Dear ninibee:

You started this thread on April 9, 2021, with: “Throughout my entire life, I have left behind a trail of people who don’t like me. I leave a bad taste in people’s mouths”-

– The bad taste is in your mouth: it is the taste of shame, isn’t it?

Most recently you wrote: “I feel great amounts of anxiety and shame around what I post. I feel like I never should have.. opened my mouth”-

– Is it that when you open your mouth, the taste of shame intensifies?

“I worry I waste people’s time on here.. being difficult and weird and unreachable”-

– Part of you wants to be rejected, so that you get the okay to stop posting/ stop opening your mouth, and as a result, there will be less of that taste?

Your battle with shame, this exhausting battle makes you want to give up and give in. What if you give up on the battle itself: what if you endure that bad taste, accept it best you can, no longer trying to get rid of the taste?

What I am saying is that there is no way of getting rid of shame quickly- so accept it, don’t fight it, and keep talking, keep communicating. Over time, if you persist, the taste will lessen and lessen and finally, there will be that taste of sweetness in your mouth, and you will say to yourself: aha, that’s what sweet is, how different life is, how different it feels.. I didn’t know!

anita