Shame is a memory

on the inherent embarrassment of being alive

Drie kraaien (1872 - 1897) by Henri Charles Guerard vis rawpixel

Hi friends. Right off the top, I want to say THANK YOU for all the love on my last post. It was liked and shared more (by far) than anything else I have thus far written here, and I was completely blown away by how much my words appear to have resonated with those they somehow reached (except for one person, who reposted my post but only to essentially assert that I’m wrong lol). The funniest part about this is I almost didn’t share that particular bit of writing because after toiling and fussing with it for days, it still felt incomplete and inadequate and inexpertly composed. I came very close to trashing it entirely. I’m glad I didn’t, I’m grateful I managed to override my own impulses and quiet my self-critical brain, AND I can also — reading it back now — understand why past me hesitated to send it out into the internet ether. It still feels deeply flawed and it is by no means the best thing I have written in recent months. But that’s not really the point. The point is, I shared something honest and other people recognized themselves in my experience. And while I aspire to improve my writing (a big part of why I started this humble project in the first place), I am equally as interested in building connections and telling the truth — and risking embarrassment in service of these things.

I spent many many years feeling like nobody knew me. But that was mostly because I refused to let myself be seen. We can argue about whether or not — or how deeply — we can ever really know another person OR how clearly or fully we might be able to see them, but I think these distinctions are beside the point. Our perception of those around us will be always and unavoidably colored by our own internal experiences, our own biases, own our backgrounds and histories and contexts, but that doesn’t make our efforts to know and see each other — to UNDERSTAND one another — futile. It doesn’t mean loving another person requires this process to be perfect or complete. And it doesn’t mean the deficits inherent in these endeavors will leave us feeling inevitably disappointed or betrayed.

What I want to tell you (and me!) is: IT’S OKAY TO WANT TO BE SEEN. External validation isn’t the enemy it is so often made out to be. We are social creatures, we are INTERDEPENDENT CREATURES. It is normal and healthy to seek validation from others. We have to be careful not to let our sense of self-worth become reliant on what other people think of us or what they reflect back to us in our interactions with them, but shaming ourselves for caring at all about how others see and receive us is not actually helpful. The hyperindividualism that permeates our culture and the weaponization of therapy-speak (ahem, boundaries) really can convince us we’re all just self-contained, necessarily isolated organisms who don’t fundamentally depend upon one another for our very existence. But we do! In big ways, but also in small, mostly imperceptible ways we all take for granted as we move through our lives on the daily.

Another thing: IT’S OKAY TO WANT TO FEEL NEEDED. Or useful. I love feeling useful. Love. It. (Quintessential Enneagram five over here.) And, yes, I have to remain aware of my own motivations and pay close attention to my own needs so as not to neglect myself in service to others, but that doesn’t make the joy I get out of feeling needed an inherently bad thing. It is also a VERY HUMAN THING. People pleasing is a bastardization of this extremely normal desire and can too easily become manipulative — even if this isn’t the conscious intent. But wanting to feel useful, needed, integral to your community, household, friendships is a natural and healthy part of living in an interconnected, mutually dependent world.

Being a person with needs and desires and ambitions and all of it is an undeniably embarrassing experience. I’m mortified every day. But I find that inviting in the embarrassment of potential rejection helps quiet the shame that lies underneath.

My therapist once told me that “shame is a memory of having been shamed.” Or, as Anaïs Nin once wrote: “Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself.” I HAVE BEEN TOLD SO MANY LIES. Probably you have, too. This is the biggest reason I was unable to reveal myself for so much of my life. Even to myself, sometimes. I couldn’t let myself be seen or known because I carried so much shame for so many years about who and what I actually was. I was terrified of being tossed aside if people realized how messy and emotional and traumatized and introverted and sensitive and weird and intense I really am. But if we don’t give others a chance to witness us in our entirety, in the fullness of who we are, we cut ourselves off from even the possibility of feeling seen.

I’m in my 40s now and I can honestly say my closest and dearest friends are just as fucked up as I am. In the most glorious and beautiful ways. I AM IN AWE OF THEM. And opening myself up in these relationships, regularly exposing my flaws and my missteps, cultivating intimacy with these other intense weirdos has done more to dismantle my shame than any therapy or self-improvement practice I have sought out in my life. You will never convince me we don’t heal in relationship. Sharing something about which you carry deep, soul-crushing shame and hearing another person — someone you love and respect and by whom you are inspired — say, Yeah, SAME, will start to untether you from that shame like nothing else can. It will help you see the stories for the fabrications, the projections, the impositions they are. It will start to set you free.

xoxo

---

1. People Always Think I’m Insulting Them When I’m Just Having a Laugh — forever inspired by Heather’s writing

2. When an American Town Massacred Its Chinese Immigrants

3. Reclaiming Holistic Health From the Wellness Grift: Part One — very appreciative of this piece of writing, it articulates so much of what I’ve been feeling in recent years

4. In case you wonder where I stand on this stuff

5. Blink — this podcast has me hooked

6. And, to close us out, a poem.

Because by Rosemary Trommer (sent to me by a dear patient):