The Stories Shame Tells Us About Ourselves
(4 minute read) | Home
Years ago, after a panic attack, I wasn't just frightened. I was embarrassed.
Sitting in the doctor's office, my thoughts were less about what had happened to me and more about what other people might think if they found out. Would they see me differently? Would they think I was weak, not capable, or not up to the task? Would they replay every mistake I'd ever made as a teacher and decide I'd never really been competent in the first place? Would this simply confirm what I'd feared all along, that I'd somehow fooled everyone into believing I was more capable than I really was? Worse yet, would they conclude there was something fundamentally wrong with me?
Looking back, I realize I misunderstood what frightened me most. I thought it was the panic attack. It took me years to understand that it wasn't the panic attack itself that frightened me most. It was what I believed it said about me.
Reading Brené Brown's work, studying hypnotherapy, and reflecting on my own experiences gradually helped me understand the difference. The panic attack frightened me. Shame convinced me I had something to hide.
Brené Brown describes the difference this way: guilt says, "I did something bad." Shame says, "I am bad." I realized I hadn't simply been afraid of the panic attack. I wanted to hide the panic attack because I believed people would judge me, lose respect for me, or quietly decide I was somehow less than.
For me, the panic attack touched far more than a few minutes in time. It stirred old beliefs I'd carried about myself for years. It felt as though every old fear I'd ever held about myself had suddenly been confirmed.
What I understand now is those feelings didn't begin that day. They were older than that. They echoed beliefs that had taken root during childhood and were reinforced by years of relentless bullying. The panic attack didn't create those beliefs, it exposed them.
As I learned more about shame and how our early experiences can shape the way we see ourselves, something slowly became clear. Somewhere along the way, I'd mistaken an experience for an identity.
For years, I quietly believed that my panic attacks, my anxiety, and the shame I carried said something about the kind of person I was. Over time, I began to see them differently. They were experiences I'd lived through. They'd influenced parts of my life, but they'd never defined who I was. None of them got to decide who I was. They became chapters in my story, not the title of it.
That realization made me wonder how many of us quietly mistake our experiences for our identity. How many of us begin describing ourselves by the hardest things we've ever lived through, or by the harshest words we've heard about ourselves along the way?
Maybe you've heard some of them yourself. "You're too sensitive." "What's wrong with you?" "Can't you do anything right?" Or maybe the words were never spoken out loud, inferred but no less damaging. Maybe they were simply the conclusions you reached after years of painful experiences.
After a while, those messages can become so familiar that we stop questioning them. They no longer sound like someone else's voice. They begin to sound like our own. Eventually, they begin to feel less like thoughts and more like facts.
Life leaves its mark on all of us. Some experiences change us in ways we never expected. They may leave scars, but they don't determine our worth. They become part of our story, not the whole story.
Healing has taught me that acknowledging those experiences isn't the same as allowing them to define me. I can't change what happened, but I can look back with greater understanding, perspective, and self-compassion than I was capable of before. Gradually, I stopped assuming shame was telling me the truth. Instead, I began giving myself the benefit of the doubt. I began questioning the conclusions I'd carried about myself for so many years.
For me, healing has felt less like reinventing myself, and more like making my way home to myself.
