Breaking Shame: The Story Of My Life

A couple years ago, I was a part of a book study where we worked through a book called Storyline together. Storyline is a self-discovery book written by Donald Miller. In the book, you map out a timeline of your life, decide what the theme of the story of your life is, and create goals for your future. Looking back on myself two years ago, I was in a similar place in that I just didn’t know what to do. I knew I needed to get a job, and not much later I succeeded. Now, two years later, I’m still stuck. And I’ve been stuck for nearing on a year. I guess I’ve been stuck for longer, but it’s getting closer to a year that I haven’t been working and haven’t been in school. I’ve been going to counseling for half a year and trying to become a more independent and mentally and emotionally and physically healthy person. Immediately when I say that, feelings of shame emerge. So much shame.

The theme that I saw within my past and present at the time, two years ago, dealt with “rejection, fear, and battling life alone”. And then there was the flip side to that that I hoped to achieve that others in the group helped me with: “hope, strength, and community”. Looking back on the last couple of years, I do see a difference. But I don’t see more hope or more community, and sometimes, it doesn’t feel like I’m really that much stronger. I see more rejection than I ever have before, I still see fear, and I still feel as if I’m battling life alone.

I remember that right at the end of the study, an event occurred that seemed to kill me inside. Like that was just the last straw. That was just it. I didn’t realize that at the time, but I remember in retrospect when my heart sunk deep, deep down beneath the surface and locked itself into a treasure box as if never to emerge again. I felt it happen. I also remember at that time begging God not to let it happen. He did.

I wrote something this last June outside my blog that I just remembered and dug up. It’s funny that it feels like way longer ago than just a couple of months. It was this:

I think sometimes people look at the rough things that happen in your life as fuel that you should just burn to make you stronger and keep going. But you can’t burn dirt. Dirt puts out a fire. Sometimes you have to find the right shovel to remove it and reclaim the buried treasure underneath. And once it’s found, share it with the world.

I wrote that at a time when I felt like people were just expecting me to not be affected by all of the things that had happened to me. That I should just be invincible. Things haven’t changed much. But the truth is, since the sinking of my heart a couple of years ago, I had carried on with my life. Got a temporary job until that was finished, then got another. After over a year of working with a few months break between jobs, taking other people’s shifts, sometimes working overtime, and usually failing to show up on time, I quit. I couple of months later, the place I worked went out of business, so there was no going back there. I haven’t been working since. But all that to say, I burnt myself out. It got to the point where the Christian music playing in the background at the store was too much. People expecting me to be a smiling Christian was just too much. Stocking the bookshelves was too much. And helping customers with a smile was especially too much. I hid in a corner away from people so they wouldn’t see the tears I tried to suck back into my eyeballs.

Shame.

Shame to feel so much about something that everyone said I shouldn’t even care about. Shame that the thing that was the last straw shouldn’t have been according to other people. Shame that I was a silly, immature girl, deserving of all I got. Shame in feeling that I had just done this to myself. And anger and resentment. But that was just a response to shame.

Just before beginning to write this post now, I was completely bawling into my journal. When I finished I realized that I had soaked through about a quarter of my notebook in spots and the purple ink had pink rings all around it. Now it’s crinkly. I had just read a message from someone on Facebook I held really dear to my heart who decided to cut me off forever. This person had sent me a message almost a week ago. It wasn’t a mean message, but it wasn’t one that I wanted to hear, because it meant we would truly never, ever speak again.

When I first read it a week ago, I didn’t cry, my heart just pushed it away, deluded itself in certain areas, romanticized in others, and rid me of true feeling. And with all of that, I wrote a poem. A few days later, I made myself read the message again. That time emotions emerged against my will for a moment, but only for a moment, and a few tears came. Today, I made myself read it a third time, and not only that, copy it into my journal. As I rewrote it, I noticed the name in black on the computer that meant the person’s profile had been blocked from me. It wasn’t that way before. By the end of rewriting it, I was bawling. Not the kind of bawling where you feel like you want to kill yourself and scream at the top of your lungs. The kind that is true release. That is just so, so, so sad, but not tormented by questions. The beginning of acceptance. Where your mind still battles its delusions, but also really realizes the weight of the situation and just feels sad. I think the tear stains that ended up in my journal speak more than any words I wrote. And though it wasn’t intentional, I’m glad it happened. Those moments when I let myself go to the point where I don’t even think to cry away from my journal, the pages with tear stains, I think are some of the most revealing.

Two years ago, I didn’t really have any truly close friends. Since then, I have had multiple close friendships come and go. And today, at the conclusion of my cry, I felt I was back to square one. Maybe I am. Maybe it feels like I haven’t moved forward toward community. And maybe now more than ever, the more that people strand me, it feels like there is no hope of finding reliable relationship with others. It feels like there must be something wrong with me.

Shame.

Shame that I am unworthy. Shame that I am unwanted. Shame that I am not chosen. Shame that I push people away. Shame that they push me away.

And through all of this, those who gave up on my friendship with them, those who would be my friend and see me every few months but no more, and didn’t seem to really want to get too close, and those who didn’t want to be friends at all, there was mostly no explanation as to why I was rejected. There was an exception or two, but usually there was no explanation.

When I look for the root cause of things, I look for the common denominator. Well, that would be me. So how am I not the cause? Maybe I am, maybe I’m not, but I guess I’ll never know because of course I'm the common denominator. I'm me and I can only see life with my own mind. But what I realized is that though it would be nice to know if there is something about myself that I should change, maybe I don’t need others to show me that so much. Maybe that’s God’s job. And what I realized is that regardless of the reason that I may or may not have been a bad friend, I am human, but so are they. Those who rejected me aren’t flawless either. And I realized that I’m motivated to not be alone, but I’m more motivated to not feel shame. I hate shame as a feeling.

Shame.

It needs to be added to the recurring theme of my life. Motivated by shame.

During the time of the book study a couple of years ago, there was a woman at the church I still went to sometimes who came up to me randomly. I had never met her before. She told me that she had seen a vision in which I stared at a broken mirror, and that I kept staring at the broken mirror rather than turning to the banquet table God had laid before me. She told me that she thought I had good discernment when it came to others, but that when it came to myself I didn’t allow grace to be part of the picture. I was amazed by the vision then, but I never spoke to her again.

Now, what I thought I understood back then, I am realizing now again. I guess I didn’t understand it then as well as I thought, but I do now. At least I think I do...That broken mirror controls me. Perfectionism. That is the theme of my life. But I don’t want it to be anymore. Being perfect here in this world, that’s not the point. The point is to live. And I’m letting the shame or fear of accidentally doing something shameful keep me from grabbing at the banquet of life that God wants for me. I don’t live.

I still don’t have it all together. I still don’t know what I’m going to do. But right now, in this moment, I feel a weight lifted from me. I am forgiven. I am loved as I am. God is here. I don’t have to keep searching for Him, or be perfect for Him to be near. I just have to believe He is here. Because He is. And he loves me. Nothing can ever change that. No stupid mistakes that I might end up making, nothing will change that.

I am thankful for the friendship that I had with that guy who thought he destroyed me. The one who thought he was my breaking point (see this post: Like Mist Over Water). I’m thankful for him because what he didn’t realize was that he was the exact opposite of being my breaking point. I don’t believe that he really wanted to break me. And though he hurt me, I am not destroyed. He was the break, alright. He helped to break the storm clouds of shame that finally let in the sunlight. He may have put me through some hell, but he was unconsciously waking me up. Like a slap on the face. Like a sharp shovel that dug at least a good ways closer to regaining the buried treasure of my heart. Part of his last message was, “I’m learning to live my life on life’s terms.” I guess I am too. And through the pain and disappointment, I understand just a little more clearly now.

(P.S. I fixed the link. I had the wrong one at first. And I felt a lot of shame. But no! No more shame!)