OK, back to comment. I keep avoiding coming into the thread, because I feel like I want to delete what I wrote...like it is horrible...like I should have never shared...then feel awful about thinking that way when everyone has been so kind about me sharing.
(((Liese))) Thanks for replying, and so quickly and kindly. I certainly would have taken my post down if you hadn't, because I was really freaked out...still am.
(((Smilingpenguin))) I'm glad you feel less alone. Sometimes it really does feel like that, knowing that I am shame...thank you. That is a good way to put it.
(((Monte))) I'm sorry that the pain is relatable, but it's good to not be alone. I thought I remembered about your T not really getting it, so I knew you could probably relate to that.
(((turtle))) Thanks so much for the encouragement. It's a challenge to take in people responding so positively, but I'm working on it.
(((TN))) I'm so sorry you do understand shame so intimately. Hugs back!
(((Draggers))) I think it's so cool you have a therapy box. I need to get me one of those.
(((HIC))) You're very observant. The whole poem was written specifically to set up those last 13 lines. It was built around the beginning of those last 13 lines, about shame being swallowing the guilt of another person and tending what grows. It was validating to have someone feel the poem pull where it pulled me when I was writing it.
(((Cat))) Thanks. I know you're an artist and though you channel your creativity in a different way usually, it means a lot that you would comment in the thread.
(((Shaman))) Thank you. I'm glad it was impactful, and I hope the reactions were not in any bad sort of way. I think expressing is part of the healing, but being heard is the other part. I wish it were something my T was able to do with me...or that I had a closer relationship with my old mentor. It is really healing to have someone really "see" me (especially through my writing) if I can tolerate the shame of others being aware of my existence long enough to process it.
(((Ainsley))) Thanks for encouraging me as well. I don't know if I will be able to share more or not. To be seen and accepting is...well, needed. But, the vulnerability is sometimes more than I can bare and I feel awful, because my feelings about my "art," which is something of myself...which makes me want to destroy it...vicarious self-destruction, are not fair or kind things to project onto others.
I have more that I've written since therapy has started and I have shared some privately...but it is so hard to imagine then worthy of being seen. It's taken all I have not to delete this about ten times in the last couple days.
It is really hard to believe the things I write could be viewed as good. Kind of ridiculous, because I have tried to publish...but, while always being sure I never can. That I don't have whatever it is, despite what my teachers always said. My freshman English teacher (later mentor) actually showed my poetry to a few others in his department to make sure he wasn't being biased about some perceived talent. It was kind of...humiliating...but he was hugely supportive and encouraging and I think I survived high school and parts of college through writing and sharing with him. But, since then, it feels like it left me and is locked somewhere else, somewhere far away that I can only occasionally access. I can maybe only create just a few times a year, and as often as not quit part-way through out of...well, shame. It is very depressing. I want to do it more, but my tolerance for sitting with hating what I write is lower than it used to be.
