[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

I had an insight last week about why i always feel so sick with shame and dread the day after family/social/work functions that require extended interpersonal interactions with people who have not made my "safe" list.

I always spend the whole next day ruminating over my behavior and looking for shameful things that i did that might match up with the horrible feeling of having exposed myself.

In the past i have usually been able to identify some comment i made that seems thoughtless in retrospect and then i will connect all of my yucky feelings with that, and just shame myself for whatever i have identified as my own bad behavior.

Earlier this month, though, i spent a day feeling shamed about my behavior at an author event-- but, try as i might, i just could not find anything i had done that justified the shame.

Like, i had not spoken to anyone at all-- i just came in looking beautiful and sat listening respectfully, then waited in line to have my book signed and thanked the author for coming. Then i went home and i did not actually interact with anyone except the author and the lady next to me who asked my favorite of the author's titles. There was nothing at all in my own behavior that i could pin the yucky feelings to.

Last weekend the same thing happened. I had a very intense day at my dad's birthday, with four different traumatizers in the mix, and the next day i felt shame and regret and i still could not identify anything i had done that was at all problematic.

I have figured out that i am not feeling shame and regret, i am feeling exposure and vulnerability, and that these are not connected to my behavior.

Being around unsafe people makes me feel vulnerable and exposed, but i cannot function in the situation with those emotions at the surface, so i seal them up and push them down while the interaction is happening. The next day, when i am safely out of the situation, the feelings come to the surface to be felt and then i assign them a cause from my own behavior because i was raised to blame myself for everything.

OMG YOU GUYS

i found out yesterday that this is a real thing called a "vulnerability hangover" and Brene Brown covers it in a TED talk

i did not watch the TED Talk lol this is not a weekend for breakthroughs this is a weekend for armoring up