Shame was a Rotten Fruit I Had to Eat
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Funny what a person would do to satiate hunger. Live long enough on things that fill but not nourish, you start mistaking one for another.
Recently, I found a post speaking of moving the motive behind discipline from shame to love:
Your relationship with discipline changes so much when you shift doing things from shame to love. From "I have to clean" to realizing I deserve to have a clean home. From "I need to work out" to I deserve to have a healthy body. You deserve to have the best from yourself.
Oh and do I have a lot to say about this one.
For almost all of my life, I have had a long, intense, all-encompassing relationship with shame in the way that it almost always subconsciously influenced lots of my decision-making, as well as how I processed past events in my life. This lasted years. Decades, even.
Shame was prominent in my friendships. Prominent, even in my relationship with my family. In my education, my career, my dreams. Most prominent though especially in how I saw myself, how I presented myself inside these interpersonal relationships. For years I have allowed myself to be small, to be taken advantage of, to be mimicked, to be judged, to be punished, all because I genuinely felt that I deserved it. Shame colored how I treated myself, making me believe that I have always had to do and give more as the compensation for even breathing.
I suppose, it really was just one day in 2022 that I decided that, wait, I actually deserved more. I deserved to feel good about myself. I deserved to have a better life quality, to take space. To put myself first even if, especially if nobody else would. To experience joy that I could never feel because my bipolar had taken a big chunk of my life that I could never get back.
My relationship with discipline, as the original poster said it, changed. The discipline that I usually applied to myself for other people's or my environment's betterment I started doing for myself. I gained self-worth. Fell in love with myself. Fell in love with life. Until, suddenly, the events or the issues that could have destroyed me five years ago I can withstand now just fine. I, in fact, even thrive in them.
I guess if I saw it from the lens of the person I was before five years ago, I'd consider my current self selfish. Because my past self was so used to being small, being loving, waiting for "scraps" as I used to say it. I used to wish from others what I have given to them as a gift. If not that, then the bare minimum. The shame in even hoping for a return. The shame in even asking for it when there wasn't anything shameful from asking what I deserve. Making leeways for people. Forgiving and giving chances far more than any changes in their behavior. Accountability not demanded because appeasement got mistaken for love when it was just enablement and cowardice.
I realized then, like a stroke of lightning, that I was not selfish. I was finally seeing myself for the first time in twenty-nine years. And I didn't like what I saw.
So, in my next session with my psychiatrist that time, I told her I needed to do something with this shame, because I hadn't been living, I hadn't been respecting myself. For decades. All that wasted time. And I wanted, this time, to live for me.
Changes are hard. I find, at times, even now, that I still fall back into my shame trap for how much it had been ingrained inside me, my personality, and my mind. Standing up for myself and my belief had always been easy. What's hard is standing up for what I think I deserve, that other people brush off because they think they could. And that's different.
Anyway, fast forward four years later and here I am. I think throughout half of 2026 I have cut ties with like, three long-time close friends? In the last four years I have lost like, 10 or so old friendships. Which is kinda unheard of even for me. (Almost even cut ties with my mother, although we ended up working it out in the end with a lot of effort from both of us.)
I guess for me from five years ago it would have been devastating. Would have gotten me into bouts of shame and guilt and whatever the hell it was that got me into depressive episodes and self-loathing yadda yadda. Nowadays though I'm like, well, you're a piece of shit, please get out of my sight.
Many of them, of course, got defensive and started acting like the victim and started blaming me for whatever the hell it was that would help them think they have won the narrative. Honestly, they can tell themselves whatever they want. I have the receipts. People seeing the receipts would know who's right. And I don't enjoy wasting my breath and energy for something that gives nothing for me. I'd rather read novels. Or draw.
But yeah, it took me so long to get here. Sometimes pre-2022 feels like a different person compared to the way I am now and sometimes I still feel sad for all the time wasted not feeling joy for myself, but I'm now here. I'm grateful that I get to feel it myself. Shame was a rotten fruit I had to eat to survive. Now I know that I don't need to eat it at all.
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