Public Shame versus Private Shame

Recently I began reading an autobiographical novel by Mary Karr called, "Lit". I won't go in to the details of the book, although I will say I have been enjoying reading it very much. I will say that the great effort she puts in to telling the reader that her perspective is simply her own and that every one of us who goes through life experiences things in their own way made reading her work palatable. If she had not made this effort to expressly tell the reader that she was speaking of things relating to others but in a way that was personal and unique to her--it may not have been a book I could continue to read.


When I began to write this blog, I came to it with the same idea. My experiences of family are what interest me and plague my thoughts more than anything else in life. I can't help but write about relationships because they are all I think about and I realize that I think about them in ways that maybe other people wouldn't. Sometimes this works out well. Other times, it causes others and me some embarrassment and even pain. That's not my goal. My goal is to find ways to work out the kinks that make the relationships that mean the world to me feel difficult.


I don't like secrets. I don't like living like there is an elephant in the room that nobody will talk about. When I have found myself in the kind of environment where the unspoken rule among many seems to be to not talk about one thing or another--I tend to be completely unable to stay quiet. I'm almost compulsive about talking about the things nobody wants to mention.


While others find ways to tell themselves that a situation is none of their business or that it will work itself out if given time, I tend to demand that the elephant be given a spotlight and a bath and some food and water before we send it back to the safari where it belongs. Usually I find that the reason people don't want to do this is that they are afraid of the elephant. It might raise itself up on its hind legs and bring itself down upon all of us or thrash around the room. My feeling is that if we don't, we will end up knee deep in elephant dung. Not acknowledging a thing does not make the thing go away.


My interest in exposing and dealing with secrets is not to hurt people. It's not to embarrass anyone. It's to find a way toward living without the secrets and the shame. I don't find that the private shame is tolerable but temporary public shame fades. Shame can be replaced by the feeling of pride that comes from dealing with a problem and putting it in the past, where it belongs.