterpart, they are sensitive to environmental cues and changes, and they bloom most beautifully under the care and love of a gentle home. Orchid children are highly reactive or vulnerable to their world, and they often express this through seclusion or heightened distress.
I was an orchid child myself.
This is likely because I am also a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). I have been in great emotional and mental turbulence since childhood, and have been more receptive to sensory inputs and external cues than my peers. This has been challenging — but it has never defined me as weak.
Quite the opposite.
It seems, according to recent psychological discoveries, that the orchids of the world might thrive better than the tougher, stronger, and more resilient dandelions.
The orchid is not an orchid.
Orchid children are more well-adapted than dandelions.
In their book Sensitive, fellow HSPs Jenn Granneman and Andre Sólo explain how sensitivity — while being a trait associated with vulnerability, reactiveness, and mental illness — actually strengthens the individual in their childhood and subsequent life.
Born with the genetic code for sensitivity, orchid children develop solutions to adapt to their environments — whether harsh or supportive. This is because they are more sensitive to their cues and are greater at processing their environment, predicting others’ behavior, and thinking deeper about potential solutions.
While yes, orchids might be more negatively impacted by adversity, they also benefit more in abundant and supportive environments, and adapt with more skill to their harsher ones.
While the dandelion pushes through pain and resistance, the orchid measures it, understands it, and adapts to it, and comes out on the other side more fulfilled and resilient than their peers. This makes the environmentally tuned decisions of orchid people more than enough to battle the hardy emotionality of dandelions.
Thus, referring to sensitive individuals as unprotected orchids that need constant care to thrive, neglects their very real maturity and strength.
Instead, as Granneman and Sólo write in their book, the orchid is not an orchid. It is more akin to a succulent:
“Sensitive people are not hothouse orchids who wither in anything but the most perfect conditions. Rather, they are akin to succulents: No drop of nourishment escapes them, and they continue to absorb it until they swell with lovely blossoms.”
I can see myself here, in this picture.
A small, fuzzy thing peeking out from the soil. I am not very big, nor very intimidating, and I react strongly to environmental patterns and changes. But I am also smart, resourceful, and adaptive.
And because I am a succulent and not an orchid, I can thrive.
