On Shame & Being Seen

I’m learning we can’t heal without other people, without being seen. 

I spent some time in counseling at the beginning of the year. My counselor provided me with good and helpful information but my life and heart didn’t change much. Hearing truth on its own is good, but when un-lived and un-experienced, it’s still just a concept. Truth eventually needs to be backed by experience, and that experience is way more powerful when it involves others.

Somewhere along the lines of my life I began believing that I was only valuable for my strength & competency, that showing up with anything less was unacceptable. Because of that deeply held belief I’ve always been able to push through pain, to pretend I’m not struggling, but the past year has been different. About one year ago my body started falling apart bit by bit, with no answers as to why. Dizziness, nausea, weakness, constant pain, and a whole host of weird other things started popping up whenever they pleased. I went into hiding, doing the bare minimum at the horse farm I work at every morning, where I could still hide the weakness since I work alone. I was lucky, or so I thought, that nobody knew I was struggling. I was proud when I would see friends and they would compliment me on how good I seemed to be doing. So I kept doing what I could and hiding what I couldn’t. 

Then glorious summer bike season began and I quickly realized that I couldn’t predict when my body would break down. I rode with people a few times, at safe, easy trails early in the year. One day I went for a solo ride at a familiar trail, and halfway through my body just melted down and I was stuck sitting on the side of the trail shaking with waves of dizziness, nausea, and pain. I was stuck there for 30 minutes until I was able to slowly make it back to the car, with a not insignificant amount of suffering. I stopped riding with people altogether after that. I would still make it out a few times a month for an easy ride alone, but I was petrified of anyone seeing me like that on a ride. 

I finally found a doctor towards the end of summer who wasn’t telling me I was “just fine” but who reassured me that we would get to the bottom of it all. More tests were done, and helpful changes were made even while we awaited those results.

A couple week later, tired of the loneliness and encouraged by the hope of answers, I decided I wanted to try to get on my bike again. So I joined a few little group rides on familiar trails and was delighted to find I could mostly keep up and didn’t have any episodes. The joy I experienced from being back on the bike in the woods with good people was better medicine than anything else I was taking. I casually told a few people here and there that I had been struggling, and was relieved by their kind acceptance…I still would never, ever, let them see me struggle in person though. Spurred on by this new bout of success, I asked a new bike friend to show me around a trail I hadn’t ridden fully. I was slightly nervous, knowing full well that this friend of mine is in incredible shape and quite possibly the most competent rider I have ridden with, but I was also reassured by the promise that we could go at whatever pace I needed. 

The day comes and the first few miles go beautifully. The woods are breathtaking with the sun streaming through the slightly changing leaves, the air was so fresh and the wind on my face felt like heaven. Then we start to climb, and we climb, and we climb. I’m feeling it, but I’m sort of keeping up, and my pride wasn’t going to let me ask to slow down. So I keep pedaling, trying to breathe, and trying to ignore the tingles starting to take over my body. I know my new friend is being kind to me, I know the pace is slow for me, but this trail is more than I was prepared for, and my body is starting to go. I come at a rock too slowly and the front wheel doesn't have enough speed to make it over, forcing me to put a foot down to catch myself, triggering all the toes to suddenly cramp up. I finally call out that I need to stop, and I’m grateful to have the excuse of a foot cramp. Clutching the bars of my bike, I hobble up the trail to my friend where I make some comment about my foot and stretch it out, while praying that the full body tingles go away. But in the middle of trying to make small talk, the tingles give way and a giant wave of nausea washes over me, taking with it all my sense of equilibrium. I drop down to my knees, clutching the bike and the ground for dear life, anything to keep from going all the way down.

I’m scared, the trees are tilting, the world is getting too bright. I’m angry, this hasn’t happened in weeks. But mostly I am so deeply and profoundly ashamed as I feel my new friend’s presence in my weakness. My head bows for what feels like an eternity, as a lifetime of memories flash through my mind while I look at the ground, memories of shame, of not being enough, of failure, of alone-ness. All the promises I believed, that I wouldn’t be wanted, loved, or accepted if I was weak. All the successful years of hiding it, yet here I am down on my knees, in the middle of the woods, in the presence of someone who I was just getting to know, someone who I already liked and respected, and I was so very, deeply, ashamed. 

Shaking, I tentatively look up, exhaling a desperate apology, waiting for the pity, waiting for the disdain. Yet I see only kindness looking back at me, followed by the calm, steady words: “It’s ok, don’t worry, you don’t need to be embarrassed.” 

“You don’t need to be embarrassed.”

Decades of shame pooled at my feet in that moment, washed away by those words. For an instant I felt naked, robbed of my layers of strength and capability. But then I just felt free. Free to not be ok for a moment. Free to be weak in the presence of my friend. Free to breathe and wait for my body to collect itself. After a little while it did, and we kept riding. My body still protested, but the lightness of not carrying those layers of shame resulted in an agility of body and heart that I had not known for a long, long time. I gritted my teeth on the uphills but there was a smile still. My face about split in half on the downhills from a grin so wide it hurt. The trees and the creeks and the fields looked almost too beautiful to be real. I let myself go faster and I rode better than I had in months. I could have sang for joy as we wove through the trees; instead I just laughed and laughed and laughed.

As we parted at the end of the ride, I tried to awkwardly express gratitude to my friend for the pure kindness and patience extended to me during the ride, and tried to apologize for my physical breakdown. “I didn’t see anything” was the response given, their eyes crinkling in the kindest smile. I smiled back, but I knew I had been seen. And for once I was not ashamed. 

Captured by my friend at the end of the ride, that smile is the smile of freedom.