"The cure for pain is in the pain." ~ Rumi

Before leaving for college I remember thinking: "no one will know me there...I can start over...be someone else."

It wasn't the first time I'd had that kind of thought and it certainly wasn't the last time.

I had a version of that thought a few days ago. I wanted to run away. Not from home. Not from my husband.

From myself.

I am sitting here, having typed that, feeling the familiar sharp, prickly ache in my throat and behind my eyes.

Stuck. Trapped. Shaming the ever living shit out of myself. Believing I deserve it.

It's been a while since I felt it this intensely. It's the same old shame but with a new/old twist:

Not only am I bad, selfish, spoiled, and pathetic...

I am a burden.

I know exactly what's triggering it and what's keeping it alive:

I don't work hard enough.

I don't pull my own weight.

I'm lazy.

I'm entitled.

Irresponsible.

I make the same old mistakes over and over again and I should fucking know better by now.

OUCH!

It is incredibly painful, confusing, and annoying.

I hate it.

I don't want to feel this way.

But I do.

I want desperately to have someone reassure me that I am not those things. To remove them from me. Lobotomize me. So I can stop being me. At least that part of me.

And at the very same time it would be incredibly difficult for me to hear you say I shouldn't feel this way or that you're sorry I feel this way.

I won't believe you. I won't want to believe you.

Because shame makes the rational part of me go temporarily offline.

This is what it's like for me when I experience shame.

I get it from my mother. She feels the same way. Do I know that with 100% certainty? No. But it makes sense to me that we would be similar in this way.

We're like two shameful peas in a shameful pod.

Okay that made me laugh.

This is the part where I am supposed to tie this up in a neat little "healed" bow.

I am not there yet. I've been trying to "correct" myself rather than "connect" with myself.

I am writing this to make that connection. I am writing it to you because expressing myself is one of my three core values (even when shame makes me cringe and says "stop it...stop telling your pathetic little stories").

But I am on my way. The part of me that needs me most is the part that needs to be loved not "even though" and not "in spite of" but because.

Much, much love,

Karen