Shame, Shame, SHAME

Have you ever seen someone being publicly shamed? Someone pointing a finger very close to their face and saying phrases over and over again like, "how could you DO that?! What were you THINKING?! WERE you even thinking AT ALL? Do you have a functioning brain? Do you understand...have ANY IDEA...even the slightest hint of what you have done??" Meanwhile, the person being shamed shrinks lower and lower. Sometimes you can physically see them get smaller. Eyes cast downward, shoulders slumped, shallow breathing, hands hanging lifelessly by their side or frantically wringing their hands behind their back. It is a heart wrenching sight.

This is happening to me. Just not publicly.

I recently was working on my Addo Recovery program and one of the assignments was to write my story. I went deeper with this writing than I had ever before. I hadn't even shared all these details with my counsellor. And while it felt good to get my story out, it brought up some deep emotions - namely, shame.

I think back to the first time I found porn in my home. It was a magazine in my husband's bedside table. I found it completely by chance as I was looking for something else face down, under a small crate of tools. My husband is not a reader, so it was very strange to see a magazine in there, but I was going to just ignore it and keep looking for whatever it was I went there for originally. Something on the back cover caught my attention enough to make me pull it out and see what it was. I was stunned. My brain actually began to misfire. If I had pulled out a baby unicorn, my brain would have had the same reaction. "It is not physically possible for me to be holding THIS magazine that I found in HIS bed side table. NOT POSSIBLE."

Yet there it was. In my hands. In my cold and trembling hands.

Then something clicked in my brain and I hid the magazine and went looking for my husband. I asked him about "a magazine" and he seemed clueless. Then I said WHAT magazine and he acted completely dumbfounded, claiming he had no idea where it came from and that it was NOT his. Part of me inside was saying, "of course it isn't his! He isn't like that." But the other part of the brain, that had just started to work again, said "how could it NOT be his?"

He gave me one suggestion of where it may have come from. I didn't believe it. That seemed just as ridiculous. I dropped it for a bit, took the magazine outside and ripped it up and burned it in my driveway. I was shaking and my mind was spinning. A few days later I brought it up again because it just wasn't sitting right with me and I had to know where it came from. Then my husband suggested another possibility. I will not get into it here...but I will say, it was a story line you would find in a movie. I remember just staring at him and asking, "really?" He said, "I don't know. Maybe. I just know it isn't mine." He asked me multiple times to believe him, promising it wasn't his. As I think back to that time, there was almost desperation in his pleading.

So, I decided to believe him. I don't know why. And believing him led me down a road of paranoia. To believe this lie meant we were not safe. And I started jumping at every sound in and out of our house and began looking for a new, "safe" place to live. I later found out the truth, of course.

But this is where I have wrestled. I have stuffed that experience way down and tried not to look at it. Writing my story brought it up and flooded me with shame. "How could you BELIEVE that?! What were you THINKING?! WERE you even thinking AT ALL? Do you have a functioning brain? Do you understand...have ANY IDEA...even the slightest hint of what you have done?? You are so stupid! So gullible! YOU ARE AN IDIOT! So much for that intelligence you have liked about yourself all your life...that doesn't exist anymore." With each slam of shame, my breathing would get shallower, shoulders would hunch and I had a hard time looking myself (or my husband) in the eye. Sometimes I felt lifeless. Sometimes I frantically would wring my hands. I have also come to believe that my husband will never take me seriously again because I was so dumb to believe such a flagrant lie. And how do I move forward in my healing and rebuilding of our relationship when I am so fearful of being duped again? I don't want to feel that awful humiliation again.

Shame, shame, SHAME!

So, as with every other emotion that my recovery work brings up, I have the option of shoving it back where it came from or facing it head on and trying to heal it. But how do you heal shame? Do I just rationalize it away? I don't think so.

I did a search online about shame and have learned a few things. I found some wisdom from Brene Brown. I love her! She is one of my new favorite people. I found two great clips here and here and here. This is some of what stood out to me:

"Empathy is the antidote to shame. If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs 3 things to grow exponentially...secrecy, silence and judgement. It will creep into every crevice of your life and shape your life. If you put the same amount of shame in a petri dish and douse it with empathy, it cannot survive. Shame cannot survive being spoken."

"Shame depends on me buying into the belief that I'm alone."

"Shame breeds fear, blame and disconnection."

"Shame is the intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and belonging."

"The less you talk about it, the more you got it."

I also found a clip that talks about "6 types of people who do not deserve to hear your shame story". Do we have people in our lives who we can share our story with and will sit with us in that pain, hold us through that journey? Do I? Is there someone in my life who has earned the right to hear my story? I'm not sure. I want to create a relationship like that.

Courage is telling our story from our heart. The way to get out from under shame is to tell our story.

So right now, by typing this blog post, I am turning the tables on my shame. When that monster (that looks like me, but is really shame) rears its head waving the finger in my face, I will take a breath and douse myself with empathy, understanding and love. I was vulnerable, I got burned. Yes. I may have responded by believing because I was afraid to face the truth or maybe I was inspired to give him a chance (multiple chances) to be honest. Whatever the reason, it is a part of my story and is some of the thread in the tapestry that makes me who I am today. I will look myself in the eye and say, "it's ok that you believed. I know it hurts. I love you."

Bam! Suckerpunch!...shame is KO!