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Understanding Shame: Learning to Love Yourself
For most of my life, shame has enveloped me. It’s constant, persistent, and has shaped how I view myself. I’ve experienced ups and downs like everyone else, but my shame has always followed closely behind.
I shame myself for not being “up to par.” I haven’t achieved nearly anything my younger self set out to do. I once imagined a successful career, a marriage, kids—all the things society tells us we should strive for. But that didn’t work out for me.
Instead, I’ve lived life by my own set of rules, moving at my own pace. I tried to keep up with others, but the pressure always felt overwhelming. Over time, this became another source of shame—feeling like I wasn’t trying hard enough or wasn’t doing life the “right” way.
That mindset slowly shaped how I saw myself. Deep down, I didn’t believe I was worthy. I constantly focused on what I thought were my defining flaws—laziness, disinterest, instability. The more I repeated these labels in my mind, the more real they felt. Eventually, those thoughts became ingrained, influencing how I approached life and relationships.
When you carry shame for so long, it rarely stays silent. For me, it often turns into anger, irritability, and frustration. When I’m unhappy with myself, it becomes difficult to feel happy at all. Moments of rejection or criticism hit especially hard because they seem to confirm the harsh narrative I already have about myself.
I’m also someone who feels things deeply. When I’m triggered, I can go from calm to overwhelmed in seconds. Controlling my anger has always been a challenge. In those moments, emotion takes over—I’ve yelled, cried, and caused scenes that I later regret. Looking back, many of those reactions weren’t really about the situation itself. They were about the shame I was already carrying long before the moment happened.
A recent experience made this especially clear. I was on vacation celebrating an engagement. The night had turned into a long party that stretched into the early morning. I was mentally and emotionally drained but still trying to keep up with everyone.
We were staying in two cabins, and at one point it was time to move from one to the other. When I realized my friend had already left without me, I immediately felt abandoned. My mind jumped to the worst conclusion: How could they forget about me?
That feeling quickly turned into anger. I called my friend and started yelling and cursing, pacing the porch while others watched. When they came back, I thought there wasn’t enough room in the car for me. That assumption made everything worse, and I snapped again. Eventually, I realized there actually was a seat—but by then, my emotions had already escalated beyond reason.
I got into the car furious, my blood still boiling, and stayed silent the entire ride. But as soon as we got back, the reality of my behavior hit me. I apologized to everyone right away. I remained upset with the friend who had left me behind, but they apologized first, and I followed by apologizing profusely for how I had reacted.
That night, shame and guilt weighed heavily on me. I couldn’t enjoy the rest of the evening. I kept replaying the moment in my head, cringing at how I reacted and wishing I had stopped long enough to think things through more clearly.
But as painful as moments like this are, they’ve also become opportunities for reflection. The more I think about it, the more I realize that my reaction wasn’t really about the car ride or being left behind. It was about old insecurities being triggered—those familiar thoughts that I’m not important, that I’m easily forgotten, that I somehow don’t belong. When those beliefs surface, they create an emotional storm that can be hard to control.
Recognizing this pattern has been uncomfortable, but it’s also been important. Awareness is the first step toward changing how I respond.
Changing the way you think about yourself takes a lot of patience. But little by little, I’m learning to give myself the leniency I never allowed before. I’m working on pausing when emotions start to rise. I’m trying to recognize when shame is creeping into my thoughts and reminding myself that one hard moment doesn’t define who I am.
Moments like the one on that vacation still sting when I think about them. But instead of letting them reinforce my shame, I’m starting to see them as reminders of where I want to grow. My goal isn’t to become someone who never feels anger or insecurity. Those emotions are part of my being. What I hope to become is someone who understands those feelings better—someone who can take a step back and treat themselves with kindness even in difficult moments.
And with every step forward, I’m slowly starting to believe something I struggled with for years: that maybe I’m not “behind” in life after all. I’m simply learning, growing, and finding my way in my own time.
What is one belief about yourself that you’ve carried for years—and how might your life change if you began questioning it instead of accepting it as truth?
“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”— Brené Brown
#MentalHealth #Depression #Anxiety #ADHD #AutismSpectrumDisorder #AutismSpectrum #Neurodiversity
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