I think the realization that there was a tremendous lot of “stuff” lurking under the surface began the day I bumped the front corner of my car into the backside of another mom’s mini-van in the playground parking lot. I was knee-deep in parenting three little ones under the age of who knows what, absolutely exhausted, and totally terrified by the volcanic explosion of emotions that, looking back, I now see had been buried for a really long time. The anger was the most confusing and heartbreaking, and I felt more like a monster than a mother. I didn’t expect, though, to get out of my car and start sobbing and suffocating in front of a complete stranger who couldn’t understand why I was so incredibly shaken by leaving a small scrape on her already scraped up minivan. She joked about it with grace. But for me, there was a whole lot more going on.
It was only a scrape, I told myself. No big deal. But of course, what was going on inside of me went much deeper, and it festered. Sometimes, I seemed to be able to manage it, even to ignore it. Sometimes, I convinced myself that everything was fine. But then, suddenly, in moments that smacked painfully, the wound was ripped open again, and again.
With gaping wound last year, grasping at straws in every area of my life, I stepped onto the path of healing in full belief that all I needed help with was managing stress. A few changes to my schedule, some social outlets, a hobby, a few chiropractic adjustments, and maybe a few counseling sessions—that’s all I needed.
And while I suppose that stress was the first layer, I peeled that back and found a whole lot more . . . Year and years’ worth of undealt with stuff. I wasn’t at all shocked by the exhaustion I found, by the weight of the world, by the impossible burden of perfectionism I’d been carrying. I wasn’t really surprised by the resentment or by the frustration or even the anger. And although I was shaken by the anxiety and depression that continued to scream in my ear, I’d known them as (unnamed) foes for my entire life. I worked through some things, I saw a bit of growth. Maybe that was all I needed.
I have seen progress, but I KNOW there is more. So I’ve kept digging.
Goodness, I thought the healing process would be gentle. I thought it would feel so inviting, so rewarding. But really? I’m at this point where my arms are aching tired and I’m dripping in sweat. I’m dirty, my hair is a mess, and I’ve got bug bites that are driving me crazy (southern mosquitoes, y’all—they are the WORST). My excitement about the process has most definitely waned but I’ve dug up so much by this point that there is really no turning back. I’d do anything to just be inside reading a book and sipping iced coffee right now. But I’m out here in the unrelenting summer sun digging around anxiety and depression until the process makes me want to run away from the literal world.
While digging a few weeks ago, my shovel hit something hard, something that took the breath right out of me. I hit SHAME.
Just typing that word makes the tears sting my eyes.
I had thought shame was for people who had done something wrong or had something wrong done to them. I thought shame was for miserably poor people or for prostitutes. I thought shame was for drug addicts. I thought shame was for people who had been abused. I thought shame was for people who stole, for people who drank, for people who looked at inappropriate photos online.
But there I was, a church girl who grew up in a safe and loving environment, the girl who basically lived under a rock half of her life and still doesn’t know the popular music and is so hyper-sensitive that she can’t watch movies rated PG-13 without hiding behind a pillow. Yeah, that girl—drowning in shame that I had taken on for myself and shame that other people had poured on to me. And I realized that, quite the opposite, shame is an experience that anyone can have because shame says, “You are bad.” Shame says that there is something wrong with you, that you are an outcast, that you are worthless, that you are beyond repair, beyond hope, beyond love—because of some way that you are, some thing you have done, or some thing you have had done to you.
Shame is the Enemy’s tactic, and he can and will whisper it into the ear of anyone.
As I’ve peeled back the layers, I see shame woven through the threads of my life, shame that began when I was a young girl trying to make sense of my quiet personality, my tendency toward tears, my many irrational fears, and the dark crevices of my chaotic, overwhelming, and unpredictable mind; shame that has increased with every wave of depression, with every suicidal thought, with the people I reached out to in desperation who told me that I was in sin or that I wasn’t actually a Christian at all, with every attempt to get up earlier, pray harder, do more only to still be staring mental illness in the face. The shame has increased layer over layer and become mangled into a mess of anger and exhaustion all of which landed me on the precipice of hopelessness last year.
The pieces are starting to fit together, a little bit.
Studies of the brain show that it reacts to shame as if it is confronting physical danger. Shame evokes a physical response, a desire to run, a need to hide. Shame produces an exhausting race of self-preservation, a race against the potential of being exposed or the potential of hurting others. As Welch writes, “Shame has a natural affinity with self-protection and unbelief. It hides from others, feels undeserving of anything good, and believes it will contaminate whatever comes close.”1
As I look back, I see how I have furthered the distance between myself and the possibility of healing or freedom because of shame. I have built walls between myself and others but mostly between myself and God. In shame, I found myself asking, “Is there a place in the Kingdom of God for me?” If I’m only going to contaminate others and/or disappoint God, maybe walls a million miles high are the way to go. But although isolation may feel safe, it is actually the nightmare of shame – the realization that I am so broken, contaminated, and worthless that I am all alone.
Although so much is beginning to make sense, and I think maybe there are things that have been so dead inside of me that are starting to come alive, I know the process is ongoing. I’m currently, daily, taking a sledgehammer to those walls—and allowing Jesus to dismantle all of Shame’s lies. And I just want to say, at the moment, these three things:
- Friends, if you are in a process of healing, of dealing with pain—keep going. I know it isn’t easy, I know it probably doesn’t look like what you thought it would or how you want it to, but it IS producing good things, maybe things that you don’t even know and likely things you can’t even imagine. Keep digging. Keep asking questions. Keep hanging on because GOD IS WORKING, and He isn’t finished with you yet.
- If you are asking God for more, keep asking. Believe and speak this: “Jesus is far better than I think He is or could ever imagine.” I’m doing the same. I know it’s not easy, it doesn’t come naturally, and everything within us wants to protect ourselves by believing that really, God can’t be that good, and at the very least, He can’t be that good to me. But keep asking for the more because if nothing else, what I have seen this year, is that HE KEEPS SHOWING UP AND BLOWING MY MIND OVER AND OVER AGAIN, and I’m no longer chalking that up to random coincidence or good luck. He HEARS you and He SEES you.
- If the experience of shame resonates with you, name it for yourself and speak it to someone you can trust. My pastor said to me recently, “The enemy’s power is dispelled when we don’t allow shame to isolate us.” Seek help, wisdom, counsel, and encouragement from people who will cover you and support you, and, most importantly, help you take that shame to the feet of Jesus, the One who can and will bring you the healing and hope you need.
Footnotes
- Welch, Edward T. Shame Interrupted: How God Lifts the Pain of Worthlessness & Rejection. New Growth Press, 2012. p.137 ↩︎
Cati Grape 