Sunday, February 07, 2016

Not alone...


As I have been reading I Thought It Was Just Me [But It Isn't] a few things have resonated with me, some deeply.  One example is how Dr. Brown states that what some experience as devastating might only be mildly upsetting for others.  Thus, you cannot measure another's shame by what affects you.  An example of this came up recently when someone was trying to tell me that label's don't mean anything.  She shared a label placed on her that was ... not positive ... and how she doesn't feel shame or let it define her.  The very label spoken is yet another one that bothers me and just hearing the label upset me, made me recoil a bit.

I think, now, I have better words to use were the topic to come up again.  It's not about what bothers you; it's about what bothers me.  Likewise, what bothers you, I need to honor and respect the same I wish for others to do.

I've mentioned that Dr. Brown repeats things.  I like that.  I like it because it is reassuring to me.  For example, she writes in the middle of the first chapter:  If we want to successfully deal with the shame in our lives, we have to understand why we feel it and how it affects our lives, including the behaviors, though and feelings we deal with every day.  (p. 17)  That builds upon what I have already quoted from the introduction and the beginning and the end of the first chapter ... all pointing toward how to develop shame resilience.

So, to me, it is not important for me to agree with you about which labels are shameful or not, but rather why a particular label is shameful to me.  What it makes me feel.  How do those feelings affect me?  I am not good at recognizing such or asking such, but I want to learn.

Shame is all about fear.  As I wrote in the introduction, we are biologically, emotionally, socially and cognitively wired for connection.  For many, there is also a deep need for spiritual connection.  Shame is about the fear of disconnection.  When we are experiencing shame, we are steeped in the fear of being ridiculed, diminished or seen as flawed.  We are afraid that we've exposed or revealed a part of us that jeopardizes our connection and our worthiness of acceptance.   This fear is fueled by the sense that we are somehow trapped in our shame. (p. 20)

Shame is all about fear.  Wow!  I actually found that both hopeful and reassuring.  I mean, I know that I have been drowning in shame for years and years and years, but only (relatively) recently have I acknowledged the fear that cloaks me so much of the time.  Right there in black and white tells me why!

When we are feeling shame and fear, blame is never far behind.  Sometimes, we turn inward and blame ourselves and other times we strike out and blame others.  When we blame ourselves, we often find ourselves in a cycle of self-loathing and shame.  Quietly, we emotionally implode.  We lash out at our child, our employee, our partner or maybe even the customer service person standing in front of us.  Either way, imploding or exploding, we are mostly unaware of what we are doing and why we are doing it.  We used blame to deal with our feelings of powerlessness. (p. 23)

I think I would put it that shame is a self-fulfilling prophesy.  Take the idea that we deserve our shame.  Couple it with the idea that blame follows shame.  I am ashamed of the acts my body has been involved in over the years.  What I have done.  [Telling me it was done to me is not all that helpful at the moment.]  What I have done is seen as impure, not worthy of being a good Christian man's wife.  Unclean, even.  Shameful.  I did those things so I am unclean and should feel ashamed.  I didn't stop them from happening. I didn't get someone else to stop them from happening.  It is my fault.  I don't want others to really know me, to really see me, the girl who did that.  Revulsion and disgust cycles with shame and I know that I am bad.

When I wrote about power-over (I'll define who you are and then make you believe it's your definition), the example I should give is how, effectively, I have put that false definition of purity upon myself now.  I have taken on the condemnation for not being a virgin.  But, as I have tried to write before, it is deeper than that.  I am ashamed that I have no desire to take upon wifely duties.  Yes, I absolutely would love to have a husband, to have someone to share my life with, but I do not want to have sexual relations at all.  What I think about that is as revolting and disgusting to me as what I think about myself.  I get that my thoughts are what a young child would think, but they are the thoughts that I have.  Heck, it isn't even lying with a man; it is kissing.  I never want to have to endure that again.

What kills me is, as I have tried to say 1,001 to my close friends, is that what I hear about faith is framed by being a wife and mother.  I am neither of those things and being a wife to a man is something that is akin to horror to me.  It seems to me that I am rejecting everything that I was created to be if I listen to what I hear about faith and women these days.

Even if, somehow, the idea of relations was changed, what cannot change is my lack of virginity.  What cannot change is that I am not pure.  See ... that definition is drilled into me.  "Oh, it doesn't matter, Myrtle."  But it does.  There's a whole industry about it mattering in the Christian world.  And outside the Christian world, too.  SIGH.

What I liked best about the introduction is that Dr. Brown states that she believes that everyone is capable of developing shame resilience.  I have had folk tell me that I will never ... never be a part of a community, never be able to have real relationships, never be able to heal (that was a rape crisis counselor), never ... never ....  My counselor oft repeats that she believes everyone is capable of healing.  I like that and I need to hear it.  So, I liked the particular emphasis in the introduction that shame resilience is not just for the strong and mighty, the fearless and confident.

What I liked best about the first chapter is two-fold.  First, it was an abject relief to learn that shame can cause one to go into fight, flight, or freeze mode, especially having experienced this very recently without really understanding why.  Second, I liked hearing all the things that fit me:


  • shame is filled with fear
  • shame feels deserved
  • shame is like a prison
  • shame makes you feel alone, even isolated


Those might seem discouraging, but they are actually encouraging in a way.  You see, reading those made me feel normal in the way that reading The Courage to Heal does.  In that book, I learned the whys and wherefores of much of what I think and how I behave (or behaved in the past), learning that I am par for the course for a survivor of sexual abuse.  I am not crazy or mentally ill; I am normal.   In this book, I am learning what is par for the course with shame ... what is primal and normal to humanity.

And ... oh, my! ... shame may make me feel alone, but I am not alone in feeling and battling shame.

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