How Potato Chips Triggered a Shame Cycle
“You’re so weird,” she said, eyes squinted, mouth sneered in disgust.
I was young, maybe 14. I shared something I’d learned from my dad, who worked at a food factory plant to pay for college. “Did you know brand name and generic potato chips are all made on the same manufacturing line? We’ve been overpaying for the same chips!”
Her comment slapped me into silence and I hung my head in shame, embarrassed by her very public comment at the school lunch table. My lip quivered ever so slightly as I crunched on my off-brand potato chips.
Sure, it was a weird declaration for a teenager, given the pressures of high school. I mean, did you see the outfit she wore? Can you believe he broke up with her? Maybe saving money was only interesting to me—a child of an immigrant family who’d experienced the devastating effects of a world war.
That lunchtime reaction made me feel exposed and unwanted. I wasn’t cool enough to be their crowd. And they weren’t exactly the popular crowd.
Growing up, I was wildly intelligent but socially underdeveloped. The trick to being socially adept seemed to be dictated by a secret set of rules. By the time I figured them out, the rules had changed again. Silence protected me from ridicule.
Recently, I received feedback from a client about a project that triggered a shame cycle. I was proud of the work I shared, given the limitations of time, location, budget and scope creep. I did my best. My client wasn’t as impressed.
Her email was kind, but it was clear we had different feelings about the outcome. Looking back, it was a lack of communication on both ends regarding expectations, but my logic couldn’t overpower my feelings.
It stung.
I was right back at that lunch table.
“You’re weird.”
“You’re not good enough.”
“You’re not worthy.”
“You don’t belong here.”
That email made me want to isolate and hide from the world for several days. Then, I wanted to apologize profusely and offer to comp the whole 20-hour project that I’d already undercharged for. (I didn’t, by the way.) And then I was angry, but stuffed the emotion once again in my wounded heart.
Those types of responses are shame shields that, when unchecked manifest as more trauma. They develop in youth and seem to creep up in adulthood at the most unwelcome times, almost always when you think life is safe to enjoy again.
In Daring Greatly, Brené Brown said, “Nothing silences us more effectively than shame.” When shamed, we find ourselves at a of crossroads:
Stay quiet.
Stay stuck.
Shy away.
Heal and rise above.
By learning shame cycles, acknowledging them, and healing from them, two things happen:
Those shaming voices become quieter.
Our authentic, unapologetic voices become louder.
I learn to stop hanging my head in shame as a result of another person’s response. I don’t need to be over-responsible for another person’s lack of intellect, experience, communication, courage, social expectations, or their own unhealthy responses to shame triggers.
My mission, my voice, and my work will not be silenced by the voice of someone’s shame cycle.
And I’ll talk about potato chips if it damn well pleases me.
