I’m having a really bad day today.
Not a my-wife-left-me, dog-died, lost-my-house and
wrecked-my-pickup kind of day. Those are legitimate reasons for wanting to cry
into your beer and/or write a country song.
Rather, I am dealing with a more insidious reason: shame. Shame from a long, long time
ago, re-emerging through a series of events over the last 24 hours.
I feel so ashamed that I don’t even want to write about it. “That’s
stupid, Amanda,” I can already hear someone say. “Get over yourself. Just who
do you think you are?”
Good question.
But I’m going to talk about it anyway because I believe that, when we give voice to shame, we weaken it.
We can even silence it altogether – at least, for a time. And just as importantly,
there’s always a chance someone will say, “Hey, me too,” which is a big part of
why I write these posts in the first place.
And so, with that, here’s how and why my day got very dark
very quickly.
It started last night, when I did something kind of, well,
kick ass.
I was at my 9-year-old’s school’s parent council meeting
(not as a council member, but as an interested parent), looking pretty fabulous
and with just enough caffeine in me to make me say things before I think them
all the way through.
Towards the end of the meeting, someone asked how we could
get better volunteer attendance; it’s always the same core council members with
a few extra parents. In a school of nearly 700 students, we could do better.
Some good ideas were thrown around, but mostly folks agreed
they had “tried pretty much everything” with little change.
Well, my brain hamster was pretty high on coffee, so I shot
my hand up and said, “I think we need to be more inclusive and let people know
they’re welcome.”
Yep. Just like that. You can dress the activist up, but you
can’t take her anywhere.
I told them I have a wife. I told them I’ve heard from other
same-sex parents who are worried about not being welcomed within school
communities. Oh, and then I went on to point out that everyone in the room was
white, and that we should recognize that and ask ourselves why, in a school
with such a diverse population, we don’t see that reflected at council meetings.
So, basically, I
outed myself to a room full of people, brought up queerness and race, and said
we all need to do better. I did so in a room full of parents, the
principal, the vice principal and some teachers.
Oh, and I’m now on
parent council.
I know I talk a lot about my life online, in the media and
to rooms full of people who know what to expect. But there’s something about
making yourself vulnerable on the fly that makes your now panicked brain
hamster freak fall right off the wheel.
So, by this morning, I had what researcher and incredible
human being Brené Brown calls a “vulnerability hangover.” It’s when you put
yourself out there, and then you find yourself mortified by that fact for a
little while after. That “OMG. What did I just do?” kind of feeling.
When I start my day with a vulnerability hangover (which has
happened more times than I can count, given the work I do), I’m going to
internalize the day’s events in ways that are far more negative than usual.
Obviously, today was no exception.
I went to a launch for a large local fundraising campaign. I
was asked to go by the organizers specifically because my family has been part
of their fundraising efforts, and therefore, media might want to speak to me.
News flash (I use this term ironically): No media wanted to speak to me.
Apparently, the reason is because they’ve all recently
interviewed me. Between Zoe coming out and our efforts to help our friends from Finland, we’ve been in close contact with a lot of news agencies this year. It’s
not at all surprising they wanted to interview other people instead.
But, of course, that’s not how Hangover Amanda interpreted
it. Not even close.
“Who do you think you
are?” the critic in me said. “See? You
shouldn’t have come. Everyone is tired of hearing you talk. Hope you had fun,
because they’ll never invite you back.”
But don’t worry, shame wasn’t done with me just yet. I also
spilled Diet Pepsi all over the table I was at because I was too busy talking
with my hands. And then I had nothing to clean it up with, so I pulled some
used tissues from my purse to mop it up with. All class, all the time.
As the closing act to Shame-a-palooza 2016, my credit card
was denied in the parking garage while 10 people were in line behind me, and
then said machine ate my ticket. So I had to call for help and yell into the
crackly speaker while occasionally turning around and mouthing, “sorry! I’m so sorry!” behind me.
I left with heart palpitations in my chest and a lump in my
throat. Shame is balls.
Over the last couple
of years, I have consciously learned to love myself. I did it to be an
authentic role model for my daughter, and also because I started to realize I
could not let anyone else love me if I didn’t think I was worthy of that love in
the first place. And I do a great job most days. Hell, I just delivered a TedX talk on this very topic, which
will be available online soon.
And yet, here I was, hating on myself today - hard. Belittling myself. Asking myself just who I think I am. So
not only am I feeling ashamed by this point, but I’m feeling ashamed of feeling
ashamed. Emotional inception.
I came home, and Juliet – the trans woman from Finland who’s been staying
with us while she attempts to seek refuge in Canada – asked me how my day was.
“Do you really want to know?” I asked, holding back tears.
I didn’t want to tell her. She tells me all the time that I’m
her hero. Despite my constant disagreement on the issue, she has this idea of
me that is far more impressive than reality. I was ashamed to admit how I was
feeling to this person who expects me to be strong.
But I did, because humans need help from other humans
sometimes, and my brain hamster was tired of running all those thoughts around
on the wheel.
And then she said something really insightful. She told me
those negative thoughts are like a tree that has grown over time. The branches
can grow and throw us some shade.
“You’ll never be able to get rid of the tree,” she
said. “It’s a part of you. But you can trim the branches back enough to see the
sun again. That’s what you have to do on days like today.”
Finnish people. They’re pretty smart.
And that’s why I’m writing this. I’m trimming the tree back.
Because she’s right: I’ll never be able to kill it. That tree was planted when I
was a child – back when things and other people were the ones saying terrible
things to me – and it will always be in my yard. But I can control how it
grows. Shame might exist in my world, but it doesn’t have to take over.
Funny enough, today is also the day I got a nice, short
tweet from Brené Brown herself – someone I deeply admire. On a day filled with
shame, this was a nice reminder that I can be pretty brave, too.
So, just who do I think I am? The girl with the pruning shears
staring up at the branches, that’s who.