Hi Freewilled -

I can relate to so many of your posts and was just thinking about bringing this to T this week.

I've only been seeing new T for a couple of months, but I did address this in a straightforward way with my former T. I brought it up in the very beginning of therapy when telling him about my reactions to emails I sent to coworkers. I said I felt embarrassed of my emails all of the time and cringed when people would reply, afraid of the responses. It was worrisome and stressful to me. He asked-what is it about the replies that make you feel ashamed? We went over some of the replies-it turned out, nothing. The replies seemed "normal" to me. No one said anything to me that led to me feeling ashamed about what I said or regretful for sending the email.

So we went through what I wrote in the emails. What have you written that is embarrassing to you-give me an example? I went through all of the different emails and subject content. I realized that I was not ashamed for anything I said or did, but instead, was ashamed just of being me and revealing myself to other people. T became very serious and was very empathetic. He rarely judged anyone, but this is the first time I remembered where he got really mad at my parents and made some remark about how the type of parenting I had can almost destroy a child (a child's soul). We sat in silence for a few moments.

That opened the door for discussing the toxic shame. Before that, I used to be confused about what shame was (to me), mixing it up with guilt. After that I realized shame is more about being and guilt is more about doing.

What helped the most in addition to these types of specific mini-discussions, was me continuously revealing the not-so-desirable parts of myself to him over time rather than filtering what I said through my ego. Sometimes abruptly, sometimes slowly and cautiously. I think his accepting all facets of me really helped with feelings of shame. I accept myself much more than I have in the past, but I still struggle with it. Working with a new T is really going to help, I believe. Maybe I'll grow out of this if I was unconditionally accepted by more than one significant other. It takes time and repetition. Each little bit helps.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.