Shame. There is no end to mine.
It is suffocating me.
There is no attempt at happiness, no hope for healing that does not get smothered by it. There is only shame and its louder, more obvious cousin - guilt.
I haven't come here for a long time. I am too ashamed. I know I don't belong here. My shame is showing me, clear and precise, that I am a pretender. I came here only to convince myself that my laziness and stupidity is the product of abuse, when in fact the only abuse I ever endured is imagined. The people who tell me otherwise are wrong, for I am a skilled liar. My shame shows me this and I believe. How could I resist? To not believe my shame is to not believe in air. I take both in with every breath. Its everywhere.
Whenever I am proud of me, shame shows me the truth: There is nothing to be proud of. To overcome sickness is an achievement, but if there is no sickness then nothing has been overcome. And so my small achievements, the little steps I can take, just feed my shame some more. I have learned to prefer doing nothing. After, when I realize I haven't done anything productive for quite some time, the shame burns so hot it hurts. There is no escaping it.
There are people who could be friends, but what is the point? There is no friendship that I did not panic over, and in my frenzied attempts to repair what is not broken I have pushed them all away. Some on this forum even. My constant need of affirmation that I have not yet pushed a friend away, that I do not need to be ashamed, pushes friends away. I ask for absolution of my shame so often that it shames me. And others.
So I avoid friends. I am ashamed of that. But I am more ashamed of annoying people. So I chose the lesser pain, and my world grows smaller and my shame fatter.
If I am not ashamed of faking sickness then I am ashamed of being sick. But if I am ashamed of faking, at least I do not have to deal with being sick. I am freed of the burden of healing, because who is not sick does not need to work on getting better. So, to my shame, I don't.
But when I do I have to face my biggest shame: I have been abused. So much so, that something broke. I'd rather be lazy and stupid then broken. Even now, just writing it, my shame laughs at me with a roaring laugh so loud it makes me want to cry.
My shame has convinced me that the only decent thing about me is my shame. It is difficult to ignore false knowledge.
I have allowed it to fester in the shadows. I did not know any better. Its my only hope that dragging it out into the light will make it wither, like the vampire it is. I hope I dont forget what I understand now: I have been taught for nearly two decades of my life, that to live is to be ashamed. The next ten years I did not realize how ashamed I was, just as a fish does not notice the water it swims in.
I do not know the best way of unlearning something deeply ingrained, but I guess repetition plays the biggest role. I want to learn to express my shame, to talk and write about it, repeatedly, until I don't have to anymore.
Shame is making it very hard to press "Create Thread" and it will make it much harder tomorrow to come back and look at this. But I will.
It is suffocating me.
There is no attempt at happiness, no hope for healing that does not get smothered by it. There is only shame and its louder, more obvious cousin - guilt.
I haven't come here for a long time. I am too ashamed. I know I don't belong here. My shame is showing me, clear and precise, that I am a pretender. I came here only to convince myself that my laziness and stupidity is the product of abuse, when in fact the only abuse I ever endured is imagined. The people who tell me otherwise are wrong, for I am a skilled liar. My shame shows me this and I believe. How could I resist? To not believe my shame is to not believe in air. I take both in with every breath. Its everywhere.
Whenever I am proud of me, shame shows me the truth: There is nothing to be proud of. To overcome sickness is an achievement, but if there is no sickness then nothing has been overcome. And so my small achievements, the little steps I can take, just feed my shame some more. I have learned to prefer doing nothing. After, when I realize I haven't done anything productive for quite some time, the shame burns so hot it hurts. There is no escaping it.
There are people who could be friends, but what is the point? There is no friendship that I did not panic over, and in my frenzied attempts to repair what is not broken I have pushed them all away. Some on this forum even. My constant need of affirmation that I have not yet pushed a friend away, that I do not need to be ashamed, pushes friends away. I ask for absolution of my shame so often that it shames me. And others.
So I avoid friends. I am ashamed of that. But I am more ashamed of annoying people. So I chose the lesser pain, and my world grows smaller and my shame fatter.
If I am not ashamed of faking sickness then I am ashamed of being sick. But if I am ashamed of faking, at least I do not have to deal with being sick. I am freed of the burden of healing, because who is not sick does not need to work on getting better. So, to my shame, I don't.
But when I do I have to face my biggest shame: I have been abused. So much so, that something broke. I'd rather be lazy and stupid then broken. Even now, just writing it, my shame laughs at me with a roaring laugh so loud it makes me want to cry.
My shame has convinced me that the only decent thing about me is my shame. It is difficult to ignore false knowledge.
I have allowed it to fester in the shadows. I did not know any better. Its my only hope that dragging it out into the light will make it wither, like the vampire it is. I hope I dont forget what I understand now: I have been taught for nearly two decades of my life, that to live is to be ashamed. The next ten years I did not realize how ashamed I was, just as a fish does not notice the water it swims in.
I do not know the best way of unlearning something deeply ingrained, but I guess repetition plays the biggest role. I want to learn to express my shame, to talk and write about it, repeatedly, until I don't have to anymore.
Shame is making it very hard to press "Create Thread" and it will make it much harder tomorrow to come back and look at this. But I will.
