I am ashamed. I started this blog with a vow not to be, not to be defined by my illness, but I have failed. I do not feel guilty. I know well enough that when I am at my most severely ill I am not in any way responsible for my actions and the rest of the time, although I sin, I am forgiven. But every time that someone looks at me and sees my illness and not me, every time I feel someone is judging me and finding me unworthy because I am broken, every time someone decides I am incapable, or unreliable, or untrustworthy, or too fragile, too difficult or too dangerous to invite into any responsibility I feel shame.
And my shame crushes me. It tells me you're too weak, too broken, too ugly, too unloveable to be entrusted with anything that matters. People despise you and pity you, you're not capable of anything difficult or important. Often, as the church is the place I invest myself most deeply, it is the place I feel most shamed. I feel told relentlessly that I have nothing to contribute, no one is interested in what I have to say, I have no valuable contribution to make.
Some of that is to do with how the church deals with mental illness. A future blog post is in the works thinking about the problems with the way church leadership approaches the functional mentally ill. This blog post is more interested in why I feel this way and what I can do about it.
Some of the shame I experience comes from my own head. I fear judgement, scorn and pity from others, so I see it where it does not exist. Sometimes the judgement is real but my reaction is always disproportionate and extreme. I panic when I feel judged and treated as without value and I experience extreme pain and anger. This leads to extreme and confusing behaviours, which in turn drives behaviour in other's that is judgemental or easily perceived as so, setting up a vicious cycle of reaction and counter-reaction.
The reason why I cope so poorly and experience such deep shame in situations where I feel judged, excluded or despised are obvious on a few moments of thought. I was chronically bullied as a child and I went home each evening to a place where I was told that people treated me badly because that is what I deserved. People don't like you because you are unlikeable, people bully you because you are weak, people exclude you because you are difficult and can't be trusted. When I became an adult it was, your friends don't ask you to be a bridesmaid because no one wants a fat girl in their pictures, you haven't got a boyfriend because you're disgusting, you're too intense, too pompous, too clever, too awkward. Every time I experienced a knock back or rejection it was my fault, my failing. Time and again I would go back to the poisonous well hoping for a different answer, a reprieve, some comfort. My understanding of myself made me insecure, withdrawn, self-absorbed in my fear of being found inadequate, which did in fact make me quite difficult to like and led to situations that reinforced my self-assessment. It took me far too long to be able to question and discard that analysis of myself and my life, in fact it took until a different and more powerful voice came in and told me a different story.
I suppose it is therefore not surprising that I am an adult with an intense fear of being judged, excluded and told that I am worthless. And that I panic when I fear that is happening and react with intense shame, because you see, it is all my fault.
Shame permeates my existence, it leads to affirmation-seeking behaviour and boasting on one hand as I try to avoid negative experiences of judgement and panic, hysteria and anger when I fail to avoid being shamed. Shame is a vortex of infinite gravity that threatens to swallow me whole. And I am ashamed to admit that I have it as I feel it reveals a faithlessness that shames me. It is a mobius. I remember learning what a mobius was and whimsically writing down everything about myself of which I felt ashamed on a strip of paper and turning it into one. I didn't realise then how appropriate that was.
Shame is so pernicious that I recently realised that I am ashamed of being ashamed. When I react with fear and shame to feeling judged or excluded, I feel ashamed that I am not strong enough to reject the negative interpretation in favour of Jesus' words about me. I feel I should be able to endure experiences of rejection because of Jesus' acceptance, experiences of being judged because Jesus, not the person sitting in judgement of me defines me, experiences of exclusion because I am living to serve Jesus and not for the approval of others. But as usual, guilt and shame have no power to change me. Feeling ashamed of my extreme reaction to shame does not in any way help to change that reaction.
So if shame cannot vanquish shame, what can? Because I am tired of shame. I have lived with shame and its effects and consequences long enough. I am tired of living in fear of being found out for being worthless, I am tired of the fear of man.
The place that draws me when I think about how this can change is Luke 7, the story of Simon the Pharisee and the sinful woman. That sentence may have started a bit optimistically. I am feeling a little hopeless to be honest, as I feel so ashamed that a recent incident which others would find relatively trivial has completely up-ended me again, prompting this blog. Shame is a friend of despair. But I will look at Jesus, because where else have I to go?
This is a story about 2 people who are seen very differently by the world. One is a powerful, respected and judgemental man whom all the world sees as righteous. The other is a condemned, unclean and despised woman whom all the world sees only as a sinner. The man treats Jesus with suspicion, arrogance and pride. He offers him no honours in keeping with hospitality, he is quick to stand in judgement over him and over the sinful woman who comes into his house. The woman has no dignity upon which to stand, no good works to bolster her, no reputation, in fact a terrible reputation such that it was shameful to be touched by her. She offers Jesus broken-hearted, humble adoration. She kisses his feet, washes them with her tears and her hair and pours out her richest treasures upon them. The distinction could not be clearer. She, the despised, is content to humble herself to the dust before Christ in love, he the strong and respectable will not deign to treat him even as an equal and will sit in judgement upon Jesus for allowing her to do so much as to touch his feet.
Who leaves that room vindicated? We all know the end of the story. Jesus honours her in front of all those powerful men who would consider it a dishonour for her to wash their feet. Jesus honours her simply for loving him and acting out of her love and gratitude. Jesus forgives her sin - expunging her guilt - and honours her love gift, small though it was.
When I started writing this blog post I thought it would end differently. I thought the help I was going to find in the Bible was the honour that Jesus gives to the weak and dishonoured, in the way he takes our shame. But as I prayed with friends this evening, and as I re-read this passage, I think what God is saying to me lies in another direction. The woman overcame the fear and shame she must have felt to enter that house and face those judgemental accusing eyes because she felt such a compulsion to love Jesus, to serve and honour and thank him however she could. She left with his peace, not because she was shamed and they proud, nor because they were somehow more sinful than she, in fact the very opposite Jesus says, but because she knew how much she had been forgiven and she could not resist the desire to serve him in whatever way she could. I have wanted to be vindicated against the people who I felt shamed me, but I hear Jesus saying to me here and now, stop looking at them. Look at me. You dishonoured me and I died for you. You shamed me and I endured the pains of hell for you. You despised me and I took your punishment upon me. I remind you of this not to shame you. Shame is done with, you are forgiven. I'm reminding you of this because you need to remember is not about them, it is about me. The love I have for you and the love you have for me. Let them say what they want, keep your eyes on me and it doesn't matter. You can forgive them, they no longer have any power here.
Let me go further, Jesus is saying I'm not the sinful woman here, I'm Simon. I'm sitting in judgement on the people who hurt me, I'm the one concerned for my status and my reputation, I'm the one sitting in judgement on Jesus and thinking he owes me. Stop that. This blog just got hard to put out, because what I need to do is repent. Repent and look at Jesus. Nobody wants to be Simon. But I am Simon. And suddenly I don't feel so hopeless. Look at me, look at me, don't look at them, look at me, Jesus is saying. Look at me whom you crucified and give me your love gift because you are forgiven. Now, those judging eyes, they're not so scary anymore, are they?
And my shame crushes me. It tells me you're too weak, too broken, too ugly, too unloveable to be entrusted with anything that matters. People despise you and pity you, you're not capable of anything difficult or important. Often, as the church is the place I invest myself most deeply, it is the place I feel most shamed. I feel told relentlessly that I have nothing to contribute, no one is interested in what I have to say, I have no valuable contribution to make.
Some of that is to do with how the church deals with mental illness. A future blog post is in the works thinking about the problems with the way church leadership approaches the functional mentally ill. This blog post is more interested in why I feel this way and what I can do about it.
Some of the shame I experience comes from my own head. I fear judgement, scorn and pity from others, so I see it where it does not exist. Sometimes the judgement is real but my reaction is always disproportionate and extreme. I panic when I feel judged and treated as without value and I experience extreme pain and anger. This leads to extreme and confusing behaviours, which in turn drives behaviour in other's that is judgemental or easily perceived as so, setting up a vicious cycle of reaction and counter-reaction.
The reason why I cope so poorly and experience such deep shame in situations where I feel judged, excluded or despised are obvious on a few moments of thought. I was chronically bullied as a child and I went home each evening to a place where I was told that people treated me badly because that is what I deserved. People don't like you because you are unlikeable, people bully you because you are weak, people exclude you because you are difficult and can't be trusted. When I became an adult it was, your friends don't ask you to be a bridesmaid because no one wants a fat girl in their pictures, you haven't got a boyfriend because you're disgusting, you're too intense, too pompous, too clever, too awkward. Every time I experienced a knock back or rejection it was my fault, my failing. Time and again I would go back to the poisonous well hoping for a different answer, a reprieve, some comfort. My understanding of myself made me insecure, withdrawn, self-absorbed in my fear of being found inadequate, which did in fact make me quite difficult to like and led to situations that reinforced my self-assessment. It took me far too long to be able to question and discard that analysis of myself and my life, in fact it took until a different and more powerful voice came in and told me a different story.
I suppose it is therefore not surprising that I am an adult with an intense fear of being judged, excluded and told that I am worthless. And that I panic when I fear that is happening and react with intense shame, because you see, it is all my fault.
Shame permeates my existence, it leads to affirmation-seeking behaviour and boasting on one hand as I try to avoid negative experiences of judgement and panic, hysteria and anger when I fail to avoid being shamed. Shame is a vortex of infinite gravity that threatens to swallow me whole. And I am ashamed to admit that I have it as I feel it reveals a faithlessness that shames me. It is a mobius. I remember learning what a mobius was and whimsically writing down everything about myself of which I felt ashamed on a strip of paper and turning it into one. I didn't realise then how appropriate that was.
Shame is so pernicious that I recently realised that I am ashamed of being ashamed. When I react with fear and shame to feeling judged or excluded, I feel ashamed that I am not strong enough to reject the negative interpretation in favour of Jesus' words about me. I feel I should be able to endure experiences of rejection because of Jesus' acceptance, experiences of being judged because Jesus, not the person sitting in judgement of me defines me, experiences of exclusion because I am living to serve Jesus and not for the approval of others. But as usual, guilt and shame have no power to change me. Feeling ashamed of my extreme reaction to shame does not in any way help to change that reaction.
So if shame cannot vanquish shame, what can? Because I am tired of shame. I have lived with shame and its effects and consequences long enough. I am tired of living in fear of being found out for being worthless, I am tired of the fear of man.
The place that draws me when I think about how this can change is Luke 7, the story of Simon the Pharisee and the sinful woman. That sentence may have started a bit optimistically. I am feeling a little hopeless to be honest, as I feel so ashamed that a recent incident which others would find relatively trivial has completely up-ended me again, prompting this blog. Shame is a friend of despair. But I will look at Jesus, because where else have I to go?
This is a story about 2 people who are seen very differently by the world. One is a powerful, respected and judgemental man whom all the world sees as righteous. The other is a condemned, unclean and despised woman whom all the world sees only as a sinner. The man treats Jesus with suspicion, arrogance and pride. He offers him no honours in keeping with hospitality, he is quick to stand in judgement over him and over the sinful woman who comes into his house. The woman has no dignity upon which to stand, no good works to bolster her, no reputation, in fact a terrible reputation such that it was shameful to be touched by her. She offers Jesus broken-hearted, humble adoration. She kisses his feet, washes them with her tears and her hair and pours out her richest treasures upon them. The distinction could not be clearer. She, the despised, is content to humble herself to the dust before Christ in love, he the strong and respectable will not deign to treat him even as an equal and will sit in judgement upon Jesus for allowing her to do so much as to touch his feet.
Who leaves that room vindicated? We all know the end of the story. Jesus honours her in front of all those powerful men who would consider it a dishonour for her to wash their feet. Jesus honours her simply for loving him and acting out of her love and gratitude. Jesus forgives her sin - expunging her guilt - and honours her love gift, small though it was.
When I started writing this blog post I thought it would end differently. I thought the help I was going to find in the Bible was the honour that Jesus gives to the weak and dishonoured, in the way he takes our shame. But as I prayed with friends this evening, and as I re-read this passage, I think what God is saying to me lies in another direction. The woman overcame the fear and shame she must have felt to enter that house and face those judgemental accusing eyes because she felt such a compulsion to love Jesus, to serve and honour and thank him however she could. She left with his peace, not because she was shamed and they proud, nor because they were somehow more sinful than she, in fact the very opposite Jesus says, but because she knew how much she had been forgiven and she could not resist the desire to serve him in whatever way she could. I have wanted to be vindicated against the people who I felt shamed me, but I hear Jesus saying to me here and now, stop looking at them. Look at me. You dishonoured me and I died for you. You shamed me and I endured the pains of hell for you. You despised me and I took your punishment upon me. I remind you of this not to shame you. Shame is done with, you are forgiven. I'm reminding you of this because you need to remember is not about them, it is about me. The love I have for you and the love you have for me. Let them say what they want, keep your eyes on me and it doesn't matter. You can forgive them, they no longer have any power here.
Let me go further, Jesus is saying I'm not the sinful woman here, I'm Simon. I'm sitting in judgement on the people who hurt me, I'm the one concerned for my status and my reputation, I'm the one sitting in judgement on Jesus and thinking he owes me. Stop that. This blog just got hard to put out, because what I need to do is repent. Repent and look at Jesus. Nobody wants to be Simon. But I am Simon. And suddenly I don't feel so hopeless. Look at me, look at me, don't look at them, look at me, Jesus is saying. Look at me whom you crucified and give me your love gift because you are forgiven. Now, those judging eyes, they're not so scary anymore, are they?
And he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."
...And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you: go in peace.
