How I'm overcoming toxic shame by looking it in the face

 Hello my friends of this blog on how I lost 100 pounds! I know I promised you some fun diet tips for our March Madness weight loss challenge, and we will return you to that regularly scheduled program. But this blog is also about getting emotionally healthier too. Cuz it's all part of the same, thing, this mind-body-emotions connection. 

Today I need to examine how chronic toxic shame has controlled me and how much I'd like to heal from it. And one way to do that is to look it in the face, literally. My computer's camera has been freezing, as I was taking selfies for this blog. This Candid Camera catches me when I'm not posed. And the result was pretty disturbing. 

I have this pinched, grim look on my face. It looks like I'm constipated or something. Awful. And if I look like this most of the time, I feel sorry for you who have to see me. But I got to thinking that this is not the RBF of anger or irritation as it appears, but of toxic shame. Constant chronic guilt and shame have etched "scars" into my face. They've distorted my demeanor and behavior and twisted my facial features. Like an emotional acid-throwing. 

You could tell WW1 soldiers who were gassed by the scars around their eyes. Many were blinded by it.  I realize that I was "blinded" by emotional gassing from gaslighting. I couldn't see what had happened. And  these are part of the "scars" you can see around my eyes. 

My face is a tense mask because I'm never relaxed. I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't feel comfortable in my own skin because I was taught not to be. I learned early on that if there was fault or blame in a situation they were mine. That no matter what I gave it wasn't enough. I learned to be prepared for passive-aggressive anger, aggressive anger, punishment, mocking and shaming. 

I was exploited, neglected, abused, parentified and manipulated. But I was expected to just take this as part of being a "family member." Situations were convoluted and made to appear to me as normal. That everyone else was treated the same. I wasn't being singled out or bullied. That is the gaslighting. And I was continually breathing those poisonous gas fumes of till I was thoroughly poisoned and didn't question it any more. 

I just mopped up the toxic shame and guilt and internalized it. But I couldn't quite hide the fear. It seeped out in my expressions and gestures. My anxious, eager-to-please-yet-knowing-I-won't hyper vigilance showed and still shows when I'm not consciously covering it. My moves are defensive, sitting crumpled in on myself, trying to stay small and make no sudden moves. Like a terrified animal. 

But I am beginning to pry my hands off my eyes and look these terrible experiences in the face. In my face. I'm beginning to, instead, admit that I was gaslit and that I learned to auto-shame myself. No one else was being treated as I was. I wasn't a family member. I was a scapegoat, surrogate parent, surrogate spouse and servant. 

It's only been within the last month or so that I've even dared to call their behavior gaslighting. And that's because I've seen the gas "scars" on my face. For the last 58 years, 7 months, I've been hiding from horrific things that were done and said. I've blotted out the voices, the shaming, the systematic abuse, the nauseating fear. I've cushioned my memories of their appalling behavior with excuses. I've lied and assured myself that they didn't mean it. They were joking. I was exaggerating. I was too sensitive. I was too critical. yada. 

But now I'm beginning to see that as the man who become my father-in-law (God rest his soul) said when he was told about how I was treated. "That's bullshit!!" I am re-experiencing what happened without the toxic cloud of gas to obscure. I am going to write through each experience, to put them in perspective. Every time I do, I find (and am affirmed by those I share with) that I was NOT exaggerating. Neither was I at fault or to blame. Of if I was, it was a mistake or just a kid thing. It did NOT warrant the atrocious consequences I experienced. 

And that brings me to what will need to be another blog post. Nothing a person, especially a child, can do, warrants abuse, neglect, manipulation, exploitation, vicious punishment or shaming. That is just plain toxic behavior. 

How I lost 100 pounds by going toe to toe with toxic shame

Hello friends of this blog on how I lost 100 pounds without gastric bypass or weight loss drugs. In keeping with my Happy Heart February weight loss challenge, I've been unpacking a lot of emotional health issues related to weight gain. 

Toxic shame and chronic guilt have been in my life for as long as I can remember. Starting in childhood and continuing in adulthood and marriage, I've taken too much on myself and not made others responsible for their part. I've felt guilty for things I had no part in. I've been ashamed of others' behavior as if it were my own. It's so out of control that I'm haunted by dreams of having done terrible things I haven't done. This constant oppression exhausts my resources and I have behaved in ways I shouldn't. But, while being able to forgive others readily, without being asked, I cannot forgive myself. And it just keeps spiraling down. 

Just recently, I began to really look toxic shame in the face. I recently posted about how I'm listening to the voices in my head and it's helping me understand how false and deceitful they are. I always thought that my dreams were from God, trying to get me to see some error of my ways. God, for me, has always been very punitive. Our priest suggested that these dreams may not be from God but from the devil, trying to turn me on myself. This makes sense as I've always struggled with that toxic shame, self-hatred and even self-harm. And the devil is the father of lies. 

In going toe to toe with the toxic shame and voices in my head, I'm  seeing how they've been gaslighting me into a very distorted self-image. That I'm responsible for others' problems, that it's my job to fix everyone, that I'll always fail and must be shamed and beaten into submission to avoid harming anyone. 

So I've been creating safe spaces (more on that later) to meditate on what these voices in my head are really saying.  I cover it in prayer so that the devil, who is very convincing, can't pull me back in. I've been considering where all this toxic shame and chronic guilt stems. I realize that, beginning very young, a fragile house of cards was constructed in my mind, built on lies, exploitation, manipulation, abuse, neglect, cover-ups and gaslighting. 

These have caused a false reality in which to be burdened with inappropriate expectations and responsibilities was normal, healthy and God's will. Where bizarre situations and behaviors of adults were normal and I was the abnormal one if I questioned. As a child, I couldn't do much about it. And as it was done by adults who were supposed to love me, I didn't question. 

Now, with the eyes of an adult (and a parent myself) I have been examining these beliefs and practices. I ask myself, would I consider these things safe and healthy? Would I do or allow these to be done, to a child? Would I expect this of a child? And the answer is almost always, NO! It is not right for them and it wasn't right for me. 

By shining the light of reality on this illusory house of cards I was forced to live in, it topples. Truth shows up my experiences for the dangerous, terrifying, deceitful, unhealthy, unsafe, abnormal, immoral and unnatural things they were. It exposes them as not appropriate or what God wanted for me, but manipulation, self-serving lies, exploitation, neglect and abuse. 

Even as I write this, the voices in my head are screaming. They're telling me I'm lying and exaggerating. That by breaking silence, I'm being disloyal and wicked. I fear that by not kowtowing to the shame and guilt. By saying that I don't always fail and sometimes do good, I'm being prideful. 

But the peace of God, that passes all understanding, is there too. For the first time in 59 years, I'm beginning to accept that what happened was not God's will. I'm learning that secrets that hurt should not be kept. It feels really strange. But I'm going to keep on keeping on, as Alanon says and that with practice, I'll come to a healthier understanding of what's mine and what  isn't my responsibility.