Shame

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  As someone who values privacy, I find it unbelievable that I now make a living writing about my insecurities. Sometimes, when I think about it, my stomach sinks to the floor. I have a baked-in sense that my problems are unseemly and will drive people away. But then, when I look around and see what’s actually happened, I realize sharing my weaknesses with friends and readers alike has made me feel more connected to and accepted by the many, many people who feel the exact same way—connections I would have missed out on entirely had I gone on hiding what I thought was wrong. * * * A few notes about using this book: Those of us with perfectionism tend to default to gut renovations and total overhauls, but you do not need a self-improvement program. You already have lots of great traits—heck, as far as a personality style goes, conscientious is the one to choose—you already work hard and care deeply. In terms of changes, we’re talking little tweaks. Being 5 percent less hard on yourself or 10 percent kinder to yourself will likely be just right. Indeed, when you’re done with this book, you may not do anything overtly different at all; you may simply approach things with an updated mindset of willingness and flexibility. Next, you may feel ambivalent about letting go. I’ve met many clients who credit perfectionism with getting them where they are today. I feel you. Society rewards us for digging deep and pushing hard. Those got me a long way, too. Even when I was sleep-deprived, disconnected, and felt like I was half-assing everything, I sure got a lot done. Rest assured, it’s okay to be ambivalent. But go ahead and try some of the mindset shifts and experiments in this book. I pinkie promise you won’t end up a stoner in pajama pants covered in Cool Ranch Dorito dust. If you take a test drive and don’t like it, you can go back to business as usual—no hard feelings. Finally, notice if you find yourself approaching this book at 110 percent. You might tell yourself you need to create a program out of the book (“I’ll read a chapter a day,” “I’ll try everything in each chapter before I move on to the next one”). If that helps you, knock yourself out. But notice what pressures and contingencies it creates and whether or not that makes you less likely to finish it. Indeed, the myth of “the more effort you put in the better results you get” gets in the way here. So instead, prioritize what speaks to you rather than reading cover to cover. See the chapters as a menu and read what you like. You can even keep it on the toilet tank and read it when you’re sitting there—I promise I won’t be offended. * * *

• From Bold Move

  Retreating is when you move away from a situation that your brain has perceived as dangerous (e.g., conflict, negotiating, etc.) with the outcome of making yourself feel better momentarily. Often, what we say to ourselves (e.g., I don’t deserve a raise ) plays a huge role in convincing us that retreating is the only solution, yet there is always a long-term negative consequence. Before we dive deeper into this flavor of avoidance, here are some additional examples of behaviors that often function as a form of retreating—with the caveat that for some people, this could be a different flavor of avoidance. Keep in mind, for any of these actions to qualify as avoidance there must be a long-term cost. Retreat The main characteristic of retreat as an avoidance strategy is moving away from whatever is making you uncomfortable, so that you can have temporary fast relief from discomfort. You can retreat by walking away, but you can also do it by going inward, focusing on thoughts, and distancing from situations in subtle ways. Below are examples of how you can retreat to avoid: Looking away during difficult conversationsChanging the topic of a conversationExcessively exercisingLetting emails pile upPutting off small tasksRescheduling unwanted meetingsGrabbing a glass of wineCanceling a dateScheduling events to stay away from your homeScrolling through social media The Brain Can Be a ButtLet’s see how thoughts around negotiating got a colleague of mine stuck. I met Janet at a Harvard Women’s Leadership course where I was speaking on using science-driven skills to help women get results in high-stakes conversations so as to enhance their ability to communicate as leaders. It turned out that Janet worked at the same institution as I did, and just like me, had been there for many years. We were in different departments but had faced similar challenges, and we immediately fell into an easy and familiar rapport. During one of our breaks, Janet approached me in a polite-but-urgent manner and asked if she could confide in me. We found a quiet corner of the conference center, and she explained to me that for the past three years, she had been waiting for the right moment to ask for a raise but had been almost incapable of forcing herself to do it. Janet is an African American woman, a single mother, and this raise would make a huge difference for her and her three children. She clearly cared a lot about this, and she felt like she was failing at being a provider for her family. She continued to speak, but her voice caught in her throat, and when she looked up, I saw that she had tears in her eyes. I had seen this look of shame and desperation on the faces of many clients in similar situations (and even in my own mother during some of her lowest points).

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Afterwards, everyone was asked how well they thought their own speech went. Participants without social anxiety thought they did pretty well regardless of what example they had seen. But among participants with social anxiety, the example speech made all the difference: Those in the high-standards condition who thought they had to top a near-perfect speech rated their own speech as an abject failure. But in the low-standards condition, where they had essentially been told that most people sucked and the video was of some overachieving outlier, their opinion of their own speech was indistinguishable from the opinions of the non-anxious group. In other words, when the social standard was low, people with social anxiety thought they did well. When it was high, they assumed they blew it, regardless of how they actually performed. If one side of perfectionism is bookended by sky-high expectations, the other is anchored by lower-than-a-worm beliefs in one’s ability. Indeed, Rosie’s beliefs about her social skills were as dire as her expectations were outlandish. I have no social skills. I don’t know how not to be awkward. I don’t know how to behave normally. I never come across the way I mean. Something is wrong with me. I’m a big loser. This is textbook perfectionism: there’s a gap between perceived expectations and your belief in your ability to reach them. The bigger the gap, the more we freak out. Rosie’s rules for interaction and her appraisal of her own skills show what psychologists call dichotomous thinking, better known as all-or-nothing thinking. No matter what you call it, it means we think if something didn’t go perfectly we failed. What’s more, we personalize it: if we don’t breeze through a conversation with witty, intelligent repartee, we’re a total loser. But we’re the only ones who think that, it turns out. It’s a little odd to ask friends and acquaintances for feedback, but a study out of Washington University did just that. The researchers asked individuals with and without social anxiety to bring a friend to the study and then asked them both for the honest truth. The pairs of friends were asked to rate the quality of their friendship, how much they liked each other, and more. Overall, the individuals with social anxiety rated themselves negatively, but their friends rated them positively, just as positively as the friends of people without social anxiety. What’s going on here? First, we hold ourselves to strict, near-impossible standards but are understanding and compassionate to everyone else. As if that double standard weren’t bad enough, we also try to see the best in others, but assume others will see the worst in us. When you think about it, our assumption that others will be judgmental and rejecting is actually quite ungenerous of us.

• From Boys & Sex (2020)

  It surprised me to learn that, like girls, boys will also fake orgasm to end an encounter, albeit less frequently. In one study of college students, two-thirds of girls reported pretending to climax, but so did a quarter of the boys and for similar reasons: they wanted sex to end; they wanted to make a partner happy; they didn’t want to hurt her feelings. For guys I met, faking orgasm was most common when sex was unwanted, perhaps because male release is seen by both sexes as the necessary conclusion for a successful encounter. “I should never be in the position where I have to tell somebody that I’m having sex with that I came when I didn’t,” a college junior told me. “But I have a couple of times. It’s whack. Once at a party this girl says, ‘I’m going with you to your room,’ and I know I don’t want to hook up with her, but she insists on coming back with me, and she gets into my bed. And I’m like, ‘Huh.’ I knew I didn’t want to, but we start kind of having sex and there’s no real interest or chemistry, so . . .” This is not to say that heterosexual men’s and women’s experiences with unwanted sex are fully comparable. By their senior year of college, women are still twice as likely as men to have been assaulted and are subject to a wider, more constant range of aggressive behavior. The women Ford interviewed reported incidents that spanned from catcalls to forcible rape. Their accounts also typically included either actual or implicit threats of violence, such as the fear of being killed—men’s did not—and it’s those feelings of complete helplessness, the sudden turnaround from trusting someone to believing he might murder you, that are most strongly linked to anxiety, depression, and other negative mental health outcomes. Perhaps as a result of all that, fewer men expressed explicit psychological fallout from their unwanted experiences. “They would say something like, ‘If this happened to a woman you would call it assault,’” Ford said. “Or, ‘Maybe at some point there will be a case of a man coming forward, but I’m not going to be the one to make a big deal about it.’ “Really, though,” she continued, “that was all cover for the masculinity issue. What happened to them might be creepy, but because a woman did it to a guy, it’s like, ‘Hey, you got laid.’” That’s exactly how friends responded to Leo, the boy in New York—plus, dude! The girl was nineteen! “I’d laugh about it, too,” he said. “No one ever picked up on how much it hurt me. But it really fucked me up. I became afraid of sex. I thought I’d never do it again. The worst was when I was at a party playing Truth or Dare and someone asked, ‘Have you had sex before?’ And I thought, Shit! What exactly is sex?”

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I looked from her to the orchestra pit. There, the conductor had seen our confusion. The music had slowed and faded for a second - but now picked up, more briskly than before.But the melody affected neither Kitty nor the audience. At the side of the stalls, the door-men had reached the drunken man at last, and had hold of his collar. The crowd looked not at him, however, but at us. They looked at us, and saw - what? Two girls in suits, their hair close-clipped, their arms entwined. Toms! For all the efforts of the orchestra, the man’s cry still seemed to echo about the hall.Far off in the gallery someone called something that I could not catch, and there was an awkward answering laugh.If the shout cast a spell over the theatre, the laughter broke it. Kitty shifted, then seemed to see for the first time that our arms were joined. She gave a cry, and drew away from me as if in horror. Then she put her hand to her eyes and stepped, with her head bowed, into the wing.For a second I stood, dazed and confounded; then I hurried after her. The orchestra rattled on. There were shouts from the hall, at last, and cries of ‘Shame!’ The curtain, I think, was rung hurriedly down.Back stage, everything was in a state of the greatest confusion. Kitty had run to Walter: he had his arm about her shoulders and looked grave. Flora stood by with a shoe unlaced and ready, shocked and uncertain but desperately curious. A knot of stage-hands and fly-men looked on, whispering amongst themselves. I stepped up to Kitty and reached for her arm; she flinched as if I had raised my hand to strike her, and instantly I fell back. As I did so the manager appeared, more flustered than ever.‘I should like to know, Miss Butler, Miss King, what the blazes you mean by -’‘I should like to know,’ interrupted Walter harshly, ‘what the blazes you mean by sending my artistes on before that rabble you call your audience. I should like to know why a drunken fool is allowed to interfere with Miss Butler’s performance for ten minutes, while your men gather their scattered wits together, and make up their minds to remove him.’The manager stamped his foot: ‘How dare you, sir!’‘How dare you, sir -!’The debate went on. I didn’t listen to it, only looked at Kitty. Her eyes were dry, but she was white-faced and stiff. She hadn’t taken her head from Walter’s shoulder, and she had not glanced towards me, at all.Finally Walter gave a snort, and waved the blustering manager away. He turned to me. He said, ‘Nan, I am taking Kitty home, at once. There’s no question now of you going on for your final number; I’m afraid, too, that we must forfeit our supper. I shall hail us a hansom; will you follow with Flora and the gear, in the carriage?

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  BAPTISM AND THE LORD'S SUPPER 2Q$ means of creating the priesthood of theCatholic Church, and the main door through which superstitious beliefs came in. In time it became the mass, in which the priest partook ofthe bread and wine while the people watched him doing it. He might even go through the whole performance alone, for the benefit of adeceased person, according to the terms ofan endowment. Thus the Lord's Supper lost its meaning because itwas in the hands ofa body which had neither social outlook nor democratic emotions. The Protestant Reformation concentrated on the re- form of the Lord's Supper. The laity shared more fully in it. The private mass was abolished. Some of thesocial feeling was restored. But not the socialout- look. The act turned backward and not forward. It is an act of remembrance; init we appropriate theaton- ing death of our Saviour. Where it is experienced most deeply, it is a mystic act of fellowship between theun- seen Lord and the silentsoul of the worshipper. Fora time the great act of fraternal lovebecame the object ofbitter controversial feelings between Catholic and Protestant, and between Lutheran and Calvinist, and exercised a very unsocial and divisive influence. While the great churches were bitterly contending over the question whether their Lord was physically or spiritually present, and if physically, whether by tran- substantiation or consubstantiation, the persecuted Ana- baptists, who had neither the right to meetnor to exist, had the spirit of the original institution among them. As in the primitive Church, their service was preceded by

• From 50 Shades Uncovered (2015)

  James calls it "adult romance" while the media have dubbed it "mummy porn." Whatever you call it, there's no doubt that it's popular. I just sit at my desk. If I have any downtime I just start reading through it. And, obviously, if the manager, or any other lads saw, I'd just hide it away. Eclair: As a reader and a feminist, it didn't float my boat. But I did read it because, obviously for research purposes. It got the imagination flowing. People are caught up with those characters and they want to see what happens to them. Kite: Because they did center on that relationship, you could call them romantic erotica. It was a real page-turner. I went into a charity shop and I bought my copy and it was 59 p. I think that tells you everything you need to know about "Fifty Shades of Grey." I contemplated going to the library, um, and there was a voice in my head telling me, oh, the librarian's gonna judge me a little bit - for taking that one out. - Yeah. And then I thought, wait. Do I want to use a used copy of "Fifty Shades of Grey?" There's a deep shame to being seen with the book. (music playing) Gaukroger: A Belgian professor thought it would be a good idea to go into a library and test the ten most popular books in that library for traces of drugs, traces of diseases. All ten books had traces of cocaine. "Fifty Shades of Grey" actually had traces of a strain of herpes. So I didn't go and get one at the library. - No. - No. (music playing) Hopkins: I would never read that book in public 'cause that would be a tragedy. - There's such a stigma around it. - Yeah. I had it hidden inside "The Times" newspaper. But I would never be seen with "Fifty Shades of Grey." "Then I'm going to spank you. Not for punishment, but for your pleasure and mine." (laughs) That's-- that's something kinky. Yes, really kinky. I think it's very unpleasant thing. (laughs) "He pauses, gauging my wide-eyed reaction." Graphic, graphic. Uh, I think it-- it'll make a good read. I didn't expect to read that in the middle of New York. O'Shea: I would be more embarrassed to be seen reading it simply because of how bad the prose is. Weak prose and bad plotlines are not okay. It's just concerning, the language of it. You know, how many times did he "hitch a breath"? Huh! You know, every other page his breath hitched. Huh! Well, mine didn't. (cheering) Gaukroger: J.K. Rowling refuses to read it. It might be due to the fact that "Fifty Shades of Grey" did outsell "Harry Potter." It's the quickest-selling paperback, which probably rubbed J.K. Rowling up the wrong way. - Good choice of words. - Just a little bit. - Good choice of words there. - Oh. Oh, God. It's just mass-market fiction.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  incredible power to motivate us or to demoralize us based on how we view ourselves. Here’s what you have to remember, though: Your opinion of who you are or what you can accomplish cannot be based solely on what you see and feel about yourself. And it definitely can’t come only from what others say about you. Your self-image must be grounded in what God says about you. Yes, God knows all of our imperfections and mistakes, but He is not fixated on them. He doesn’t shame us because of them. He’s not up in heaven snickering with the angels at our failures, nor sitting around a war table scheduling our imminent judgment. He has the opposite attitude. He is here to help, to serve, to make up for our lack. Our weaknesses make room for His strengths (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). Jesus is proof that God’s attitude toward us is one of love, not judgment, and that He treats us with acceptance, not shame. Jesus described His mission this way: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:17). He spent three and a half years loving and serving everyone He came in contact with. He didn’t condemn people for their mistakes. He offered them grace and forgiveness. So if you find yourself avoiding prayer altogether, or if your prayers mostly consist of apologies, maybe you need to reevaluate your premises and perspectives about God. He’s not your dentist. He’s not your high school principal. He’s not a cosmic police officer. He’s your father. He’s your friend. He’s your savior. He’s your protector. He’s your healer.

• From The Fermata (1994)

  I have of course seen it from time to time, but only in pursuit of other sights or experiences. After Rhody broke up with me, in part over the very issue of time-perversion, she started going out with an older divorced man, and I did hide out behind the tired gold wing chair in her bedroom and watch them have sex once or twice (well, six times)—and the last time in fact I did a very very wrong thing. Rhody was on her knees, with her ass way up in the air, licking and biting the pillowcase of the pillow she held, which was our favorite way for a while, and I felt violated and hurt that she would be doing this now with him, with this divorced consultant who looked like the “before” sketch in a NordicTrack ad, so I stopped time with my fingernail clipper (each time I snipped a fingernail, time toggled) and pulled the guy off her and out of her and hauled him to the garage, where I tied him securely to a piece of plywood; then I stationed myself in exactly the same position that he had been in, with my cock inside Rhody, and clipped time on, and was pleased to hear her surprised change of tone: “Oh yeah! Wow! That’s good! Like that!” I pulled out and let my cock rest against her tailbone and pressed down on it with the heel of my hand, which was something we used to do a lot that she liked, because when I shot she liked to feel the come-tangents reach up her back. I could sense her immediate surprise as I did this— Could it be? —and just before she looked back to see if it was really me, I stopped everything and got the divorced guy out of the garage and put him back where he had been and stuffed what was left of his erection back in. “What’s wrong?” Rhody said, as soon as I clipped time on. “Nothing,” said the divorced man. He tried to pretend to be fucking her with abandon, but he was almost completely limp by now. “Something’s wrong,” said Rhody. “What’s wrong?” “I had the strangest hallucination,” he said. “I thought I was tied up against a board, looking up at the skis in the ceiling of the garage. Beyond weird. Sorry, baby.” Rhody comforted him. Lying on the bed with his hands doing unpleasant things with his own chest hair, he began describing the “incredibly vivid” out-of-body experience he had just had of being tied up, staring at the skis. Eventually the two of them tiptoed giggling off to the laundry room to find some rope and the ski boots. I left soon after.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Not been herself at all...’ She would have gone on, I think, if there had not, at that moment, come the sound of the front door opening, and then of feet upon the parlour floor.‘Oh hell!’ I said. I put my cup down, gazed wildly about me for a second, then ran past the girl to the pantry door. I didn’t stop to think; I didn’t say a word to her or even look at her. I simply hopped inside the little cupboard, and pulled the door shut behind me. Then I put my ear to it, and listened.‘Is there someone out there?’ It was Florence’s voice. I heard her stepping, cautiously, into the kitchen. Then she must have seen her friend. ‘Annie, oh, it’s you! Thank goodness. For a moment I thought - what’s the matter?’‘I’m not sure.’‘Why do you look so queer? What’s going on? What has happened to the step at the front of the house? And what’s this mess on the stove?’‘Florrie -’‘What?’‘I think I might as well tell you; indeed, I really think I’m quite obliged to tell you...’‘What? You’re frightening me.’‘There’s a girl in your pantry.’There was a silence then, during which I swiftly surveyed my options. They were, I found, very few; so I decided on the noblest. I took hold of the handle of the pantry door, and slowly pushed it open. Florence saw me, and twitched.‘I was just about to leave,’ I said. ‘I swear it.’ I looked at the girl called Annie, who nodded.‘She was,’ she said. ‘She was.’Florence gazed at me. I stepped out of the pantry and edged past her, into the parlour. She frowned.‘What on earth have you been doing?’ she asked, as I searched for my hat. ‘Why does everything look so strange?’ She picked up a box of matches, and lit the two oil-lamps and then a couple of candles. The light was taken up by a thousand polished surfaces, and she started. ‘You have cleaned the house!’‘Only the downstairs rooms. And the yard. And the front step,’ I said, in increasing tones of wretchedness. ‘And I made you supper.’She gaped at me. ‘Why!’‘Your house was dirty. The woman next door said you were famous for it ...’‘You met the woman next door?’‘She gave me some tea.’‘I leave you in my home for one day and you quite transform it. You get yourself in with my neighbours. You’re thick, I suppose, with my best friend. And what has she been telling you?’‘I haven’t told her anything, I’m sure!’ called Annie from the kitchen.I pulled at a thread that had come loose at my cuff. ‘I thought you would be pleased,’ I said quietly, ‘to have a tidy house. I thought -’ I had thought that it would make her like me. In Diana’s world, it would have.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  1. Granted, sometimes creating a false front is necessary. If your situation is dangerous or abusive, keeping the real you hidden may be a matter of safety and survival. Once you’re out and safe, building your true self can begin. 2. This might sound familiar. It’s known as Impostor Syndrome, which is when social anxiety goes to work and school. Impostor Syndrome whispers: You don’t belong here. They made a mistake letting you in. This isn’t for people like you. Impostor Syndrome assumes you will be revealed, with dire and humiliating consequences. So people react in one of two extremes. On one end, they overcompensate for perceived deficits: they overprepare, overrehearse, overdo. On the opposite end, others detach and devalue the experience, insisting, “This isn’t for me,” “What’s the use?,” or, “I’m not even going to try.”9. Mountains to Molehills: It Gets Easier Every Time 1. As you may infer, Ellis, in addition to being a brilliant and pioneering theorist, had a mouth that would make a sailor blush.10. Putting It All Together: Your Challenge List 1. See Jia’s videos of all of these rejections and non-rejections at fearbuster.com/100-days-of-rejection-therapy12. Seeing Is Believing: How You Feel Isn’t How You Look 1. An easy way of measuring your own interoceptive awareness is try to detect your own heartbeat. You can try it now: sit up straight, scoot forward so your back doesn’t rest against anything, put your hands in your lap, and breathe normally. Can you sense it? If you can’t, don’t despair. Either way is considered normal, but studies have found that folks with social anxiety are particularly accurate at noticing and estimating changes in their heart rate, which suggests a well-practiced ability to monitor their bodies. 2. Bonus: I’ve been blown away by the research on the mental health benefits of exercise. Study after study finds that exercise improves depression, PTSD, ADHD, panic—pretty much any challenge you can name. Plus, it’s been used to help people quit smoking, sleep better, improve energy, sharpen cognitive functioning, and increase libido. If you could bottle it, you’d make billions. And what do you know? It works for social anxiety, too, not just for pesky sensations or turning red but also to blow off nervous energy. A good workout before any event calms your nerves.13. “I Have to Sound Smart/Funny/Interesting”: How Perfectionism Holds Us Back 1. The very fact that you’re worried right now about whether you qualify as solid and competent means you’re totally fine.14. Why You Don’t Have a Social Skills Problem (You Heard That Right) 1. The difference between social anxiety and social awkwardness is that social anxiety is a distortion perpetuated by the Inner Critic, while social awkwardness is a true (though often correctable) skills deficit. Take away the fear and inhibition, such as with trusted friends or family, and our social skills are totally adequate. For people who are socially awkward, however, there is indeed a mismatch between their ability and society’s expectations—it’s not a distortion.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  When I began to pull at his buttons, he closed his eyes.I got his cock out, and studied it: I had never seen one before, so close, and - no disrespect to the gent concerned - it seemed quite monstrous. But there are always jokes about such things in the music hall: I had a pretty good idea of how they worked. Seizing hold of it, I began - very inexpertly, I am sure, though he didn’t seem to mind - to pump it.‘How thick and long it is,’ I said then - I had heard that it was every man’s ambition to be spoken to thus, at such moments. The fellow gave a sigh, and opened his eyes.‘Oh, I do wish you would kiss me there,’ he whispered. ‘Your mouth is such a perfect one - quite like a girl’s.’I slowed my rhythm, and took another look at his straining cock; and again, when I knelt, it was as if it were someone else who was kneeling, not myself. I thought, This is how Walter tastes!Afterwards I spat his spendings out upon the cobbles, and he thanked me very graciously.‘Perhaps,’ he said, buttoning himself up, ‘perhaps I shall see you again, in the same spot?’I could not answer him - the fact was, I felt almost ready to weep. He handed me my sovereign; then, after a moment’s hesitation, he stepped to me and kissed my cheek. The gesture made me flinch; and when he felt the shudder, he misunderstood, and looked wistful.‘No,’ he said, ‘you don’t like that, you soldier-boys, do you?’ His tone was strange; when I studied him, I saw that his eyes were gleaming.His excitement had stirred me to strangeness, before; his emotion, now, made me terribly thoughtful. When he turned and left the court, I remained there, trembling - not with sadness, but with a creeping kind of relish. The man had looked like Walter; I had pleasured him, in some queer way, for Kitty’s sake; and the act had made me sicken. But he was not like Walter, who might take his pleasure where he chose it. His pleasure had turned, at the last, to a kind of grief; and his love was a love so fierce and so secret it must be satisfied, with a stranger, in a reeking court like this.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Johnny gave himself plenty of structure—magic tricks, performing. But he never felt comfortable being himself. Even Ed McMahon, Johnny’s loyal sidekick for thirty years, said of Johnny, “He was good with ten million people, lousy with ten.” Why didn’t structure work for Johnny? Why did he never transition to the ultimate role: himself? The answer lies in the source of the role. For Johnny Carson, biographers theorize that Johnny’s persona, Johnny Carson the Entertainer, was created to win the approval of a specific person. His mother, Ruth, didn’t like boys; they were dirty and nasty, she said. Her favorite child was her daughter, Catherine. So Johnny’s persona, lore has it, was created to get positive attention from Ruth. If he could just be funny enough, successful enough, famous enough, maybe she would be proud of him. He didn’t do it for himself; he did it for approval that, sadly, turned out to be unattainable. Reportedly, at the height of Johnny’s fame Ruth once watched his Tonight Show monologue in the presence of a New York Times reporter, switched off the TV, and pronounced, “That wasn’t funny.” So here’s the difference between structure that hinders you and structure that’s a stepping-stone to the ultimate role of being yourself: the role should come from within, not from someone else. It can’t come from your impossible-to-please mother, your boss, your current crush, American society, or whoever else. Instead, your role should be chosen and inhabited only by you. Think of it this way: Pretend you are a building. Creating a persona chosen by someone else sets up a false front. Picture an old Wild West town: tumbleweeds rolling by, horses tied to their hitching posts in front of the buildings on Main Street. Looks like a solid settlement, right? But peek behind the imposing fronts and you’d find the buildings were often just canvas tents and a wooden floor, shoddy structures at best. Indeed, the cost and danger of hauling building materials to a town that may or may not survive the boom-and-bust economy of the Old West was prohibitive. But business owners realized they needed to project an image of success and stability to lure in customers. So they poured their resources into erecting impressive false fronts. They attended to the image but neglected the actual building. Playing a role that is chosen for you is like constructing a false front. Your precious resources get poured into the image while the actual building—the real, authentic you—is left wanting. The false front may be impressive or even intimidating, but its intention is to fool, to deceive.1

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  She grew tired of gentlemen’s suits; she took to displaying me in masquerade - had me set up, behind a little velvet curtain in the drawing-room. This would happen about once a week. Ladies would come for dinner and I would eat with them, in trousers; but while they lingered over their coffee and the trimming of their fags I would leave them, and slip up to my room to change my gear. By the time they made their way into the drawing-room I would be behind the curtain, striking some pose; and when she was ready, Diana would pull a tasselled cord and uncover me.I might be Perseus, with a curved sword and a head of the Medusa, and sandals with straps that were buckled at the knee. I might be Cupid, with wings and a bow. I was once St Sebastian, tied to a stump - I remember what a job it was to fasten the arrows so they would not droop.Then, another night I was an Amazon. I carried the Cupid’s bow, but this time had one breast uncovered; Diana rouged the nipple. Next week - she said I had shown one, I might as well show both - I was the French Marianne, with a Phyrgian cap and a flag. The week after that I was Salome: I had the Medusa head again, but on a plate, and with a beard stuck on it; and while the ladies clapped I danced down to my drawers.And the week after that - well, that week I was Hermaphroditus. I wore a crown of laurel, a layer of silver greasepaint - and nothing else save, strapped to my hips, Diana’s Monsieur Dildo. The ladies gasped to see him.That made him quiver.And as the quiver did its usual work on me, I thought of Kitty. I wondered if she was still wearing suits and a topper, still singing songs like ‘Sweethearts and Wives’.Then Diana came, and put a pink cigarette between my lips, and led me amongst the ladies and had them stroke the leather. I cannot say if it was Kitty I thought of then, or even Diana herself. I believe I thought I was a renter again, in Piccadilly - or, not a renter, but a renter’s gent. For when I twitched and cried out there were smiles in the shadows; and when I shuddered, and wept, there was laughter. I could help none of it. It was all Diana’s doing. She was so bold, she was so passionate, she was so devilishly clever. She was like a queen, with her own queer court - I saw it, at those parties. Women sought her out, and watched her.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  In the last few weeks of the semester, Professor Garcia Coll announced at the end of one class, “If you have trouble speaking in front of a group, come to office hours and let me know.” I was astonished. I had never encountered this from a professor before. She gave no further explanation. I wasn’t sure if I would receive a free pass or an ultimatum, whether I would be told not to worry about it or that I had better speak up soon. All I knew was that she meant me. So I went. Despite the early December chill, I felt hot, as if I had been caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I arrived at office hours and hovered at Professor Garcia Coll’s door. She motioned for me to come in. After I mumbled my reason for being there, she took off her glasses and looked at me. “Okay,” she said, after a moment. “Thanks for letting me know.” I’m sure she also asked me about how the class was going or what I was going to do for my final research project, but I don’t remember. What I do remember is that through my anxious filter I thought she was disappointed in me or annoyed that I couldn’t muster the courage to speak up. Now I know better. It wasn’t until researching this book, discovering Dr. Garcia Coll’s research roots, and interviewing her directly that I learned why she invited me (and others—though at the time it felt like me alone) to disclose my difficulty. Simply put, she understood. When she took off her glasses and looked at me, I now realize, it wasn’t a look of accusation. It was recognition. It was understanding. I could very well have been Jennifer, retreating to her mother’s lap. What I know now is that after I left Dr. Garcia Coll’s office that December day, she looked more carefully at my work. “There are people who cannot raise their hand or speak freely in a group,” she told me when I interviewed her and recounted my story. “I need to assess their interaction and involvement in a different way.” Rather than docking my grade, she evaluated my understanding of the material through my writing, my exams, and my final project. She knew I was watching and listening like a sponge, just like Jennifer drinking in the scene of the dolls sharing breakfast. Many of us change naturally over time; think of the 40 percent of people, myself included, who refer to themselves as “formerly shy.” Temperament isn’t infinitely stable. Genetics isn’t destiny. As Dr. Garcia Coll’s dissertation advisor Dr. Jerome Kagan himself has written, “Genes, culture, time, and luck make us who we are.”

• From Wild (2012)

  I went to work, integrating the new with the old, feeling as if I were taking a test that I was bound to fail. When I was done, Albert returned and methodically unpacked my pack. He placed each item in one of two piles—one to go back into my pack, another to go into the now-empty resupply box that I could either mail home or leave in the PCT hiker free box on the porch of the Kennedy Meadows General Store for others to plunder. Into the box went the foldable saw and miniature binoculars and the megawatt flash for the camera I had yet to use. As I looked on, Albert chucked aside the deodorant whose powers I’d overestimated and the disposable razor I’d brought with some vague notion about shaving my legs and under my arms and—much to my embarrassment—the fat roll of condoms I’d slipped into my first aid kit. “Do you really need these?” Albert asked, holding the condoms. Albert the Georgia Daddy Eagle Scout, whose wedding band glinted in the sun, who cut off the handle of his own toothbrush, but no doubt carried a pocket-sized Bible in his pack. He looked at me stone-faced as a soldier, while the white plastic wrappers of a dozen ultrathin nonlubricated Trojan condoms made a clickety-clack sound as they unfurled like a party streamer from his hand. “No,” I said, feeling as if I was going to die of shame. The idea of having sex seemed absurd to me now, though when I’d packed my supplies it had struck me as a reasonable prospect, back before I had a clue of what hiking the Pacific Crest Trail would do to my body. I’d not seen myself since I was at the motel in Ridgecrest, but after the men had gone off to nap, I’d taken the opportunity to gaze at my face in the mirror attached to the side of Ed’s truck. I looked tan and dirty, despite my recent dunk in the river. I’d become remotely leaner and my dark blonde hair a tad lighter, alternately flattened and sprung alive by a combination of dried sweat, river water, and dust. I didn’t look like a woman who might need twelve condoms. But Albert didn’t pause to ponder such things—whether I’d get laid or not, whether I was pretty. He pushed on, pillaging my pack, inquiring sternly each time before tossing another item I’d previously deemed necessary into the get-rid-of pile. I nodded almost every time he held an item up, agreeing it should go, though I held the line on both The Complete Stories and my beloved, intact copy of The Dream of a Common Language. I held the line on my journal, in which I recorded everything I did that summer. And when Albert wasn’t looking, I tore one condom off the end of the fat roll of condoms he’d tossed aside and slid it discreetly into the back pocket of my shorts.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  Nor, in another scale of reference, is it of the slightest importance — that a woman disoriented by the vagaries of her feelings, tormented, inundated by frightening aspects of her own unrecognized selves, should like a soldier afraid of death, throw herself into the heart of the mêlée to wound those whom truly she most loved and most admired — Clea, myself, lastly Nessim. Some people are born to bring good and evil in greater measure than the rest of us — the unconscious carriers of diseases they cannot cure. I think perhaps we must study them, for it is possible that they promote creation in the very degree of the apparent corruption and confusion they spread or seek. I dare not say even now that she was stupid or unfeeling; only that she could not recognize what passed within herself (‘the camera obscura of the heart’), could not put a precise frame around the frightening image of her own meaning-lessness in the world of ordinary action. The sort of abyss which seemed to lie around her was composed of one quality — a failure of value, a failure to attach meaning which kills joy — which is itself only the internal morality of a soul which has discovered the royal road to happiness, whose nakedness does not shame itself. It is easy for me to criticize now that I see a little further into the truth of her predicament and my own. She must, I know, have been bitterly ashamed of the trick she was playing on me and the danger into which she put me. Once at the Café El Bab where we were sitting over an arak, talking, she burst into tears and kissed my hands, saying: ‘You are a good man, really a good man. And I am so sorry.’ For what? For her tears? I had been speaking about Goethe. Fool! Imbecile! I thought I had perhaps moved her by the sensibility with which I expressed myself. I gave her presents. So had Clea, so did Clea now: and the strange thing was that for the first time her taste in choosing objects of vertu deserted this most gifted and sensitive of painters. Earrings and brooches of a commonness which was truly Alexandrian! I am at a loss to understand this phenomenon, unless to love is to become besotted.… Yes.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  To add insult to injury, you have to pay them. Your mouth feels like it’s made of Styrofoam, and you can’t talk without severing your tongue, but you still have to shell out money that would otherwise put your kid through college. If you’re a dentist, this isn’t personal. I’m glad you exist. You’re a gift to humanity. Keep up the good work. If we meet and I don’t smile at you, though, it’s not you. It’s just that your occupation triggers the whole fight-or-flight thing in my brain. I’m also subconsciously afraid you’re judging my dental hygiene. You see, one of the main reasons I dislike going to the dentist (other than the aforementioned sharp objects and drills) is the shame that always seems to be associated with the experience. Maybe it’s my imagination, maybe it’s my guilty conscience about not brushing enough, maybe I was traumatized as a kid—I don’t know. All I know is that I never walk away from a visit to the dentist feeling encouraged about my brushing or flossing habits. Quite the opposite. I feel like a failure, like I’ll never measure up to the holy standards of the American Dental Association. Therefore, I avoid visiting the dentist. Why would I go somewhere that makes me feel bad about myself? Many people treat God the same way. They feel shame when they think of Him, so they avoid Him. They think He’s always judging their soul hygiene. That’s not exactly healthy for their prayer lives, of course. FROM VS. FOR Our beliefs about God—about His character, His attitude toward us, His value system, His desires—shape the premises for our prayers. In other words, the way we see God determines the way we approach Him. Read that again: The way we see God determines the way we approach God. Similarly, our beliefs about ourselves—our worth, our standing, our potential, our importance—also shape our premises for prayer. The way we see ourselves will influence what we ask for and how we ask it. These two things—our view of God and our view of ourselves—are pretty much inseparable. We rarely put words to them, but they lie at the base of how we pray, what we ask for, how much faith we have that God hears us, and whether we obey God when He speaks. If we think we are failures, and we believe that God is mostly concerned about failure, we will avoid Him. We won’t talk to Him. Why would we? That would be like making friends with the dentist. (I’m kidding. Dentists are people too.) Even if we do pray, we’ll probably spend most of our time and energy trying to convince God to forgive us, to like us, and to bless us. That’s not how Jesus prayed. It’s not how Paul or other Bible characters prayed either.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  They want to do good deeds, be altruistic, and achieve something in their lives. Plus they are loyal. Once most people make a commitment to something, they don't easily renege on that commitment. When you make a commitment to a group you believe in fervently, it's a struggle to go back on your word. Later, when you begin to see things that you don't agree with, you may say to yourself, "Well, I said I was going to do this, and I was told that it was going to be hard. Now some of this doesn't seem right to me, but I said I would go along with it, and I made a commitment. So I'll stay a little bit longer." All this time, of course, the leadership and everyone else around you is telling you that you had better go along with it, in either subtle or not-so-subtle terms. Also people don't like to just stand up and say, "I quit." Rather than be quitters, they will stick with things. The longer they stay, the more difficult it is to get out. Not wanting to be seen as a quitter is yet another element that keeps people in cults. Respect for AuthorityWe were all brought up to respect authority figures, leaders, and people who give us answers. When we are young, and all through school, we're taught that there are answers and authorities. We are supposed to listen to the answers and look up to the people who "know better." As a result, when you are told not to question your cult, your rationale for obedience is that to do otherwise would be disrespectful to the all-knowing leader. After all, the leader knows better and has the all-powerful answers. Questions and doubts are discouraged. To reinforce obedience, each group usually has some kind of punishment pattern for violators. When someone questions authority, she may be made to look ridiculous or called a renegade, a spy, an agent, a nonbeliever, Satan, or whatever disparaging terms that particular group uses. Each cult's internal language always includes terms to ridicule and denigrate questioners, who are made to feel bad for doubting or questioning. If you were a questioner, eventually, in most cases, you were probably convinced by the cult's closed logic (and by peer pressure) that your questioning meant you weren't a strong believer. So you stopped questioning. Ultimately human beings do whatever they need to do to survive in a particular environment. When you're a cult member, a great deal of your environment and many of your life choices are controlled: your financial resources, access to information, the work you might do, your free time, your social circle, sometimes even your sex life is controlled. You adapt and learn to function in order to remain in the group. It's easier to conform, to go along with the flow, and to be a good believer and a good follower than it is to resist.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I could not but long for her to step upon the stage again; but I wished, too, that I might be alone when she did so - alone in my little box with the door shut fast behind me - rather than seated in the midst of a crowd of people to whom she was nothing, and who thought my particular passion for her only queer, or quaint.They had heard me sing ‘Sweethearts and Wives’ a thousand times; they had heard me tell the details of her costume, of her hair and voice; I had burned all week to have them see her, and pronounce her marvellous. Now that they were gathered here, however, gay and careless and hot and loud, I despised them. I could hardly bear for them to look upon her at all; worse still, I thought I couldn’t endure to have them look upon me, as I watched her. I had that sensation again, that there had grown a lantern or a beacon inside me. I was sure that when she stepped upon the stage it would be like putting a match to the wick, and I would flare up, golden and incandescent but somehow painfully and shamefully bright; and my family and my beau would shrink away from me, appalled.Of course, when she strode before the footlights at last, no such thing occurred. I saw Davy look my way and give a wink, and heard Father’s whisper: ‘Here’s the very gal, then, at last’; but when I glowed and sparkled it was evidently with a dark and secret flame which no one - except Alice, perhaps - looked for or saw.As I had feared, however, I felt horribly far from Miss Butler that night. Her voice was as strong, her face as lovely, as before; but I had been used to hearing the breaths she drew between the phrases, used to catching the glimmer of the limes upon her lip, the shadow of her lashes on her powdered cheek. Now I felt as though I was watching her through a pane of glass, or with my ears stopped up with wax. When she finished her set my family cheered, and Freddy stamped his feet and whistled. Davy called, ‘Stone me, if she ain’t just as wonderful as Nancy painted her!’ - then he leaned across Alice’s lap to wink and add, ‘Though not so wonderful that I’d spend a shilling a week on train tickets to come and see her every night!’ I didn’t answer him. Kitty Butler had come back for her encore, and had already drawn the rose from her lapel; but it was no comfort to me at all to know my family liked her - indeed, it made me more wretched still.