Joan Mitchell, Row Row, 1982
Did you know that there's two types of shame? Appropriate shame is what you feel when you are scolded as a child before doing something dangerous in order to keep you safe and teach you a lesson; this shame is useful because it imparts a lesson. The key to this kind of shame is that there is supposed to be an immediate repair where the parent attunes to the child and reinforces that they are loved and safe and didn't do anything wrong. Core shame includes the first part of appropriate shame without the repair—more than that, it's the repetition of that first part even when it's not called for. There's no attunement, no repair, no gentleness, nothing but the shame instilling that the child is bad, that they are the problem. It becomes a brain's operating system, running the same program over and over in every situation: "This is your fault. You're not good enough. There's something wrong with you. The way you feel is wrong." There's no uninstall on this program but there are patches. There's awareness, there's repair, there's reexperiencing that can be done with a safe other. You can work to override what you were shipped out into the world with; you don't need to annihilate yourself just because someone fucked up your install.
I ordered yarn (you should know I initially typed that as 'yearn' and that says a lot) so I can make myself a balaclava because a) I don't have a job right now and b) I'm trying to spend more time not holding my phone this year. I messed up unraveling the skein of yarn and it quickly turned into a mess, a complete layered web of merino wool that I didn't even know how to begin approaching. Not long ago, I would have gotten frustrated and thrown it out, using different yarn or ordering more yarn, beating myself up for ruining it; I may have even abandoned the project entirely to be honest with you. I didn't do that though. I sat down and watched a movie and set about salvaging as much as I could, winding it into a ball of yarn so I could begin crocheting this week. I couldn't save it all but I saved more than I thought was possible. I surprised myself not by what I salvaged but by the fact that I was gentle with myself in the face of what felt like a failure. Something good is possible when I stop hoping for and expecting perfect.
Because of core shame, I never ever got angry as a kid. I had one temper tantrum that ended very badly for me and I quickly realized how dangerous it was to express how I felt. I got very good at swallowing my anger, my pain, my disappointment and it sat in my belly for decades, keeping me alone even when I was with people. It seeps out in different ways: sarcasm, passive aggression, snide comments, resentment, all the hits. It's almost like a sickness coming out of your pores, isolating you from anything that could make things better. I've only started letting myself actually get angry in the past few years. It started after my mom died, finally feeling safe enough to let out how I felt, to not push it down and try to keep the peace. It scares me sometimes. I'm not used to my anger. I'm used to other people's anger and it makes me freeze and leave my body; my own anger feels explosive and like someone else entirely. It's not though, it's just me, the parts that never saw the light of day while I was trying to please everyone around me. I'm still not used to it but each time I get angry, each time I stand up for myself, each time I let myself be angry and messy, the Venn diagram of who I was inside and who I am publicly shifts closer and closer to being a circle.
We have talked about tearing down the non load bearing wall that encloses our bedroom closet for years now and the night before I was about to start it, we realized it was a terrible idea. Within an hour we had figured out how to do what we wanted with our bedroom without tearing down a lath and plaster wall that was put up in 1923. Sometimes your plan sucks and you need to make a new one on a whim. No shame in that.