YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Sometimes in public, I'll feel a weird mix of

Anxiety,
Shame
Guilt
Mild Paranoia

which leads to avoidance.

Other times, no problem at all! I can look people in the face, smile, and say hello...

Very strange.

I had this mix of feelings very strong in my mid 20's.

Comes from a number of things I guess....

Maybe from a particular state of depression and/or anxiety that day, and not wanting to face a social interaction no matter how trivial, that's not initiated by me....

(When I pass people in the street, I like to and feel that it's right to at least acknowledge their presence).

Last Father's day I was walking my namesake around the neighborhood and seeing people dressed up for visits and thinking about my father who's passed......
This brought on regrets about some of our interactions and how they could have been better.

I've often thought about what it would be like to interact with older family members if we were the same age.....

At the pool today, working on getting my shoulder back to normal after a "frozen shoulder" episode from last December.

So there I am, swimming around with the floating dumbells in my hands to help gently hyper-extend my shoulder. Then standing in the water and raising my arms overhead etc.

All the while oscillating between thoughts of " People are looking at me, and thinking me strange" and "No one gives a shit what you're doing, and even if so, so what?"

Are we all so self conscious? Sometimes I can feel it in my face, like blushing.
Even here, typing this out, I'm feeling a slight frisson...

Hi snoringdog,
Like mm, I also had this very strong in my 20's. Trauma therapy has helped me b/c so much of what happens to us as children we blame ourselves for out of survival (better to think yourself bad than unsafe).

I recommended this book to you on another thread, It's not always Depression has helped me see shame as a survival mechanism hiding a painful emotion (fear, anger most often). I wanted to apologize to someone this week for my behaviour when I was angry and I had to spend a *lot* of time getting past the shame before I could do it. I spent some time feeling anger for the original event, then feeling fear that I had done something unforgivable. After that I was able to say "hey, I want to apologize for the way I got angry. It wasn't kind or fair." It was really cool for me because I usually cry or get defensive when I apologize.

There's lots of ways to look at shame and this particular one is working for me right now.
Heather

Thanks. Yes, I did listen to that episode "Discovering Our Core Emotions" and am looking forward to reading her book.

I *do* have depression but also have trouble identifying emotions and verbalizing them instead of burying or trying to subdue them. (Maybe that's linked?)
Learning that it's better to identify & acknowledge, and then move on from there. Still pretty difficult though....

Very hard work!
I'm fortunate to have never had depression, but I did wonder about that book title and whether it was appropriate. People already feel so judged.