QC@QiaochuYuan• about 1 year ago

this is another thing i used to believe strongly and don’t anymore. again this is a helpful corrective starting from a (sadly very common) position of being overwhelmed by “toxic shame”. but there is such a thing as healthy shame and it matters to your ability to behave ethically. i’ve repeatedly found myself stuck in depressive states that involved being overwhelmed by shame and having the vague sense that i was supposed to deal with it by loving myself more or being kinder to myself, and that never felt accessible, never felt like the right move, and never ended up being what actually helped. the shame was trying to tell me something - among other things, that i was acting out of integrity with my own values. and when i’m deep in the shit it often feels like trying to be kinder to myself would be letting myself off the hook, which feels unacceptable. maybe it doesn’t have to feel that way but i bet i’m not the only person who’s wired up like that internally. there is a developmental aspect here. the sort of person to whom this kind of messaging is likely to be helpful maybe had early childhood experiences that led to them feeling ashamed of themselves at an existential level, ashamed of existing and having feelings and needs, that kind of thing. unconditional love is exactly what is needed for this situation; it’s what you should have gotten but didn’t get as a young child, it’s what was supposed to establish your basic sense of having a right to exist. but it’s possible to get stuck here - at some point you might need to redo aspects of being an older child, a teenager, a young adult, and these are different developmental stages with different developmental tasks, some of which might involve eg feeling healthy and appropriate amounts of shame over hurting other people, that kind of thing. sometimes what you need is a stern talking-to, not a hug! love is the foundation but then you build a whole other thing on top of that foundation!