Fear and Shame in Matthews, North Carolina

So, I've talked about how I have fear and shame, and it's likely important to talk about what I mean. Everyone is afraid sometimes... everyone is ashamed sometimes... what make me different?




Well, nothing really, except that I have seen how paralyzing mine is. Fear mostly...some shame.




So, this is how I got here:




I am not depressed, and I don't have any other mood disorders. That is not what this is.


I have a very good life- a happy marriage, a great job that I love, a great kid, great friends. I am college educated, smart, focused, determined...I'm know for my determination. All of this was achieved despite some misspent youth ( drugs, mostly coke and bad relationships), but I recovered from that in my early 20's, and went on to be a pretty normal, healthy person.

I had some things happened... again, details don't matter, but here is what does... I've been taught that things need to be perfect...nothing can be out of place, nothing can be even a slight disruption to anyone else. If my purpose is not to improve, I am in the way and I am a to blame if anything is wrong. I'm conditioned, as it would be, to feel that I am the burden in someone's life that they have to survive, and that I'm wholly and entirely undeserving of love.

Fast forward- I grow up into what I THOUGHT is a normal, well adjusted adult. I'm known for being controlled- responsible- and over-achiever. Most people work 40 hours...I work 60. My husband jokes that I can't possibly volunteer for everything, and I "credit" my quick need to drop everything to apologize and attend to his every need to 16 years of catholic schooling and the associated catholic guilt. I pride myself on having packed away the issues my problems with my misspent youth, but about 7 months ago, something changed.

A particular incident culminated in an 8 hour long panic attack on the side of a highway(the first serious panic attack I've ever had in my life). I was left a complete mess. I thought I was going to die. I had been triggered, and saw feelings that I had never been able to identify before rise to the surface.

Since then, with increasing regularity, I am recognizing that "the me" I have become- controlled- reliable- over-achiever...these qualities that I have actually been PROUD of- they are entirely fear based. That my only motivator in life is that I am afraid ( terrified, at times) that I will let someone down. At it's worst moments, I am afraid that people will think I am careless, thoughtless, or stupid. Without these incidents last summer, I don't know if I would have ever connected these ideas, but now I have, and I've realized how broken I really am. Over time, these ideas have become more cemented, and last week, something happened that completely threw my world upside down. A fairly innocuous incident undid me....I was right back there- afraid, terrified really, that my husband would see me for what " I really am"- careless, thoughtless, stupid. I'm realizing that I spend my life like this- and while there are moments of it being worse, I can't really think of any moments when I am not motivated by this fear. I have no self-motivation....there is no sense of self-achievement except that people don't hate me ( yet, the voice in my head says), and good is never ever good enough.


So much of who I am is tied into these things, I don't know where to begin. I don't know how to motivate myself without being afraid...I'm scared of what kind of person I will be if I'm not afraid of letting someone down. I don't even know the "healthy" lines of guilt and responsibility anymore. Because, apparently ( according to my husband and friends) "normal" people don't feel guilty when their husband can't find his pajama pants, and they don't feel bad that they worked late the other night and so they weren't home to put the laundry in the drawers. Apparently, "normal" people don't feel so guilty that they go to CVS at midnight to buy cake mix and make cupcakes for a class event the next day because the teacher sent a last minute email that there weren't going to be enough treats for the class party the next day, even though you've already made the 12 you signed up for. Apparently "normal" people don't feel responsible when it starts raining because your husband wanted to go and play disc golf, and if you hadn't been so careless and thoughtless, you would have woken him up an hour earlier on the weekend so he could go before it started raining. Apparently "normal" people don't feel guilty when someone they know does something wrong simply because they know them, instead of twisting because if you were a better, smarter person you would have found some way of preventing that person from doing the bad thing.


The best way I can put it ( and I put this on my FB wall the day that I realized exactly what this all was): When you walked on eggshells for so long, you think you are responsible for every egg. I think I am responsible for every single egg....even eggs that haven't happened yet....even eggs that exist far outside my reach.... they are all my responsibility, and every cracked egg is all my fault.


Every moment of my life is like that. I don't have these expectations for anyone else, but I turn myself inside out, and I destroy myself over even the idea of failure.... and even exceeding goals isn't enough. I can't continue like this... I'm killing myself slowly by doing this, and it's truly not fair to the people in my life....




..... but I'm scared to NOT be like this.




Like THIS, I found love, success... I found a good life being this way!!! The truth is that I don't know who I am if I'm not this person...I don't even know if I can be a "good" person if I wasn't so afraid of people thinking I'm a "bad" person. Hell, I'm afraid of even talking about this, or posting it on here, and I'm currently thinking about how stupid my problems are and how inconsiderate it is of me to waste your time with my stupid First World Problem. I'm such a mess.

The real thing that messes with my head is that I spent that last 14+ years of my life thinking that the misspent youth of drugs/bad relationships was the "bad result" and that this "regaining control" was the "recovery"...but ( OMG- SHOCKER!) THIS is the "bad result"...I don't know how it took me so long to see it. OR, I'm also really messed up because I've spent years being proud of the fact that I wasn't a "victim"- that I survived despite it all and was able to walk away unscathed, and now there is this ghost ( a ghost I didn't even know was there!) and I HATE the idea that all this time, all these feelings...I've been victimized this whole time... being victimized isn't what I "DO".




So, after sharing all of this in hopes of finding a decent therapist, a fellow mommy pointed me in a direction for which I am wholly and completely grateful for. I think I have found my solution, and all I had to do was watch a TED talk.




Those details will come in the next post.