Outside...

The next sticky from the research book on shame I had wanted to discuss is:  "Outside of us."

Shame comes from outside of us—from the messages and expectations of our culture.  What comes form the inside of us is a very human need to belong, to relate. (Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me [But It Wasn't], p. xxiv)

This is not the only time Dr. Brown discusses the fact that shame comes from outside of us, but it is the first (I think).  And I find it interesting that the thought is coupled with what is inside of us.

I wish I had better words to say why this is important to me.  It is definitely something that has been  percolating.

For one, as I think I penned before, when trying to seek help for shame, it has come back to me that shame is my fault.  And it isn't!  Whew!  It is such a profound relief to read this book, to learn about what I am feeling and what thoughts can be behind those feelings.  I think, in a way, I am currently curled in a ball around this notion of shame coming from outside myself, soaking up its comfort and warmth.

When I tried to talk about sexual abuse in college, I was "impure" and "no longer marriageable material."  From the Christian culture, I was shamed for not being a virgin, even though that was not something I chose or was even capable of preventing.  Yet the shame continued.

When I tried to talk about sexual abuse after becoming a Lutheran, the first response I received was "Oh, gross!  I don't want to know about that."  No, I wasn't even speaking in detail ... just the fact.  I think, honestly, that that response was some of the most hurtful words I ever heard.  And those words served to deeply reinforce my own self-view of being dirty, filthy, and, yes, gross.

This actually speaks to something that came up in counseling.  The counselor I was seeing wanted a goal of my receiving a hug in six months time.  That wasn't my goal.  It was hers.  She didn't ask me what comfort I wanted, the little girl in me wanted, or what comforts me most these days.  I get that the little girl was not comforted and needs to be comforted, but I also believe that I should be consulted about comfort.

I say this, whilst thinking, that if my friend Mary and her family did manage to come for a visit, I might asked her ... well ....

Anyway, if someone put a gun to my head and said I had to chose physical comfort, it would actually be a kiss to my forehead, like Becky did in the hospital when I had the pacemaker surgery.  I think, maybe, that's one of the reasons I found having the cross traced on my forehead so comforting.  I mean, I struggled with something holy being traced on something so very unholy, but I liked the comfort of the touch.

Secondary to that, it would be to hold my hand.

A hug, a-close-to-me-and-touching-my-body-ever-so-much-that-I-feel-trapped action, is not what I want.  And pushing me to want that actually undermines the boundary that I chose and set a while ago saying that I didn't want to be touched anymore.  It is not that I never want to be touched again, but I want it to be when I want it.  And, frankly, I think if wanting that takes me a few years (or a decade) then so be it.

What does comfort me?
What comfort do I long for?
Words

I long for the comfort of words I never (or rarely) heard.  I long for words of love and affection, words of encouragement, words of pride, words of acceptance and belonging.

Words wounded me, deeply, as a child.  That damned psychologist speaking words in my ears about God creating little girls to help men as he helped himself to my body not the worst of them.  Words can would, but words can also heal.  Especially The Word.

I think, maybe, that's why I crave hearing the Word of God so much.  It is something outside of me that is the very opposite of shame.  It is words that do not wound.  It is comfort that affects both body and soul.

The comfort of words would also go a long way toward helping me heal from the ongoing, overwhelming battle with shame.  Both words that I speak (and have others listen) and words spoken to me.  Words can counteract the messages that shame.  Words can replace those messages, if spoken as often as the words of shame.  Words can be profound and powerful and so very personal.

But getting back to the quote, I like that it is coupled with what is inside:  the longing to belong.  In a way, that comforts me almost as much as learning that shame is not something I am doing to myself.  Because I often feel the alien for how much I long to belong somewhere.  I spent my life standing outside the proverbial window and looking in ... trying to understand what it was to belong somewhere.  School was a torture because of that.  And I felt foolish for wanting to not be the outcast.  But that longing was part of being human!  So, I wasn't alien, I was most particularly being human in that moment.

All four years of high school, I longed for my locker to be decorated, to receive a Valentine's Day carnation, to be invited to a party, to have someone to sit with me at lunch.  I wasn't a freak for wanting those things. I was normal.

Wanting to be accepted in a family, with friends, in school, at work, and at church.
All normal.
All human.

I think it would be helpful, even if it hurt, to try and think about the shame messages I carry inside of me. I think identifying them would be a good first step in working to banish them or at least lessen their power.  Some I have identified here:  being impure, being unmarriageable, being gross.  Others ... I battle shame just thinking them, much less trying to speak them.

Still, shame is not something I do to myself.
Shame is done to me.
Shame is from the outside.