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Shame Thrives in Isolation, Here's What to Do Instead with Kristina Silvinski

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Kristina is a licensed clinical marriage and family therapist and founder of In Our Nature Therapy in Annapolis. She came to this work the same way a lot of us come to the work that matters most to us: through her own hard stuff. She was in the military. She went through trauma at a young age. Therapy is what helped her get to the other side of it. So now she does that for other people.

One of the first things she talked about is self-medicating and why the person reaching for a drink at the end of a hard day is not weak or broken. They're actually doing something intelligent with the wrong tool. They know something is off. They know they need relief. Alcohol works fast, it works reliably, and so the brain pairs it with success. Problem solved.

Except the problem is never actually solved. The emotion you were trying to escape was already on its way down on its own. Your body knows how to do this. Emotions peak and then they dissipate, like a roller coaster cresting and coming back down. But when you cut off that process with alcohol every single time, your brain never learns that. It just learns that the drink is the only way through.

So the craving gets stronger. The pattern gets more locked in. And somewhere along the way the shame starts to pile on too, because now you're not just drinking, you're drinking and promising yourself you won't, and then drinking again. And every cycle makes the voice in your head a little louder and a little meaner.

Here is what Kristina wants you to hear about that shame: it is one part of what you are experiencing. It is not who you are. You are not your shame.

That might sound like a small distinction, but it is actually everything. Because when shame gets attached to your identity, it feels permanent. It feels like evidence. Like proof that you are someone who cannot get this together. And that belief is what keeps so many people stuck, quietly suffering and not asking for help, because asking for help would mean admitting the thing they are most ashamed of.

Shame does not get better in the dark. It gets worse. The only thing that actually interrupts it is connection, being seen by another person and discovering that you are still worthy of care even while you are going through something hard. That is what therapy does. That is what good coaching does. That is what honest community does.

If you have been hiding, I want you to know that the hiding is not protecting you. It is just giving the shame more room to grow.

You are not the wave. You are the ocean. And the wave is going to pass.

Take my free quiz at soberfitchick.com if you want to start getting honest about where you are. And if you want to talk, you can email me directly at [email protected]. I read every single one.