Publishing my first account of recovery on substack was challenging in many ways. Each time I sat down to write or edit that piece, my body sweat as my legs pumped vigorously enough to compete in a marathon and my upper body fidgeted in any way it could. Normally, I wouldn’t push myself to sit in such anxiety for extended periods of time, but I just felt I needed to for that. I was following the call of my soul, which felt more pressing than the physical discomfort I was subjecting myself to. It felt like the mental health equivalent of a really great— yet, intense— stretch of the body. Some positions or an extended hold time may feel uncomfortable when the body is outside its’ comfort zone, but that doesn’t mean it’s not beneficial. I was mindful to walk away from my computer when the stress was becoming too much to physically process, but the fact that I kept returning has served as a mile marker on my mental health journey.
The primary reason self-expression (verbal, written, or otherwise) has been so challenging for me is because I was raised in a household where nothing I said or did was universally accepted as “good enough.” If I’d helped out a parent and was praised for my efforts, one or more siblings would seek any reason to remind me of how flawed I was. If I got a B in school, I was asked why it wasn’t an A. When my elementary school self was put in charge of cooking dinner from scratch for our large family, I’d often hear complaints that it didn’t taste exactly the way my mom made it. I was even hit once for eating my food in a way that displeased the person in the next room. Essentially, nothing I did was deemed right by those I looked to for guidance, so my compass for healthy human interactions and general life experiences has always been out of sorts.
Since I’d learned at a young age that being seen or heard would likely invite ridicule and extensive criticism, it made navigating life very confusing. My young mind assumed that if I was simply better somehow, than I’d be worthy of favorable attention.
I’m assuming that belief was what started my unhealthy quest for perfection. While authentic self-expression is Divinely perfect, it’s also humanly imperfect. It can be full of wrong word choices, miscommunication, is subject to the biases of the listener/reader, can become outdated moments after sharing, and so on. My deep-rooted fears of rejection and criticism (from myself and others) fed on those “logical” reasons to abstain from sharing myself fully with others, and also served as obstacles to my creative process.
To be clear, I don’t share examples from my past to point a finger at anyone or paint anyone as a villain. I know that they were doing the best they could with the resources they had access to. The pairing of unawakened and overwhelmed parents with naive, unsupervised children is bound to yield some trials for everyone involved. Just as I’ve made my share of bad choices during my unawakened, overwhelmed, naive, and unsupervised eras in life. Life is unscripted and messy; all we can really do is take notes along the way and strive to make better choices moving forward. That’s how I see it, anyway.
With all of that said, it seems understandable why my adult self has had to work so extensively on healing wounds around self-expression and why releasing any work of art has felt so daunting for me.
After I’d hit the publish button on my first piece with subscribers (thank you!), I felt I’d conquered a layer of fear that I’d been allowing to rule my life for far too long. Exhausted, I enjoyed a split-second sense of accomplishment before my thoughtful husband came home from work with a delicate bouquet of flowers to brighten my trying day.
But my brain didn’t forget that thing we did earlier.
About ten hours later, I woke up from a nightmare portraying being shot in the throat and fading away as my likeness bled out. A racing mind kept me awake for close to an hour while I pondered the underlying messages from my subconscious. Was my mind living out its’ terror of having exposed its’ vulnerabilities through open self-expression? Or was it a glorious display of blasting away old throat chakra (i.e., communication) blockages?! I don’t know yet. I’m hoping I’ll learn more in time.
Shadow Self~
I took several days away from writing this entry to let the effects of recalling the aforementioned childhood memories fully work their way through me. To be completely honest, it took a toll on me. Those are things I’d spoken about with my husband when their aftershocks made their way known in my/our life, but writing about it brought up more stored trauma to confront.
While away from writing, I felt guided to watch Jonah Hill’s documentary, Stutz, about psychiatrist, Phil Stutz. It’s remarkable. My husband and I enjoyed watching it together over the course of a few nights. It’s a movie-length documentary, but our schedule only enabled us to watch about 20-30mins each evening. That approach worked really well for us. It gave us some time to take in a few pearls of wisdom and discuss how they related to each of us, then allowed our physical bodies to process those thoughts and feelings further while we slept at night.
In one portion of Stutz, Jonah and Dr. Stutz discuss the importance of accepting our shadow self. [Shadow self refers to the parts of oneself often hidden from others due to personally assigned shame, insecurity, pain, and the like.] The concept of one’s shadow may seem straightforward enough, but my experience has proved otherwise.
My childhood taught me:
-it was fine to pine for a better life, but it wasn’t acceptable to make the changes necessary for that to happen *[takeaway: trying to better myself was shameful]
-happiness and success were not only for other people, but were worthy of harsh criticism *[takeaway: feeling pride of accomplishment was worthy of shame and guilt]
-one must give unconditionally when doing things for others, but forego meeting basic needs when it comes to oneself *[takeaway: it was selfish to tend to my needs or have desires of my own]
And the list goes on…
All of the memories shared in this piece highlight how the skewed perspectives I’d learned growing up have caused my shadow to be entangled in every area of my life. I think they also demonstrate how sometimes the shadow self can be straightforward (e.g., shame for self-harm behaviors because I knew they were unhealthy), but sometimes not (e.g., being unsure of why I’d felt shame and guilt for wanting to care for myself and/or pursue my dreams). That’s when addressing the shadow can feel complicated. We might think we know what’s triggering our heavier emotions, but the root cause is actually linked to something lurking further beneath the surface.
Moreover, our shadows will likely change as we experience life. For example, thoughts and behaviors I deemed fine or even honorable years ago might register as shameful in the present due to evolved beliefs and perspectives. And even after we work to heal the wounds around a shadow aspect, they can resurface when new experiences trigger new layers of healing that are ready to be addressed.
I’ve been working on shadow integration (i.e., healing, acceptance, forgiveness of those “dark” aspects) for a couple of years now. I’m not sure if it’ll ever be over, but I know I’m making headway, at least. It took a while, but I’ve learned there’s no point in demonizing myself each time I come to a new awareness that a past action doesn’t accurately reflect who I am today. I was a different person then, so I made different choices with the awareness I had. I can appreciate that from a cognitive perspective but recognize there are still emotions attached to such parts of my human experience. The only way I can conceive how to approach that level of healing is to try complete transparency.
Complete Transparency~
I’ve struggled with how much detail about past trauma I thought best to share with others because: 1) I don’t know how much vulnerability I can tolerate and 2) I don’t want to trauma dump into the Universe. I’ve often told myself that would simply add to the collective darkness. And it might. If it does, I’m truly sorry. That is not my intention. But for my own wellness, I want to shine Light on my shadow to relinquish at least some of the control I’d given it over the years. [If you’re not in a place to read about specific traumas, now might be a good time to stop reading this post. Be well.]
Experiences for which I’d carried pain, shame, insecurities, and fear:
· Fragmented memories of my godfather suggest sexual or other abuse may have occurred when I was a toddler.
· I was parentified in countless ways, some of which the mere thought of cause me to feel physically unwell.
· I was forced to be on diets in elementary school, which lead to self-loathing and a variety of eating disorders throughout my life.
· I also participated in different forms of physical self-harm as a result of self-loathing.
· I’ve been dealing with rape trauma since I was 15 years old.
· I’d turned to alcohol in high school to help me cope.
· I frequently stole things and even participated in a drug store robbery as a teenager.
· I’ve been an absent daughter, sister, aunt, & friend due to the mental & physical illnesses created by past traumas, which has been a source of condemnation for myself.
· I’ve repeated the toxic cycles I grew up in for longer than I’d care to admit (or even realized).
While this isn’t an exhaustive list of the traumas I’d experienced, these are the experiences I most closely associate with the murky, shadowy parts of myself that I don’t like to share with the world. I use those words thoughtfully: “don’t like to share with the world.” As someone who’s experienced such pain, I don’t ever wish to inflict pain or discomfort on others. In fact, I find the notion unbearable. So much so, that somewhere along the way, I’d developed a Pollyanna personality. I suppose I’d needed it just to keep propelling myself forward. But I also think I’d simply noticed how differently I’d felt between my interactions with toxic people and with kind, uplifting people. It was only natural for me to want to be the Light that uplifts those around me instead of contributing to their pain. And while I still want to be a Light in the world, I need to have a space where I can validate my shadow aspects, too. For far too long, I’ve been gaslighting myself as a way of not rocking the proverbial boat of life but can now acknowledge that’s not healthy for me. Yes, I want to continue helping others find their Light and their authentic voice, but maybe there’s room somewhere in there for my shadow to sit beside me while I do it… I literally have no idea.
Closing Notes~
It’s been common for me to pour over my written works for days and weeks on end, trying my best to edit them to perfection. Critiquing the flow, word choices, grammar, punctuation, and so on. But I want to allow myself to be as vulnerable with my art as I was in listing the highlights of my painful past here with you. I want to embrace the typos, blatant misspellings, and even incorrect usage of words as signs of my progress. As signs that I’m more interested in sharing my authentic self with others— however that might look in that moment in time (like an unappealing license photo)— than I am with presenting as the picture of perfection or a subject matter expert in any given field. I assure you I am none of those things. And even though my ego might wish for me to be, I know in my heart of hearts that the world would be uncomfortably boring if everyone was perfect and/or exactly the same.
I’ll keep reminding my shadow of that until it gets on board.
Wishing you peace and many blessings in the New Year!
V.