Guilt, Shame, and Uncle Henry
If you haven’t watched The Haunting of the House of Bly, then maybe you should skip this until you go watch it, but I am going to attempt this without spoilers.
There is a scene in episode 6 of the Haunting of Bly Manor where we see one of the main characters (Uncle Henry) meet his tormentor for the first time. Throughout the first 5 episodes, we have watched and wondered at the strange relationship between the Henry and his creepy doppelgänger ghost. This is not a ghost of the dead; he is a representation of guilt. We have watched the pair drink together, while Henry allows himself to be belittled by his ghost. He picks up the drink, sinking into alcoholism and avoidance, but the audience doesn’t know exactly what is going on until episode 6.
It’s here where we see the moment the ghost enters his life. We see his great sin, the one on which his life pivots. We see how he was once likable, and lovable, and we watch him shift into the shell of a man we have come to know through the first 5 episodes.
His ghost enters his life at the exact moment he finds himself consumed by a guilt so extraordinary, he cannot face it. He comes in hard, appearing in all of his aggressive ickiness, while Henry cowers on the ground before him. In that moment, though, he does Henry no harm. In that first meeting, the specter of his own self hatred puts out his hand and lifts Henry up, as a friend would do. He is a rescuer.
This moment was so striking. Our suffering, often showing up as some sort of truth of self hatred, shame and addiction, enters as a savior. In a moment of pain too raw to truly experience, we turn to anything that will take us away from it. We seek a way to make sense of the pain. Since the real truth is that there is no sense to it, we instead cling to stories that provide sense, order and reason. Those stories sacrifice our ability to love ourselves, and substitute a false, logical story.
In this case, Henry learns a truth, and is overtaken by a wave of guilt. And so, the logic here can unfold: if I did something bad, it must mean I am bad. If I am bad, I do not deserve love. If I do not deserve love, I cannot love another, and everyone hates me, even if they don’t even know it yet. If everyone hates me, I must hide, I must isolate. It is the only means of redemption, to protect the world from my unfathomable badness.
The hand that is extended is one of reason and logic, a story that Henry can understand, so much more concrete than simply accepting that awful things happen and are beyond our control. And so, he hides. He hides even from himself, disappearing into the bottle. When he finally summons the strength to reconnect, his ghost stands in his way, reminding him how awful he is, how he cannot possibly deliver his disgusting awful self to the doorstep of his loved ones. There is desperation here, as the ghost sees his own demise if Henry moves forward toward connection.
How does this apply to you? Do you block yourself from connection, convinced by a story that you don’t deserve it? That you are doing more harm than good when you expose your whole self to another human? Do you believe that you must fake it, that you cannot be truly yourself? I want you to know that it isn’t true. These are stories that burst forth in moments of desperation, when the emotions are too much to bear. They protect us in those moments, taking us away from some raw and terrifying loss, but then they stick around way past their welcome, bullying us into shame and disconnection. They stick to us like evil entities.
If you are to move forward, as Henry did, you need to face this head on, and tell the ghost “you don’t belong here anymore.” When you do this, it is an act of faith — faith that you will, indeed, be understood and accepted, that you are actually likable and lovable, even though you’ve done bad things, and even though it might not make sense. This is where I come in. I will hold your hand and pull you out with love, not guilt. An exorcism of sorts, I suppose.