Shame is to Blame

October 14, 2013

I’ve been having difficulty sleeping lately.  There are times when I have trouble falling asleep but once I do, I usually sleep well.  I don’t usually even dream much.  But the last five or six nights have not been great.  The first night I attributed it to too much caffeine at night.  That has happened a few times before and my sleep was fitful and it often felt like I had not even been to sleep even though I had.  So, I cut out the nighttime caffeine.  But it didn’t help.  Last night, it took over an hour to just fall asleep and then it was again another fitful, dream-filled night.

This morning, as I sat reading a book because my appointment no-showed, I was reading a chapter about anxiety and I realized that all of my dreams this past week are anxiety-ridden.  That’s unusual for me too but it certainly matches with the feeling that I can’t turn my brain off at night.  As I sit and analyze myself trying to figure out what is going on, I also realize that a lot of my thoughts over the last few days are centered on the sexual abuse and all the emotions I had while Kelsey was sick.  More specifically, I am remembering all of my breakdown moments.

It seems so morbid sometimes the things I get focused on.  Sometimes, I am able to come to conclusion on why I am focused on it which, of course, then resolves it.  So, I am wondering why it is happening this time.  I think it is fair to say that it started with participating in a Celebrate Recovery Step Study group.  In working through the inventory, I was drawn to think about how the abuse truly affected me and when I think about the pain I went through and held in, sadness envelopes me.  Perhaps then it is a natural extension to go from remembering that pain to remembering the pain of my precious daughter’s illness.

So many people told me how strong I am to go through what we have been through.  I often heard comments like, “I don’t know how you came through it so well” and “I just don’t know how you do it.”  To this day, my first thought in response is always, “You don’t know my breakdown moments.  You didn’t see me then.”  There was so much you didn’t see.  You didn’t see me cry all night in my sister’s arms.  You didn’t see me on the phone to my other sister crying and yelling obscenities mostly aimed at God.  You didn’t see me all those nights in bed crying myself to sleep with Tim hanging on to me.  You didn’t see me the night I left Kelsey in the hospital, crying so hard that my sister talked me home on the phone.  You didn’t see me in the backyard at midnight beating a dead tree with a bat.

I don’t like talking about those times.  So much so that my stomach is in knots just writing about it…and knowing that you are reading it.  It feels like a weakness, a deficiency.  It feels bad.  The problem is that what I know contradicts what I feel.  I know those breakdown moments were my relief valves.  Venting allowed me to pick my head up off the pillow the next day and carry on.  I also know that venting to God, even the ugly words I yelled, at least kept me in a relationship with Him.  I didn’t shut Him out.

When I first started writing this, I was seeing the lesson as “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9-10) as well as the purpose and benefit of sharing pain, but I now see that that is not the right lesson at all.  What I see now is the shame that I was running from…the shame of having breakdown moments.  I even told my class just this morning that “Shame only lives in darkness and secrets.”  Brene Brown, my new favorite current author, says when you feel shame, you have to run to your best, safest person and tell them all about it.  Otherwise, the shame will take root.

Now that I have shared my breakdown moments, the shame is weakened.  I didn’t even have to publish it for it to do its good work.  In the two days since I first wrote this, I am sleeping better.  Confession is so good for the soul and so deadly to shame!