They say ignorance is bliss ... maybe everyone else is blissfully ignorant and you're just aware of everything. Which would make you better at every aspect of life as you are extra aware.... take it as that - use your shame as a way to make sure you're doing what you want to do .Just make sure you're not ashamed of something thatis normal to do.
Thanks for your reply.
And no doubt. Awareness is absolutely my greatest strength. I know I have a natural aptitude for it, but I've still had to painstakingly build it over the years.
In the end, I've absolutely needed it to heal my own wounds.
That said, you can have too much of a good thing, and I feel the side effects of being too aware are debilitating.
I need my level of self-awareness to navigate my relational trauma (I've never met anyone with gnarlier complex trauma from parental emotional/psychological abuse).
Yet, there's no tangible resolution to my complex trauma either, and said trauma wounded me so deep to my core, I don't feel there's anything that can realistically make a big enough difference
I was in therapy for almost a decade, and focused extremely intently on healing outside of therapy almost that entire time.
I learned how to cope better in many ways (yet cope less well in others), and "present" as normal and self-regulated.
I'm the end, I feel therapy made me feel more sane (while more depressed), and I never truly got any deeper healing.
I partly blame the cult of therapy for making me believe I could find sufficient peace and fulfillment in it.
Though it's everyone's fault to some degree (I mostly blame the system/society and family members and onlookers who knew something was off).
Ultimately though, it's entirely on my parents.
It took me until just recently to
truly see they were
knowingly abusive, and were never intent on changing their ways, despite all their pleas to the contrary.
(By truly, I guess I mean I've been able to see it objectively and begin integrating it. I knew this intuitively, but wasn't able to tolerate that reality).
At any rate, it took years of reality testing the situation to even come to that, and see how absolutely remorseless they are
FWIW, they did this very same thing to my sibling as well
In the end, I simply feel utterly hopeless both relationally (and in general)
The real problem is that my shame and trauma present a seemingly-insurmountable obstacle in terms of sustainability starting (let alone doing) what I love, so I feel doubly-trapped
So, I appreciate your input, though I don't know how well that practically works for me at this point
Hopefully this reply wasn't too long
It's good that you are getting it out. My therapist showed me a video of some doctor who did a course on shame (not publicly available) and one of the things mentioned is that if you keep speaking about your shame it gives it less power over you. Self compassion is the next step.
https://selfcompassion.web.unc.edu/what-is-self-compassion/the-three-components-of-self-compassion/
Thanks for your reply
I feel I have pretty abundant self-compassion at this point, but the pain is too much to bear.
I have to slow things down to a standstill nowadays, which ironically, is painful in and of itself.
I'm trying to write out (and share) my feelings more, in hopes that something good comes out of it
