On the Outside, Looking In

I read a quote the other day that made me sit up and take note. This is long.

...when shame has been completely internalized, nothing about you is okay.  You feel flawed and inferior; you have the sense of being a failure.  There is no way you can share your inner self because you are an object of contempt to yourself.  When you are contemptible to yourself, you are no longer in you.  To feel shame is to feel seen in an exposed and diminished way.  When you're an object to yourself, you turn your eyes inward, watching and scrutinizing every minute detail of behavior.  This internal critical observation is excruciating.  It generates a tormenting self-consciousness which Kaufman describes as 'creating a binding and paralyzing effect upon the self.'  This paralyzing internal monitoring causes withdrawal, passivity and inaction....To be severed and alienated within oneself also creates a sense of unreality.  One may have an all-pervasive sense of never quite belonging, of being on the outside looking in...  This also has to do with the sadness of losing one's authentic self.  Perhaps the deepest and most devastating aspect of neurotic shame is the rejection of the self by the self.

Woah.  Yeah. I have spent my entire life feeling like I just walked into the middle of a long, detailed conversation and have tried to talk my way through it.  It's exhausting.  And I think I'm done with it.

Know what else is exhausting?  Self-discovery.  :)