The shame, control and perfectionism dance

Some reflections on how this plays out

The last article for paid subscribers related to diagnosis and more on this (and neurodiversity) will be coming in February’s articles. I am wondering about how many paid subscribers are actually interested in this and I started a paid subscriber thread to chat about this (you may need to check in the Substack app to see this thread). Would love to hear your views.

The feeling of our own shame being touched is excruciating. It can feel like we are literally splitting apart and often there is an accompanying sense of wanting to get out of our own body, which makes so much sense. Who wants to stick around, present in the body, acutely aware of that ‘splitting apart’ feeling? None of us do. Which is why we dissociate, get fuzzy headed, shutdown, can’t think straight and want to do anything to distract ourselves or get ourselves out of feeling this. And often reaching for a way to control things is our first port of call.