Photo by Andras Vas on Unsplash
I imagine you too have sat there…. you are in a public place and the other people in the room have no idea of the shame you feel with having someone inside. You are polite and listen while beside you they talk about ‘naughty boys’ etc. You know they don’t know what’s going on, and so you try to hold it together and get past the build up of emotions. And sometimes the other part of you that just wants to cry out for them to stop threatens to take over.
I ended up walking out of that room today after the comments made. Some days I can take it in my stride, but today I could feel the emotions starting to overwhelm me. Today I just wanted to let the burning tears that were building up from the tension this past week flow. But it wouldn’t be in front of those people. They wouldn’t understand.
I could just drive home and hide under the blankets as I had done in past situations. Instead I chose to find a space to pull myself together, shed the tears, then put my emotions back into a safe place so I could continue what I came to this place for. I couldn’t have done that a year ago.
Shame is something we all sit with when we have someone inside. I wonder whether I will ever truly feel like I used to before everything seemed to go wrong. I am trying to acknowledge where the shame messages comes from when they rear their ugly head in my brain.
I know I don’t need to take responsibility for what what done by the person inside, but I can acknowledge that this whole experience has impacted on me. I will never be the same person I was before all this happened. I can finally accept that now, and it isn’t always a bad thing.
The shame will remain, just like the memory of a person lives on with you once they have died. Time heals and now I am trying to choose not to let shame determine my responses and my future.
It’s hard, but today I stayed and faced it.
Where are you at with your shame?