The Shame Cycle
I’m not exactly sure when or why things took such a drastic shift, but I was caught up in a storm before I knew it. Now it’s time to get out.
Something I didn’t realize I would face in recovery is the shame cycle that accompanies the ups and downs. I had stepped down from IOP. I was doing “well” and on the path to recovery. Now I sit here terrified about the fact that not only am I back in IOP but that I will actually be kicked out of IOP because I am struggling too much. How could I have fallen so far, so fast?
It’s time to go back, not to the behaviors and thought processes that got me here, but to the ones that got me out before. Alarms. Supplements. Writing. Appointments. FOOD. Water. Rest. Accountability. Prayer. Feeling. It’s so difficult to admit that I fell so deep that it feels disingenuous to try to climb my way out again. If I’m just going to fail, am I worth the effort time and time again? Will this ever work? Can I do this? Or am I just a sham? If I can go up and down so much am I really ill or is this just pretend? Am I allowed to work on this over and over? Will I ever be good enough?
Monday was proof that I DO want more than the current life I am living. I was absolutely overwhelmed when told that my treatment plan may need a drastic overhaul, in a way that I felt would lead to my ultimate demise. Panic spread as I felt like my days were literally numbered because I was confident I needed the extra help to stay alive. In that moment I couldn’t see how I would be able to continue, that I was worth the work, so in that moment I quit. I got up and walked out. Never intending to step foot in that building again.
I hadn’t earned it. I wasn’t good enough to be helped. I wasn’t worth living. I was too broken.
I don’t know what kept me glued to my van seat that day but I thank God something did. As I drove out of the parking lot I was quickly planning my exit strategy but had yet to make a move. I knew I wanted to apologize to my therapist so I shot off a quick text only to soon get the reply of “are you safe?” I knew the answer was not one that I wanted to admit. Not to her. Because I knew she actually cared. Instead of a yes or no I let just a bit of my guard down and simply asked if I could come sit at the building.
In that moment I let some of the shame go.
She invited me to her office, just to sit in silence if I wanted, to have a safe space. She was kind even though my Ed self had just been awful to her. After all of what has been happening lately she still didn’t think I was too flawed for freedom. How can this person who owes me nothing still give me so much? What value does she continue to see in me? And why can’t I seem to grasp any of it for myself?
The shame. My shame. That I constantly inflict on myself. It’s holding me back from me. And the only way out is going to be through it. Over and over and over again. I have to learn how to accept that I have a purpose in this world, and I am not too broken to fulfill it.
