Ten Signs You are Making Progress After Being Publicly Shamed
It is hard to track your progress when you’ve been decimated by a public shaming. It’s hard to get excited when your biggest milestones are: I showered today or I didn't yell at my kids.
One of the wisest psychologists alive today made a list of the ten “vital signs” of progress in psycotherapy and I believe they apply here as well. Whether you are in therapy now or not, your life as turned into a refiner’s fire that could either consume you entirely or mould you into something even stronger and more precious than you were before. Life is therapist. So here it is, adapted from from Dr. Jonathan Shedler who himself adapted from Dr. Nancy McWilliams, the ten vital signs that you are progressing after your traumatic social injury.
You have a greater sense of safety in your relationships/ greater attachment security. Even though your reputation has taken a drastic hit you will now have found out who is truly your friend and those relationships can get deeper and more secure if you allow them. your relationships that have survived this fire will have proven themselves to be more reliable and secure. You will also have a greater sense of urgency when it comes to putting more effort and resources in the relationships you do have. Birthdays and anniversaries now seem more meaningful. You reach out to people more often. You feel confident that, while not perfect, your relationships are solid.
More coherent and integrated experience of self and others. When we are in survival mode or defence mode we have a hard time differentiating what is inside us and what is outside of us. We think every thought or feeling we have is also what everyone else must be thinking as well. We project our hurt and negative emotion onto other people. We are confused emotionally. When we are recovering however, we have a better sense of where we end and other people begin. We see more clearly how we are interconnected but still maintain a sense of separateness.
Increased sense of personal agency. We no longer feel compelled or impulsive. We feel more in control with our actions for better or worse. When we make mistakes it is out of choice rather than feeling like we were controlled by an unseen force but at least we feel like we are the driver’s seat. When we are unwell our unconscious managers our behaviour in a way so unrecognizable to our awareness that it seems like we are being controlled by an external force. Wellness and maturity feel less like that and more like self-determination.
More realistic and grounded self-esteem. Out of trauma we often vacillate between thoughts of extreme self-deprecation and unrealistic hubris. We are either the worst person in the world or completely innocent/wonderful and everyone should consider themselves lucky to even be graced with our presence. When we are progressing psychologically we have a firmer grasp on our abilities and how people perceive us. We do not have to base our self perception on appraisals that only our mothers would give us.
Greater emotional resiliency and affect regulation. We still experience an array of emotions, including guilt, shame, and sadness but we give them space to move in the way they need to and then we can move on. Emotions don’t cripple us. We can express our feelings adequately and appropriately, “keeping our head” when we need to.
Greater ability to own and understand your own and other’s inner experience. There is so much that lies below our awareness and when we are hurt or traumatized or just generally immature, we are almost entirely oblivious to what is actually happening below the surface. In recovery we have a greater perspective on inner motivations and biases we have been holding for years. We can also recognize it other people, allowing us to judge less and understand more the faults of others.
Increased comfort functioning independently AND interdependently. We can find a more comfortable equilibrium between our desires to be unique and connected. We can function on our own when necessary, becoming more reliably to ourselves. We can comfortably spend time with ourselves in a quiet room without devolving into anxiety and mindless distractions that open us up to the control of others. We can also work collaboratively as we become less sensitive to the regular and expected judgements of others.
More robust sense of vitality and aliveness. Having faced annihilation and survived we will now appreciate life and all that testifies of it. We appreciate art and music for the emotional truth and beauty it portrays. We long for more exposure to nature. We are attracted to the life force of other people instead of being scared, annoyed or intimidated by it.
Enhanced capacity for acceptance, gratitude, and forgiveness. Knowing what it feels like to be judged by so many others we are now inclined to stay out of public pile-ons and shame mobs. We still value accountability but we defer to the systems and people who play that role and leave the judgment to them. We now relish in the freedom of accepting others for who they are, the relief of forgiving those who have wronged us, and the joy of being grateful for even the smallest aspects of our lives.
Movement toward more mature and flexible defences. Life isn’t immediately and indefinitely easy. There will alway be situations that resonate with our fragile unconscious and we will return to the defence mechanisms with which we are most accustomed. But we are now cursed with more knowledge and awareness of our tendencies to project, suppress and deny. These defences were always there to help us when we felt overwhelmed or threatened, so naturally if we are less overwhelmed or threatened we won’t need to unconsciously call on them as much, but even then we will fall back on old habits. Only this time, our unconscious reactions and defences will be more proportionate to the actual situation. We won’t be as rigidly impaired when faced with difficulty.