Shame

This is a major issue to get your head around and come to terms with. While I have been out to myself now going on my fourth year, and where I feel I have made great strides dealing with shame, I find occasional relapses every now and then.

In the first instance, I learned to forgive myself and others for their homophobia. Homophobia is learned, it is not a natural inherent trait. People are products of their upbringing. By recognizing it is not inherent, I have found forgiveness. As such, by forgiving, I have found much resolution to my issues of shame.

That said, just last week, a conservative relative of mine asked me in what I perceived to be quite a derogatory way, "now that you are out, do you plan on being a gay rights activist?", as if there is anything wrong with that. Had it been said out of concern, I probably would have reacted differently. But it certainly brought back feelings of shame. At the same time (and coincidentally as I just posted on another thread) the recent political debates have raised similar feelings of shame. Now, however, even when comments like that are made, or when I see the political debates, I believe I now have the emotional strength to recognize it for what it is and mentally push back. It is an ongoing fight.

Dealing with shame, which has built up for you over your life, will take time to work through; just as I am continuing to work through it. I found my avenue to help me overcome shame through forgiveness. I am sure others find their own ways to deal with shame.

It's ok to feel shame, it's part of the journey. But it should be your objective to find ways to resolve the shame you feel. EC has been a great help for me personally in dealing with it.

 

"Care about other people's approval and you will be their prisoner": Lao Tzu

Part of the process of dealing with shame is to stop caring what other people think of us. To accept that we cannot frame our existence and place in this world in order to seek approval from others is really important. We need to stop giving a damn about opinion, especially if it's an opinion that doesn't chime with how we feel.

Is it easy to stop worrying about being judged? Is it easy to set aside all of the negative bullshit that we hear; all of the silly, petty comments? No!, but we do need to wake up and see what it's doing to us if we don't. We are surrendering our lives and submitting to their opinions. And do the caustic attitudes of narrow minded people really matter in the grand scheme of things? No, they don't. These people are not significant, unless we make them so. These are the sort of people who will move on to ridiculing and hating someone else (for some other reason) once they realise that it's not cracking your shell.

We need to understand that shame comes from within. It's not something precious that other people gift to us (something we can't part with for sentimental reasons), rather, it's a sign of personal insecurity that we need to free ourselves from, even if we need help to do it.

Living for yourself is the only way to live a healthy and authentic life. Life is too short to spend time worrying and fretting. Within the last week you have broken some chains that were holding you back, so you have proven that you can confront big life issues. This is just another one.

 

Agreed, its not going to go away overnight. You need to continuously work on it and remind yourself that it is perfectly ok to be gay.

As another example of working on it: In a few weeks, I will be traveling to a multi day business event for my industry where spouses have been invited. I will be bringing my partner. I am a bit anxious about it for sure, and that is driven by my underlying shame.

That said, it is not the first business event since coming out where I have brought my partner; but each event I attend seems to be with a larger and larger audience, and this one will be very large. After each event where he attends with me, when I realize afterwords that all went well, it reinforces my confidence and diminishes the shame.

Maybe one will eventually have a hiccup, I am expecting it at some point, but then again, maybe not.

Regardless, I keep focusing on looking forward.

 

Paradoxically your involvement or non-involvement in the conversation affects its course. If you remain silent, your friends may continue to say hurtful things about those anonymous gays. If you stand up and come out, all of a sudden you've made things more real and your friends may not be as eager to say hurtful things about you. You have a chance to impact your friends' attitudes about gay people, although it does require that you take a risk by coming out. I'm of the mindset that I don't need homophobes in my life, so if someone doesn't accept me, I don't need them.

 

This is such an important point!

......sometimes I wish I was fast enough to digest what people say at the time they say so I can respond quickly. Often I find, only hours later once I reflect on a discussion, that something with homophobic undertones was mentioned, then I wish I could have turned the clock back so I can respond accordingly. When I do find something outright homophobic, I push myself to respond promptly.

 

Part of the process is also realizing that everyday conversations and idle chatter are often packed full of snarky comments and insensitive remarks that shouldn't be taken personally--or often not even taken as what the person actually thinks. They're just fillers.

Listen to the people around you and think of how many subtly offensive things are said in the course of a day, and consider how many people (not just gay people either) could be hurt by what is said--and yet, most people likely don't wander around in a perpetual state of hurt. Why? Because they've learned to filter out the buzz and take it for what it's worth, which is generally a big zero. I spent my whole childhood feeling ashamed of myself for being overweight and for being a "teacher's pet" because I was quiet and got good grades, and to this day I have a FAR more visceral reaction to "brain" or "tub" than I do to "faggot". Those were the terms people used to shame me, and it took me years to learn to filter them out. But once I did, life was a lot better, and it also made it a whole lot easier to deal with the world at large.

When I hear something clearly homophobic and bigoted, I respond quickly (and rather viciously sometimes). But most of throwaway remarks are just that, and as we become more comfortable with being gay, we can learn to take them for what they're worth and not take them to heart. Shame may be triggered by outside forces, but realistically, it's self-inflicted by our own insecurity and fear. There was one guy at work who made one of those subtly derogatory remarks with me in the room. I know him well enough that I realized it wasn't intended in a mean way, because he never shuts up, and you never know what's going to pop out of his mouth! I made some bitchy comment back that made it clear that not only was I laughing with him and the comment didn't bother me, but also that I was gay, which he didn't realize at the time. It's never happened again, and he still talks incessantly, and we're still totally comfortable with each other. Learn to filter and you'll be a lot more at ease.

And incidentally, a lot of times you can hear the same vicious remarks in a group of gay men, and let me tell you, they can be mighty harsh!