5.
“I’m working to let go of my shame. My therapist recently asked me a question I’ve been chewing on: ‘Is your shame your friend?’ I think it is. It’s a friend I never leave feeling good, but I trust what it says because I believe it’s showing me how to be better. Shame never leaves me joyful or energized, but it also never leaves me wondering what happened. It explains, in exact detail, what went wrong so I can avoid making the same mistake. Shame is the tough love I was raised to believe corrects bad behavior. What I’m struggling with is convincing myself that Shame has a skewed perspective — a narrative that says I need to be taught because I’m dumb or, worse, because I’m responsible for how others treat me. Shame may think it’s protecting me from future abuse, but it’s become the one who abuses me most. Good intentions don’t outweigh the emotional harm caused by believing I deserve punishment for someone else’s actions.”
“It’s hard to let go of a coping mechanism that’s been with me so long, I don’t know who I am without it. That’s the deepest part of me: I feel ashamed for every breath I take, every resource I use, every second I exist in someone else’s reality.
If I part ways with shame, who will stand between me and the pain of others’ misdeeds? I know misdeeds are coming — always. Sometimes less often, but they come. What walls will protect me if I haven’t steeled my heart against the pain of rejection or anger?”
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