Shame and Vulnerability

In psychology culture and on platforms like Tik Tok, we’ve been hearing a lot over the years about vulnerability and building connections.  Brene Brown’s research and TED Talks on the subject have made their way into the zeitgeist and she has brought a lot of attention to the topic of vulnerability, what it is and why allowing ourselves to experience it in the presence of others is important.  But there is another piece to this that I think is also worth noting, and that is the connection to shame and what that does for, or to, vulnerability.

When we feel normal guilt, we can make amends where necessary, forgive ourselves, and the guilt dissipates.  Guilt is a feeling that tells us we’re behaving in a way that is in conflict with our values, it’s related to our empathy, our sense of justice, and beliefs about right and wrong.  Shame is not about our behavior, it’s about who we are.  It’s the difference between knowing we’re a basically good person who did something wrong, and believing our behavior, feelings, or experiences are a result of being bad or unworthy, unlovable, or not good enough.  There is no amount of apologizing or making amends erases the feeling of shame. 

So, what does this have to do with vulnerability?  I think it’s true that our vulnerability helps us connect to people.  It’s why self-deprecating humor is endearing.  It’s also why people who are always “perfect” make us uncomfortable.  Have you ever met somebody who has no sense of humor about themself?  They’re hard to be around, there’s no humanness in always getting things right, nothing for us unperfected people to connect to.  They feel impenetrable, difficult to get to know.  Not surprisingly, they also tend to have a sense of humor about other people… topic for another day though.

My mother was also a therapist.  She held tightly to the belief that therapists are blank slates, they listen, say little and their personality is reserved for their life outside the office.  That’s how therapy was done when she was still practicing.  Clients didn’t get to know who their therapist was, and when you asked why they got into the field, which is a reasonable and good question to ask, the therapist turned the question around and asked why it’s important for you, the client, to know.  Everything personal was evaded and answered with another question.  I met a lot of therapists along the way who also practiced this way.  

When I went into practice, I battled with the opposing ideas of how I am “supposed” to be as therapist, and how I actually felt therapy would work better.  I didn’t and still don’t see the benefit in not allowing my experience to be part of the work I do with my clients.   So the first time I was asked why I went into this field, I answered honestly which is, because when I was younger, I had a nearly fatal eating disorder and  I wanted to help other people so that those difficult years could be used for something good.  I had a lot of help that didn’t help when I was struggling with an eating disorder and I wanted to offer real help to other people struggling in similar ways.  Sharing this didn’t feel vulnerable, other than I was sure I had broken all the Rules of Being a Good Therapist.  I believe sharing my experience helps people trust that I know how they feel, and see that there is a way out.  I didn’t only read good books on how to work with people with eating disorders, I personally understand the feelings and the frustration, the fear of staying sick, and the fear of getting better.  Why it did not feel vulnerable is because I don’t have shame about my past, despite living in a culture that tells us we should be ashamed of our struggles, particularly mental health struggles, and even more so eating disorders.  

Recovering was the first step, the second important step was releasing the shame of being sick, of needing help, of not being perfect, and screwing up recover over and over until I stopped.  Had I recovered but felt ashamed to have had these issues, if I still felt that my worth hinged on always being perfect, or okay, or having it all together, then sharing my history of anorexia would feel vulnerable.  I would be afraid that I would be judged or abandoned by clients or colleagues, fellow therapists if I held on to shame about my past.  The thing about vulnerability though, is that sharing who we are when we are not ashamed, when we’ve made peace with our pasts and ourselves, when we can embrace who we are, then those things don’t make us vulnerable at all.  It’s just information about me.  Put another way, I can’t be hurt by someone’s judgement about something I feel no shame about, I am not vulnerable, in fact, I am empowered.

Why share who we are when we don’t feel vulnerable about our information is because it’s still a point of connection, we can still understand each other, see each other’s humanity, see that we are all more alike than not.  But when we don’t feel shame, then sharing isn’t a leap of faith or white-knuckled hope we won’t be rejected, it doesn’t feel vulnerable.  That isn’t to say there’s no room for sharing our shame or that we should never, it’s just that when we work through our shame, then we get to experience all of the good things about sharing our stories without the anxiety that something bad could happen.  Without that anxiety, we all have the opportunity to come closer together, and isn’t that what it’s all about?  It is worth the effort to work through and let go of our shame to be freer and be more connected.

  Recovery itself, while in part, was not solely how I left my shame about the eating disorder behind.  I worked to let go, held it up to the light and tried hard to understand it, where it came from, and what I needed it for.  When I could finally say shame was no longer serving a purpose, I could let it go.  We all have soft spots that are scary or hard to talk about, shame however, is the real culprit in the disconnection between us, it’s the real villain of our loneliness and isolation.  Rather than asking yourself why it’s hard to be vulnerable or let someone in, or let your guard down, ask yourself, is there something I feel shame about that I’m not allowing myself to see?

Warmly,

Noelle

* I do want to take a moment to mention that a therapist who is currently struggling with a serious mental health issue should not share this with their clients.  That would be unethical and could be dangerous.