Discussion Shame

[liquid jen]

I've gone my entire life without letting others know truly what's going on with me. I've actively avoided help or reaching out. I've always known it was because I felt like I would be burdening my friends with shit that doesn't concern them, but why I kept my struggles from my parents/family/people truly close to me kind of eluded me for a while. Recently I read Slaughterhouse-Five and there was a section in there that made me realize.

Basically the main character is in a psych ward he checked himself into. His mother consistently comes in to check on him, but he always pretends to be asleep when she's there. This is explained to us by saying that, "She upset Billy simply by being his mother. She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she had gone to so much trouble to give him a life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn't really like life at all."

This shame described here has been one of the only things keeping me from CTB for years. Reading this scene really helped me realize where this shame I felt came from, and perfectly described the feelings I couldn't quite grasp. I wondered if anybody else here related with this, or has any other insights?

 

[getoutgirl]

Hey. do I relate? yyyyyyyes I do. a ton. an excesive ammount.

You call it shame, I usually called it guilt, but they are twins. and they are my fuel. I run on them and they rule all I do.
I also avoided reaching out to people for the longest time because I didn't want to burden them. Whenever I did something negative I felt an overwhelming emotion of guilt and had to punish myself. Shame follows.
With family too in my case, the love and effort they put just for me to just lie and waste it all without motivation, failing repeatedly, crashing like it all means nothing to me. But they do mean a lot to me. They mean everything.

I've also stayed alive for the past 5 years or so exclusively out of my guilt. All other reasons sink some days, the guilt never leaves.
I can't bear the pain I'd cause them by my death. I've wished they could hate me (they wouldn't lack motives) I've wished they could've forgotten me (with friends that's easier, you can disappear, with family, no so much) and I've made looney tunes suicide plans to circunvent that guilt and their pain, with little real success besides the desperate fantasy, so desperate it gets.

In a way I'm still thankful for the guilt. It's a damn good anchor, sometimes we wish it wasn't there at all. I have a love hate relationship with it really, I've not managed to overpower it, I don't know if I will. But it's there and, even if it keeps you going, it definetly doesn't feel good at all. It's still an awful sensation. So I'm so sorry you deal with it too :(
I know it's hard to reach out, I've barely done so myself, but I would encourage you to at least get professional help to better deal with this, so it's less of a limbo torture trapped here. And it can get easier to manage that way, It helped me. If you don't want to involve others with that, family or whoever, that's okay, but keeping this all inside isn't nice either. If you can, get a professional, you won't be burdening them. In fact, it kinda involves paying them so they are rather glad :P

In any case, this is all to say I feel you.
but you know,
So it goes
hugs <3

 

[mysticatedwine]

that's a really good quote