The Shame Loop: How Childhood Guilt Hijacked My Mental Health (And How I Broke Free)

There are moments I’ve replayed in my head for decades. Not sweet memories or triumphs. Not even full-on trauma. Just those small, awkward, haunting moments that lodged themselves in my chest and whispered, "You should be ashamed."

Maybe you know the kind I mean.

Something someone said to you when you were too young to understand it was more about them than you.
A look. A joke. A moment of rejection.
A mistake you made in innocence that someone else turned into guilt.

Somewhere along the way, I started carrying those moments like they were part of my personality—like I was the mistake, not just someone who made one. The memory would show up uninvited, like a broken record in my brain. And no matter how strong I felt that day, once it started spinning, I’d spiral.

The Shame Spiral Is Real

It starts small. A flicker of a memory. A tight feeling in the chest. And then suddenly, I’m 10 years old again, embarrassed, confused, and convinced everyone sees me as wrong or bad or not enough.

It doesn’t matter that I’m a grown adult now, with a life and people who love me.
The record starts to spin, and the loop takes over.

I used to think being mentally strong meant not having those spirals at all. That strength was silence. Or stillness. Or just never breaking down.

I was wrong.

The Only Way Out Was Back Through

What finally helped me break the loop wasn’t pretending the memory didn’t matter. It was revisiting it—on purpose.

I sat with it.
I asked questions:

• What was really happening in that moment?

• Who taught me to feel ashamed?

• Were they a safe or wise person to begin with?

• And why have I kept performing this same inner monologue, year after year?

That’s when the truth hit me like a punch in the gut:

Shame becomes powerful not because it’s true—but because we rehearse it like a monologue for an audience that never deserved our performance.

Mic. Drop.

That “audience”—the person who made me feel small—was never meant to hold that kind of power in my life. But because I replayed their judgment over and over, I gave it weight. I rehearsed it like it was a script written just for me.

So, I stopped. Or at least, I started learning how to stop.

I changed the narrative.

Instead of letting the memory tell me who I was, I started telling the memory who I am now.

Mental Strength Isn’t Silence—It’s Courage

Being mentally strong doesn’t mean your shame disappears forever.
It means the next time the record starts spinning, you recognize the song.
And you skip it. Or better yet—scratch the vinyl.

Strength is showing up to the memory, fully you, fully grown, and saying:
“I see you. I know why you’re here. But you don’t get to run the show anymore.”

That’s how I broke free.
Not with perfection. But with presence.

And if you're still stuck in your own loop—let me say this clearly:
There’s nothing wrong with you.

You’ve just been performing a script that was never yours to begin with.
Tear it up. Burn it.
Forgive yourself—and, if you’re ready, even the ones who handed you the shame in the first place.

Take away their power by removing their seat of judgment from your life.
They don’t get to be the audience anymore.

No more rehearsing your worth for people who were never qualified to critique it in the first place.