Scared and showing up anyway
Facing shame and a summer of silence and relapse
Dear beloved humans,
I have tried to write this essay since mid-August. Of course, each time I got close to dropping it into the queue on Substack, my shame tiger took hold. It ate me whole and silenced me further.
Shame is such a beast. I have been fighting with it for months. Actually, I’ve been fighting with it for years – maybe since the day I was born – but this past summer, it swallowed me whole. It swallowed me whole and each time I tried to fight my way out like James Barley in the belly of the whale, I remembered how I had failed my promise to my friends and to you and I disappeared further in even deeper shame.
Eight and a half years ago, upon starting my behavioral therapy journey with Dr. C, I made myself a promise to fight the shame, to take it on, once for all. It was a fall morning, just like this one. I sat at the exact table I am sitting at now, my pink journal open to the seventh page. I wrote in a flurry of anxiety, in a rage of sorts – a rage against this world, against pain, against stigma, and most of all, my own self hatred.
I am so deeply – truly – utterly – exhausted of being human and that not being enough.
There is no wrong way to be human.
There is no wrong way to be human.
Yes, that’s exactly it.
As long as one is kind and well intended, there is absolutely no wrong way to be human.
So today,
Today, I show up, human, exactly as I am.
Today, I show up, human, living the truth that I am always enough in all my colors and seasons of self.
Too long have I hidden in darkness
Too long have I begun each day burdened with the weight of self hatred and disgust
Too long have I been eaten alive by the shame tiger that if fought, might merely be a kitten.
Yes,
Too long have shrunk,
Too long have pleased
Too long have I been a chameleon – an anyone but me.
So yes,
Today,
Today from now until forever,
I show up, exactly as I am, human, living the truth that I am always enough.
For if I live it, I will learn it.
For if I learn it, I will be it.
And if I am it, no matter what others say, I will forever be free.
I read those words often in those first few years of behavioral therapy. Re-reading those words replaced what was once the writing of a daily suicide note that I penned while drinking coffee. Those words held the practice of my very existence, and that practice has been the north star of my recovery.
Learning to show up exactly as I was didn’t happen overnight and it was hard as hell, but slowly, slowly, slowly, I came out of my shell. Slowly, I told my story. Slowly, I shared my pain. Slowly, I showed myself to the world and proved to myself that my whole being belonged and was worthy in the free air.
This practice of bravely exposing my whole self to the world anchored my unprecedented recovery. This practice of facing my fear – knees quaking, body shaking, sweat dripping down my spine – as an opportunity for growth transformed my entire existence and, even though there were bumps in the road and small relapses along the way, the practice never failed me.
This summer, however, I failed it. I stopped showing up. I stopped showing up here and in many places in my life. As Waffle’s health grew more and more complicated and forced an unexpected and early retirement, I disappeared into survival mode and worse than that, I disappeared into shame. I don’t know exactly when it happened – whether it was that day Waffle lost her ability to walk, the night my PTSD terrors returned with the force of a tsunami, or the fight I had with a receptionist who refused to give me an appointment with a fertility doctor because I had a history of psychosis – but it happened, the one thing I promised myself I never would do, I did. When people asked me how I was, I lied.
It felt awful at first - disgusting - like an actual betrayal. But then, as the dominoes of darkness always do, they fell. One lie became another and another and after a while, I started believing the lies I was saying. I started to believe that the self that I was hiding - the self that was struggling and in pain – was not as worthy of being seen as the version of me who pretended to have it ‘all together.’ I started to believe that there was a real reason I was lying – that maybe I had been wrong all along and that the only acceptable way for me to be me in this world was to have it ‘all together.’
It got ugly. It got ugly really fast. First came the weeping and then came the binging. And, then, in a matter of weeks, came the hating myself for it – the really, deeply, truly hating myself for it.
I could write a lot, as I have in the past drafts of this newsletter, about how dark all of that was and how deeply sorry I am for letting my shame take over. I could write about the darkness of stigmatizing myself, the heartbreak of how quickly relapse took hold and the fury that all of this mess is mine and mine alone to grow from. Yes, I could write about days on the couch and weeks in bed and about how I did my job, the exact bare minimum of my job before disappearing into a binge eating haze of self hatred each evening.
But instead of going there, instead of rationalizing it or making excuses for my disappearance, I am going to do the bravest thing a human can ever do.
I am going to admit that I am part of the problem.
I am part of the problem.
And that is okay – that means I hold the power to change it.
I am also depressed and struggling with binge eating.
I have not showered in four days or brushed my teeth in 6.
I have cried 12 times in the last 24 hours.
I am – in every fiber of my being – struggling with mental illness.
And I hate it. I absolutely hate it.
And that is okay.
It is okay that I am struggling.
It is okay that I hate it.
It is okay that I don’t have the answers for you.
And it is okay that I can’t make this a glass half full poetry prose post and that for the last few months, I disappeared in shame.
Yes, it is okay.
Because, just like you, I am still here.
Just like you, I rise each day
And together, together, one small step at a time, we will begin again.
For if we live it, we will learn it.
For if we learn it, we will be it.
For if we are it, no matter what others say, we will forever be free.
With love and solidarity,
Kate