Pithy sayings on pillows and coffee mugs are everywhere – telling us if we just think happy thoughts we will have a perfect life.
Everybody seems to have it all together, or at least they are getting there.. by being positive.
At BLUNTmoms we know that for many, it is all carefully crafted illusion. If people were more honest, we would see the pain that shadows their every step. Many of us harbour deep rending scars on our souls and the effort to keep it all hidden sometimes becomes too much.
We decided to talk about it.
These are four pieces from Blunt Moms authors who explore one of the emotions that carve out space in our hearts and fill them with lead weight.
They can be deadly if left to take over, so we have branded them the “end of days” feelings.
SHAME
Shame can be a dank swampland or a searing hot poker, piercing your soul. It is an epidemic and likely the cause of many broken behaviours in our society including addiction, depression and anxiety, eating disorders, suicide, bullying and narcissism. Shame is fear and cowardice. And it is insidious.
Shame is not exclusive to women but, as Dr. Brene Brown says in her wonderful TED Talk, shame is organized by gender. Women feel the need to aspire to an unrealistic and unattainable set of expectations: be thin & enviably youthful, be the perfect wife/mother/daughter/lover, be wildly successful in your career and modestly domestic at home.
Do it all. Do it perfectly.And never let them see you sweat.<
Shame becomes like a drug – addictive, temporarily uplifting and readily accessible if you know where to look. Unlike embarrassment or guilt, shame is autonomous and comes from within the self. Shame is being unable to meet your own eyes in the mirror. When you know you have done something that society disapproves of or have broken your own moral code. A person who feels guilt is saying “I did something bad.”, while someone who feels shame is saying “I am bad”. There is a big difference between the two.
On the other side of the spectrum, there is vulnerability. And courage. And authenticity. There is empathy, acceptance and forgiveness. Shame, like guilt, is a useless emotion but one that requires mindfulness and strength to overcome.
Forgiving yourself is the first step but the key to banishing shame is connectivity. If you notice another woman suffering her own dance with the demon of shame, cut in, take her hand and say “Me too. Me too.”
SORROW
Sorrow is the most isolating of all emotions a Mother can face. And ironically, it only exists for us because we are never again to be alone.
GUILT
If you’re a normal person, you’re innocent until proven guilty. Not so for parents. Parents need to prove that they are innocent and carry around the guilt like some kind of burden. No matter what you do, you will be scrutinized, judged and made to feel guilty.
No matter how good a parent you are, you are guilty. No matter how hard you try: guilty as charged. Guilt is the nagging feeling that you have done something wrong. But with parenting, most of the time, it is hard to say what is wrong and what is right, so often you don’t even know what inconceivable (pun intended!) crime you’re guilty of.
Let’s free ourselves of all the guilt. Even as parents, we’re still human beings and that means that we’re innocent until proven guilty.
RAGE
Rage consumes me but not for reasons I imagined.
Rage is what I now feel towards my parents. Under the delusion that they were just fallible humans, I spent years forgiving them, excusing their inappropriateness and attributing it to loving me too much. Or so they made me believe.
Once my babies were born, an all consuming love and pathological need to protect them materialized. It fanned the embers of rage inside me and they ignited like a match flung into a drought-dried grass prairie. As my love grew, so did the winds fueling my rage, from red embers to white hot, iron melting, all consuming.
How could she cry to me, when I was 7, wondering if he would come home or ask me to block the door and beg him to stay?
How could they expect me, at 12 to be their emotional dumping ground?
How could my father proudly tell me about all the women he fucked? That he married my mother because he felt bad for her so he sent his other pregnant girlfriend for an illegal abortion?
How could they fight about their sex life and expect me to referee?
How could my mother tell me that I, a child was the only person she could turn to but make us all play happy family to the outside world?
How could they forget the day I was kicked out of high-school for the unpaid bills, and then ask me to care for them in their golden years?
Rage is what I feel at the injustice, to all those who rip children from their innocence while manipulating their perfect love.
1 Comment
Well done, ladies. I have felt each of these emotions at one time or another. Thankfully none rule my roost. Thank you for expressing what I imagine so many people also feel but don’t have the word for.