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Re: I'm seeing her tomorrow afternoon. » ClearSkies

Posted by Racer on July 22, 2006, at 12:20:55

In reply to Re: I'm seeing her tomorrow afternoon., posted by ClearSkies on July 22, 2006, at 5:27:01

I don't know if it helps, but I disclosed something to several people last weekend that has had me drowning in shame since high school. It's one of my Racer Is A Hopeless Shameful Loser things. Until last weekend, I'd disclosed what happened to my T, and to GG. I don't think I've even told my mother -- although that's coming.

Last weekend, I felt so horrible I told several other people, including my husband. My poor husband -- we had dinner with my aunt last Saturday, and she told him about something else that happened that shocked him, so he had a bucketful of my past. It upsets him, which is still hard for me to take. Anyway, I told these people in order to punish myself for being so shameful, I guess, but it had an unexpected (to me, at least) effect.

One person told me about a similar sort of difficulty she had at about the same time. She told me that what happened was something someone else did, and a reflection on the situation, rather than me. That helped.

The other told me something that totally realigned my view of it -- that the person who actually did this thing was joining in with the others who started the ball rolling. That was something I'd never thought of before, I just assumed that I was at fault, and that I had made his life difficult and should be ashamed of that. No. It's not my job to protect someone who is devastating me.

And while my husband didn't do or say anything earthshattering, he did look at me with a great deal of compassion, and he still loves me.

And you wanna know how I feel now? It's certainly not something I'd want the whole world to know about, and it's certainly not something I look back on with pleasure -- it was devastating, and it has had a lasting and negative effect on my life -- but now, instead of feeling quite so ashamed of what happened, I'm feeling more and more sad about it. That may not seem like such a great thing, CS, but grief is something I think I need to feel, in order to get past it, and the shame has to go away a bit in order for that to happen. I think that's starting to happen.

What I'm trying to say with all this is that, no matter how horrible your Elephant might be, you may be surprised at how healing it is to have shined a little light on it, and shown it to someone else.

I hope so. You deserve fewer tears, because you have such a charming laugh.


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