Author of You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma & Shame and Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters: A Guide for Separation, Liberation & Inspiration
"I still slip in shame"
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[Pre-S: THANK YOU to all who answered this survey. It's still available if you'd like to share Question from a reader: I grew up with a lot of stigma around medication. My mom misused and abused prescription (not her rx) drugs. I'm exploring medicines now, and it's hard for me to untangle her poor choices (using drugs for numbing) versus my actual diagnosed need to treat a mental illness. What comes up is, am I a druggie? Could I just try harder, exercise more, eat better and then I won't need it? She was also an "invincible" person. She claims to rarely get sick or injured. And if she did get injured it was generally a big, significant injury that got her attention. I've worked very hard to create a different relationship with illness as an adult (for example, everyone gets sick sometimes, and it doesn't make me weak, frail, attention-seeking, etc. It has nothing to do with my wholeness). But I still slip in shame. And especially now as I've started down the SSRI journey with my doctor. Mental health struggles are invisible. I can hear my mom rolling her eyes. I have to work hard not to apologize to my partner when I'm having a bad day. When I'm not feeling well, it's a whole lot harder to be who I know I am in my heart. Old ways sneak in. Dear Adult Daughter... Um...did my mother have another daughter in another dimension? How did you end up with my mother? Seriously though, as I write this I suspect my mother's health is failing and she doesn't want me to see her (because she, too, sees herself invincible and being sick is a personality flaw). As well, I've been on my own health journey, having lost a significant amount of weight (taking GLP-1/GIP medication) and then a double mastectomy (no reconstruction and no "foobs"). I look very different than the last time she saw me, I can imagine the look on her face if she saw me right now. I can hear the specific, somewhat accusatory line of questioning: "How did you get cancer?!?" "Why are you flat?!?" "You're taking the easy way out! You should just try harder, exercise more, eat better." And yes, the eye rolls. Because her body perceives me (and the things I say/do, the choices I make) as a threat, and her default survival response is fight. And in the face of her "fight" my body perceives the things she says/does as a threat, and my default survival response is freeze/flop/fawn. All of that to say, of course you're slipping in shame (love that turn of phrase). It makes sense that it's hard to be who you know you are in your heart. Old ways will always sneak in. You may never "get over it." Healing isn’t the moment a feeling goes away, it is when we stop leaving ourselves behind (by shaming ourselves) trying to escape it. It’s the slow, intelligent rewiring that becomes possible when we realize: Nothing is wrong with me for still feeling this and something is very right with me for staying with myself while I do. Every time you remind yourself of your human, you are BEING that person you know you are in your heart. Much, much love, Karen Practice with me in the Shame School Community |
Karen C.L. Anderson
Author of You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma & Shame and Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters: A Guide for Separation, Liberation & Inspiration
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About One's Own Sense of Self ~ In this piece, Captain Tom Bunn, who is both an airline pilot and a licensed clinical social worker who works with anxious flyers, describes what happens when... "...instead of mirroring her child, a mother uses the child to mirror her. Dr. Beatrice Beebe has studied children who failed to thrive. She found that their mothers were so mirror-hungry that they, instead of mirroring the child, pushed their child to mirror them." ~~~ Have you read The Calamity Club?...
Some people avoid apologizing because it feels like an attack on their own identity. As if saying “I was wrong” is the same as saying “I am bad.” (and they are probably unaware that they are doing this) Those are not the same thing, and confusing them is what keeps most apologies unspoken. What I find clinically interesting is what happens in the body and mind when shame is held in silence over time. It does not dissolve. It accumulates. It changes how we relate to the people around us and...