Comments on: Shunning, Shaming, Renaming

By: Traveller

Traveller — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 14:19:19 +0000

Shunning is very pernicious . It curses both him that gives and him that receives. Although obviously being on the reciievung end is far worse.
It forces bystanders into a stance one way or another. Shunning is evil.

Shunning and shaming cut at a victims sense of self. It makes people feel as if their very core is worthless.. Everything that they are is zero.

These tactics remove a victim’s connection of the body to their mind and spirit. Healing involves reconnection of the person as a whole being. Someone who does not have to prove anything or be anything. But just be. And by just being who you are you are love.

By: Naamah

Naamah — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 23:00:45 +0000

Thank you for this. Thank you. "Until opening one door in your soul to let in the light causes three more doors to close because you don’t deserve to live in the light." Ow. OW. True. So true. So very true. This post helped crystallize something for me, it filled in part of an argument I've been making for a long time: the fact that I am creatively gifted is an awesome thing about me, not my mental illness. I posted my thoughts here.

By: Erik JM Schneider

Erik JM Schneider — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 20:49:08 +0000

Wow. So much of what you write resonates with me that I sometimes cannot compose a comment because I do not want to overwrite your experiences with mine even while I am thinking “me too! me too! me too!”

Our experiences are not identical. I had to flee my upbringing for different reasons (I suspect) from those compelling you flee your spiritual community, but the shame and the feeling of linguistic exclusion or loss or homelessness are at least similar enough that your writing sounds familiar as I read it through the first time. And that is kind of astounding to me. In a good way.

I am trying to learn how to re-home my own body, only this time with myself instead of someone I am looking to for rescue (tried that many times. never works). And I am also in the middle of what has become an interesting rhetorical project of either finding/coining language that comes closer to naming my experience or trying out what it might be like not to need those names so badly.

I am not sure, but the second thing might be impossible for a social animal whose sociality consists largely, if not solely, of language. But I have never let impossibility deter me from trying a thing.

So.. ::offers handshake::

I am going to try to write more about my own experiences soon on my own (neglected) blog. I will let you know if/when I manage to do so and if you are interested you can read about them and if you are not you can ignore them altogether.