Episode 2: Two Sides of a Coin

In this week's episode I roll up my sleeves, once again get comfortable being uncomfortable, and tackle a topic that we often shy away from but which most of us will experience at some point in our lives. Shame. What is it? How does it affect us? What can we do about it? Using some personal examples from my own relationship with Shame I hope we can all get a little less nervous about something that's pretty hard to avoid.

Transcript

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Intro: Let's explore the value in being vulnerable. They're the kinds of challenges that people have to deal with all the time. Let's see if we can get comfortable with being uncomfortable. What are the big challenges that you've had to face before? I want to open up a conversation around mental health in this country. Hello. Welcome to The Suicidal Man podcast. My name is Kerry Lawless. I'm your hosts and, yeah, thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in today. This is Episode two of my mental health podcast, where I'm trying to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I'm trying to take topics that I think are important and connected to, you know, issues around mental health and just try and talk about them in a way that's honest and open and hopefully helpful to any of you that are listening. So yeah, look, it's early days. I'm finding my feet with this but I hope you stick with me and like I said last week in Episode one, I really want people to get involved. I want to hear from you. I'd like to hear your ideas and, hopefully, we can get a conversation going here that will be helpful to people. So yeah, it's Episode two and I figured I may as well roll up my sleeves and get stuck in here. The topic that I want to talk about today is, I suppose it's, you know, it's a fairly serious topic. I think it's something that affects a lot of people at different times in their life. And I know when I was talking to friends about doing this, the reaction was probably a little bit similar to when I told them the name of the podcast. Originally, there was kind of a hesitation and a moment's pause, and they were kind of looking at me going 'Really, you want to go there?' But you know, once once we kind of sat with it for a minute it made sense, you know? So on that basis I'm going to get comfortable being uncomfortable here today and the topic I want to talk about today is the topic of shame. And I suppose it's interesting that I'm doing this now in the middle of this whole health crisis, this whole Coronavirus thing, because you know the word virus has been on everyone's lips for the last couple of months and we're learning about what a virus is. We're learning about how it can affect people, were learning about how it spreads. And I think, you know, when I think about shame, I think that it has a lot in common with a virus. I mean first and foremost, shame is invisible. You know, it's not something that can be seen. The effects of it can be seen, but in and of itself, it's an invisible, silent enemy. And I think it's also something that very can be very difficult to detect. It can be very difficult to notice that it's there. It can be difficult to contain. It can be difficult to to treat or to deal with. It also doesn't discriminate. You know, like a virus, a virus doesn't care whether you're rich or poor, or black or white or male or female or whatever, you know? And I think shame can be like that too. It doesn't discriminate. It effects people in different ways. But I do think that, you know, most of us at some point in our life are going to experience shame and have shame affect us in some way. And I suppose that's why I wanted to kind of get it out there like a virus and put it under the microscope and examine it a little bit and look at how it can affect us. And, you know, I'm going to use some examples from my own life because it's something that I've had to deal with many times over the years and even relatively recently was something that I was really struggling with and that affected me quite quite badly, I suppose. And, yeah, you know, I just I wanted to talk about that. I mean, the reason that I want to share these things on the programme is because I believe that the things that we're afraid to talk about are the things that are potentially most damaging and, you know, that thing about just being able to name something and be a bit open around it and talk about it with somebody. I mean, obviously I would be doing a bit of that here on the podcast to, you know, however many people are listening and I'll be talking about some personal stuff. And I suppose I'm doing that because I want to show that it's OK to do that, that it's not as scary as it might seem. You know, I've talked about certain things before to groups and publicly so, you know, it's not entirely my first time doing this. I've seen people do it too and I'm sure you have as well. I'm sure you've seen interviews with people on TV or listened to people on the radio who've been very honest and open about some of their struggles and, you know, usually the response to that is pretty positive. Because I think when we hear stuff like that we can relate and we can connect with it and we can learn from it. So in talking about shame today and sharing some of the stuff that I'll be sharing with you, I suppose that's the reason I'm doing it. Shame is such a scary word. It's a scary concept. It's something that isn't talked about a lot. I think it's something that people just.... it can be overwhelming to even think about it, you know. But I also know from from my own experience and from work I've done that it is something that has a massive impact on people and is very common. So it might be good to start by just thinking about what shame is. You know, how would we define it, or how would we describe it? Um, I think shame is that feeling of being inadequate. It's a feeling of being maybe bad or flawed or not good enough or feeling like you're wrong, you're always wrong. You're unimportant, you know, it's a very deep kind of a core feeling that can exist there without us even realising it, you know, without us even noticing that it's there. It can be humming away in the background and can have a massive impact in terms of our thoughts, on our behaviours and our actions and our decisions that we make, our relationships. You know, every facet of our lives, and I think that's the danger of it, because it can be there and it can go undetected. But that doesn't make it any less powerful. And, you know, we live in a world where a lot is expected of us as men and as women in our various roles. Whether that's as family members, as partners, as employees, as employers, whatever it might be, you know, to be perfect, to be on top of your game at all times, to be effective, to be successful. That pressure is there, and it's coming at us from every direction a lot of the time. And, you know, when we feel that maybe we're not living up to those expectations or succeeding in the way that is expected of us, shame can creep in very quickly. So I think it's something that we need to be really vigilant about. I think it's something that we need to get comfortable with looking out and talking about, because it can impact us in so many ways. You know, if you talk to any counsellor or therapist, they'll tell you that shame can lead to any number of problems. It can lead to depression, anxiety, eating disorders, addiction, low self esteem, pretty much any kind of mental health issue that you can think of. Shame can be a part of us and, unfortunately, I think that if the people over the years who have committed suicide could come back and tell us why they did what they did and what was going on for them I think you'd find that shame would be at the root off a lot of that, you know? I mean, statistically, people who take their own lives can be struggling with financial issues, relationship issues, addiction issues, you know, mental health issues, obviously. So all of those things can be very inextricably linked with shame. So it's, you know, it's something we need to take seriously. It's something that we do need to think about and maybe talk about. And the thing about shame is, you know, it's it's not logical. It doesn't affect everybody in the same way. It's not that..... you know something that causes shame in me might not cause shame in you and vice versa. So it's a very, very personal thing, which is maybe what makes it harder to understand. And for us to get to grips with and to feel like we can talk to other people about it because, you know, there's that feeling of, you know, it's not going to make any sense. There's no point in me talking about this because they won't understand or they think I'm being silly or, you know, all of those thoughts that generally stop us from opening up on reaching out and talking to people. So I think maybe the best way that I can kind of illustrate that point is maybe just sharing a couple of examples from my own life and my own relationship with shame over the years. I mentioned in Episode one that when I was a boy I was sexually abused. And, you know, sexual abuse is something that is very closely associated with shame. You know, if you talk to anybody who's experienced sexual abuse or sexual assault, whether that's man or a woman, you'll often hear them talk about feelings of shame, feelings of guilt. And it's a very powerful side effect of having gone through an experience of sexual abuse or sexual assault. So I suppose given that I've experienced that and went through it on when I was younger, you know, it would stand to reason that I would carry a lot of shame around that. But actually, I don't. I've never felt shame or guilt or anything like that in relation to the fact that I was sexually abused as a kid. And I've often wondered, you know, why that is? Because, you know, shame is something that's talked about so often in relation to sexual abuse and sexual assault and when I think about what it was that maybe helped me avoid those feelings of shame and guilt, I think it's the fact that I did speak up about what happened to me and when I was young, you know. When I was I think it was about 15 and I told my parents about what happened and went to the police and, you know, kind of took action around it.  So it wasn't something that I carried as a big, dark secret for for years, you know? I mean, you know, that was at a time where these things weren't really talked about. You know, it was in the late eighties and, you know, sexual abuse wasn't part of the national conversation the way it is nowadays. And in some regards, I suppose I was fortunate that I was able to talk to family and that when I did go to the guards, it was taken seriously and acted upon on, and when the person was arrested that they confessed. So I suppose I didn't have to go through any painful kind of major court proceedings. So, you know, I suppose there's a combination of factors there that I feel kind of helped me avoid the shame and the guilt that I that I could have carried as a result of what happened to me. And I think that the most important of them is that I spoke to somebody. So yeah, look, I just wanted to share that story as, ah, an example of, you know, that shame doesn't always work the way you expect it to. On the flip side and more recently, I've had some major struggles with shame in the last couple of years. Just over two years ago, I was managing a mental health project and for a variety of reasons which were out of my control we lost our funding and I suddenly found myself being made redundant. And it was a huge blow. You know, I suppose I thought, OK, I'll, you know, knuckle down, start applying for jobs for myself out there and, you know, hopefully get something pretty quickly, but that didn't happen. And so I found myself unemployed for a lot longer than I expected to be. And naturally, one of the problems with that was that it, you know, had a major impact on my limited finances. So I was forced to kind of make some tough decisions. I decided to move out of Dublin, ended up moving down to Leitrim, where I live now very happily, a beautiful part of the country. And I had to kind of think about working in something else, you know, and I suppose, because I'd worked as a painter and decorator in the past, it was kind of the obvious choice. To go back to painting to decorate and just try to keep myself going while I, you know, look for other work that was more in the field that I'd kind of been working for in the last 10, 12 years, you know. And that was a really difficult decision because I suppose for me at the time, it just felt like a massive step backwards. Not that there's anything wrong with being a painter and decorator, you know, I'd done it in the past that and had my own business,  it had served me well. But, you know, I felt like I had moved on from that. I had gone back to college, I'd retrained, and I'd spent, you know, the guts of 12- 13 years working in, you know, community work, in mediation and training and all that kind of stuff. So to kind of have to go back and pick up a paintbrush and do that just felt, yeah, it was really tough. It was a really tough decision. My ego really struggled with it. It did feel like a huge step backwards and with that came a lot of shame. You know, I just felt like I had failed, like this was all my fault. What have I done wrong? You know, did I make some bad decisions? And you know, all those kind of thoughts that we just tend to beat ourselves up with came floating in, you know, and so, you know, yes, I was painting and really struggling with it. There was days I'd come home and I'd just cry because I just felt like all the hard work, all the things that I tried to achieve in the previous 10 years or so had, you know, just kind of vanished. And here I was back to doing something that I'd done 15 years previously and I kind of thought that I'd left behind. So it was really, really tough and there was a lot of shame. And that shame manifested inside me in feelings of frustration. I felt humiliated. I felt embarrassed. I felt angry. I felt resentment, you know, like none of the feelings that you want to be feeling. You know, they were not pleasant feelings to be carrying around inside. And, you know, I mean I did talk to a couple of people about how I was feeling. And, you know, their response was generally being kind of like 'fair play to you.'  You're doing what you need to do. You're not sitting around. You're not letting it get you down, you're getting out there. You're working hard. You're, you know, making a living and you're, you know, still applying for other jobs. And you know while that was true, it wasn't much consolation. You know, I was still feeling those feelings of shame and struggling with them for a long time. And eventually I did get another job kind of more into what I was interested in doing, which I'm doing still, the mediation role that I'm in now. But I suppose when I look back on that time, what really strikes me is that it had a real effect on my relationships on my connections with people. And during that time there was a lot of people that I kind of stopped getting in touch with. There was a lot of people that I, you know, I didn't maintain my relationships with. I didn't see them as often and I didn't, you know, respond to their Facebook messages or whatever. And, you know, I just kind of kept away from them. And when I look back on that and I realised that an awful lot of that was to do with shame. I was afraid that if I rang some of those people are connected with them that, you know, the first question they'd ask me is, how are you doing? You know, how's it going? How's life? And I didn't want to tell them that my life had gone pear-shaped and I was broke and I was struggling, and I was stressed and I'd had to go back to painting and decorating because I couldn't get a job in some of the work I wanted to be doing. And, you know, I just didn't wanna have those conversations. I didn't want to look them in the eye feel that shame. So I avoided them and if I'm being honest, which I'm trying to be here, there were some people that I didn't get in touch with because, you know, from my perspective and looking at them, it seemed like they had things figured out. They were doing well, and work was going well, and relationships were going well, and, you know, and I just I didn't want to be around that because I think deep down there was.....I had jealousy going on and I resented it and I resented them. And I mean it's kind of hard to name that and say that now but I'm doing it because I think it's important. You know, this is how shame can play out. This is how shame can affect us. It can affect our relationships. It can affect how we deal with people, you know. And during that period, I lost touch with quite a number of people that that I really cared about, people who I used to work with, people that I was friends with. A lot of those relationships, I kind of let them let them go or I didn't put any effort into them and it was really only afterwards, when I look back, I realised how much of that was to do with my own shame around my circumstances. And from a lot of the work I've done over the years, particularly with men on the mental health programme that I had been working on, ironically, before I was made redundant, you know, that shame about not working, not having enough money to maybe support your family or even yourself at time,s can be really, really damaging on painful. And it can lead to depression, it can lead to crippling stress and all kinds of mental health issues. So it's very important that we keep an eye on it. And the irony isn't lost on me that I was working with men around that very issue for a number of years and then found myself in exactly the same boat. So I mean, that's the thing about shame. You know, none of us is immune to it. It's something that we need to keep an eye on all the time. It can creep up when you least expect it. And, you know, that mental health programme that I was working on, that originated in the years after the last economic crash. In 2008 there was high numbers of suicides in a certain area in Dublin and this programme was put together to provide support for men who were, you know, at risk of suicide at the time. And I'm very conscious now that we are in an equally and potentially worse economic scenario, you know, things are going to be tough coming down the tracks. And, unfortunately, it's at times like that, and  statistics kind of proved this out, and not just in Ireland, that when there's serious economic difficulties in the country, the suicide rate tends to go up. Because, you know, invariably, when men lose work, when men lose their incomes, when men lose their maybe their sense of purpose in terms of providing for themselves and their families, it can really hit them hard and can affect their mental health. And there could be a lot of shame around their inability to support their families and themselves. So with the fact that there's a strong chance that that's coming down the tracks again here, there's a lot of people who have lost their jobs. There's a lot of people that are going to be out of work in the months and, possibly, years ahead and I'd have huge concern that we're going to see another increase in those levels of potentially self harm and suicide. And while that's at the extreme end of the spectrum, before that there's a lot more people that will really, really struggle. So I suppose for that reason I wanted to talk about shame at this point. I wanted to put it out there and just create awareness around it. So I've talked a lot about shame and how it can impact us and some of my own kind of challenges with it and I suppose I want to spend the last part of this episode just talking about how we can maybe manage shame and deal with it. I'm not going to claim that I have it figured out. I've told you my own struggles with it and it's a very complicated, difficult topic and there's no kind of quick fix, easy solutions. And I'm certainly not going to claim to have, you know, figured it out and have all the answers. But if I could maybe just kind of throw a few suggestions out there in terms of what I think can be useful in dealing with it and some of the things that I found useful. I think the first thing with shame is just to keep an eye out for it, just to be aware that it it could be there for you. You know, it could be something that's there in the background. Or it could be something that somebody that is close to you or one of your loved ones or family member or a friend or a partner could be struggling with. Because if we don't notice it or pay attention to it then there's nothing we can do about it. So you know, the first thing is just to be vigilant. The other thing I'd say is if you do notice that it's there or you see signs of it, try not to shy away from it. I think that, you know, like a lot of things, if we try and ignore something, we actually end up giving it more power. Whereas if we kind of turn and face it and shine some light on it and try and kind of look at it honestly, it can reduce its power. It's the kind of thing that, you know, the more we ignore it, the more power it can end up having over us. And the more it can impact and influence our behaviours and our decisions and our relationships. So try not to shy away from it. And because it can be tricky if you need to, or somebody you know needs to, then get support. There's a lot of organisations and people out there who work with people around this all the time that can support people in looking at shame or the impacts of or the reasons behind it. And it's not something that you need to tackle or deal with on your own. And for me a few years ago, I suppose, when I was struggling with my shame because I was back painting when I didn't want to be, something that I found very useful was to just kind of step back from the situation and try and look at it objectively. Because I was blaming myself. I was feeling like this was all my fault, that it was all my responsibility and that was a big part of the problem and a big part of the reason why I was feeling so bad. And when I stood back and kind of went, okay, hang on a second, 'are you fully responsible for this situation? Is this all your fault?' And, you know, I very quickly realised that it wasn't. There were a load of different factors that had resulted in me having to take that decision to go back to painting and when I realised that, when I recognised that it wasn't all my fault, that it wasn't all my responsibility, that helped me with shame. It kind of made me feel like, okay, sometimes life throws stuff at you and it made me realise that, you know, I hadn't done anything wrong. It wasn't entirely my fault and life just kind of works out that way, and sometimes things don't go your way, and sometimes the unexpected happens and you can't take all the responsibility for that because that can lead to shame. And if I can generalise for a bit here, I think I think we're not very good at being gentle with ourselves. You know we can be very good at giving ourselves a hard time, beating ourselves up, blaming ourselves for stuff that isn't always necessarily our fault And so that brings me to my last point in terms of you know, what can be helpful. If you look at shame as one side of a coin, I would see the other side of that coin as being pride. And I know that pride is a very sensitive subject. It's something that, you know, pride is something that can make people equally as uncomfortable as shame. I think in Ireland we're very good at doing collective pride, and we're good at doing national pride, whether that's in terms of sport or culture or, the people or the countryside or whatever it is. There's lots of collective pride out there. But I also think that people find it very, very difficult to focus on or feel personal pride. And we can get into debates as to why that is. Maybe it's something that hasn't ever really been encouraged. Obviously we've been a very religious country for a long time, and pride is seen as a sin. So we don't have necessarily a healthy relationship with healthy pride. And sometimes I think pride can be seen as arrogance or being full of yourself or all of that kind of stuff. But I think pride is incredibly important and valuable and healthy. Because we need to be able to recognise ourselves personally for our achievements and the things that we do well and the things that we've done well and the things we're good at as something that kind of counteracts or counterbalances any feelings of shame. I think pride can be very important and helpful. So I think it's something that I know, it's something I've had to kind of try and get comfortable with and practise over the years. Just trying to acknowledge myself and allow myself to feel pride in some of my achievements and some of the things I've done. Because I'm very good and I have been very good at beating myself up. And so it's something that's a tool that I've used and found helpful. And whether it was in terms of, you know, being sexually abused, in the past I have felt a lot of pride about the fact that I spoke up when I did. I did something about it when I did and that really helped me. And then again, more recently, you know, when I was back to painting and decorating when my career had gone a bit off the rails, I had to really work hard at reminding myself of some of the work I had done over the years. I just had to remind myself of some of that stuff on the days where I was feeling, you know, just completely on the ropes and beating myself up and, you know, smothered in shame. So I think pride has value and it is a tool that can be very helpful and useful. And if you don't like the word pride, think of another word. You know, if that's a word that just is too loaded, then come up with another word for yourself. But it's basically about just getting comfortable and recognising ourselves for the things that we do well or that we have done in the past, And hopefully that can provide some balance in terms of how we feel about ourselves. I don't think there's much question that in the weeks and the months and the years ahead, a lot of us are going to be really challenged and tested in terms of our resilience and our mental health. And I do think there is gonna be a lot of shame out there as people struggle financially, struggle with employment issues, struggle with relationships, all of those things that impact how people feel about themselves. I just feel it's something that we all need to be vigilant about. We need to look after ourselves and look out for each other. And I suppose that's why I brought up the topic of shame today. And I am aware that it's a tough topic and any of you who have made it this far in the episode, fair play to you! I suspect there might be some people that turned off after the first 5 minutes because it's not something they wanted to be listening to or talking about. So thanks for sticking with it. It's an important subject and I hope that just by shedding a bit of light on it today and naming it a bit that that's of use. And I'm also aware that, you know, some of the topics that I talked about today are pretty serious. So if you need any support, or if something that you're listening to here, something that came up was difficult for you, then check out the website. You'll find it at The Suicidal Man dotcom and on the supports page there's a list of organisations and charities all over the country that provide mental health supports. So I'll leave it at that for today. And if you like what you hear, if you want to support the show in some way, you can donate on my website page on the Patron link or you can go to the Patreon website and look up The Suicidal Man. Yeah, like I said last week, the show is free but any financial contribution towards the running costs would be greatly appreciated. Okay, I'll say goodbye. See you next week. Mind yourselves. Mind each other. Be well. Thanks for listening.