Kitija Ozolina · Awareness Mentor for Mothers

Shame: The Feeling That Makes You Want to Hide

You should not be ashamed of what you feel. But that is not enough to say without explaining why.

There are things you have done as a mother that you have not told anyone. Things you feel bad about in a way that goes deeper than guilt.

That is shame. This is what it is and where it comes from.

There is nothing wrong with you for feeling what you feel.

Not the sadness that does not have a reason. Not the anger at your children. Not the longing for something you cannot even name. Not the feeling that you are not enough, or that you are too much, or that you are somehow doing it wrong.

The feeling is not the problem. The shame about the feeling is the part that needs attention.

Where the shame came from.

We learn to be ashamed of certain feelings when having them was unsafe or unwelcome. When we were small and we cried and an adult was impatient with it, or dismissed it, or said "stop that" or "you're fine" before we had finished feeling the thing. we learned something. That this feeling was not okay here.

The lesson was not a decision. It was just absorbed. "My sadness makes people uncomfortable." "My anger makes people scared or angry in return." "My need makes people pull away." So we started managing the feeling. Pushing it down before it could land us in trouble. Hiding it. Being fine.

We got very good at it. And then we started to be ashamed of even having the feeling in the first place. as if we could feel our way into being unacceptable.

That is not your character. That is what you learned.

Guilt says: I did something wrong. Shame says: there is something wrong with me.

How shame works. and why hiding makes it worse.

Shame makes us hide. That is its first instruction: hide this, don't let anyone see.

And hiding is reasonable, given what shame is. If we learned that a feeling made us unacceptable, hiding it feels like protection. It feels like the safe move.

But hiding is also what makes shame grow. Because when a feeling has nowhere to go. no air, no witness, no voice. it does not dissolve. It just gets louder inside. It gets denser. It becomes part of the furniture of who you are.

The feelings underneath the shame are almost always ordinary human things. Sadness. Need. Anger. Longing. The shame is what makes them feel monstrous. Without the shame, they are just feelings. feelings that were there for a reason, that needed somewhere to go.

Five common shame triggers for mothers.

These are not character flaws. They are feelings. Ordinary, human, understandable feelings.

Snapping at your children.

It happens. Your voice goes sharp. Your child flinches or cries. And immediately. the shame. The you-are-a-bad-mother flood. What no one says clearly enough: snapping is a sign your nervous system was already overloaded before the moment happened. It is not evidence of who you are. It is evidence of how much you have been carrying without enough help or rest. That is worth addressing. But it is not the same as being broken.

Not enjoying motherhood all the time.

Motherhood is beautiful and also boring and also relentless and also lonely. All of it. At the same time. The shame comes because we were given a version of motherhood that was supposed to be entirely fulfilling. and when it is not, we blame ourselves for not finding it so. You are not failing to love your child. You are being honest about the fact that love does not make everything easy.

Wanting time away from your children.

Wanting space is not the same as not wanting your children. It is wanting yourself back for a moment. A person who has a self. who has something that is hers, who can breathe, who can be quiet. is a better mother than a person who has given everything away and is running on nothing. The wanting-away is not abandonment. It is self-preservation. It is very human.

Caring about your own needs.

The shame here is usually inherited. If you grew up in a family where need was a burden, where asking for something meant you were selfish or too much, you absorbed that lesson. Having needs does not make you selfish. It makes you a person. Every person has needs. Meeting yours is not taking from your children. it is modelling to them that people matter, that needs are allowed, that they do not have to wait until they are empty to ask for something.

Feeling depressed or anxious.

The shame of this one is particularly heavy. because not only are you struggling, but you feel you are not supposed to be struggling. You have a good life. You have children who are healthy. You have things to be grateful for. And still the weight is there. Depression and anxiety are not character defects. They are responses. often very old responses. to things that happened to you. They are asking for attention, not judgment.

Shame grows in hiding. Not because you are weak, but because that is how shame works. it feeds on silence and isolation and the belief that you are the only one.

You are not the only one. That is what I most want you to know.

"Shame grows in hiding. It loosens in honesty."

You do not have to say it to everyone. But find one place. even just yourself. where you stop pretending and say what is actually true.

What part of you have you been hiding from people who might actually understand?

With love, Kitija 🤍

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