Happy Sunday friends, I hope you’re having a restful weekend. Today finds me feeling deep gratitude for my healing journey. Lately I’ve been pondering shame and blame and how it can stay with us for a long time. Shame feels like a clinger, no matter how hard you try to shake it off it just won’t let go. I’ve been working to heal my shame for what feels like forever. During this time I’ve had to figure out how to separate what shame/blame belongs to me and what shame/blame belongs to others. It might seem like the answers would be obvious but when you’ve been raised in a toxic spirituality that teaches you that you are always to blame it can become hard to see reality. Even when you’ve solved the question of shame it keeps coming back around and you have to keep rejecting what isn’t your to carry.
Putting the shame and blame where they belong doesn’t mean you’re magically healed. I was deeply sad for a long time. I would ask myself, why would a man want to hurt me that way? Why would the church blame me when I was just a child? Why do they still seem to think I deserve to carry the shame of what others did to me before I could consent? If I let these questions get the best of me, I would be carried off to a very dark place. I would be overflowing with self-loathing and depression.
For about a year, I have been working with a very good therapist who really understands trauma. Because of this I have noticed a shift beginning to come over me. I’m not sad about the trauma anymore, I’m angry. This may not seem like much improvement but it is a big deal to me. I finally feel like I’m moving through my trauma again. I was making progress before and then some things happened in my life that caused me to freeze and kind of shut down. Freezing seems to be my preferred trauma response at the moment and once I’m there it is hard as hell to thaw out. So I’m angry, what does that mean? Well…I think it means that my self-loathing has lifted and I’m not feeling so sad. When I think about what happened to me I’m no longer interrogating myself but I’m allowing myself to feel anger towards those who did me wrong. I have no idea how long this season of anger will last, and I’m trying to just let myself feel it. I will release it someday, I’m sure, just not today.
If you’d like to engage with some journal prompts about shame and blame you can find them over at my Substack. https://substack.com/home/post/p-175560760
Debbie McNulty 