Shame prefers hiding because examination threatens its exaggerations.

Shame works by keeping its claims out of the light, because its claims are almost always oversized. It says not that you did something wrong but that you are something wrong, and that verdict survives only as long as it goes unexamined. Spoken aloud to someone decent, it usually shrinks to a normal-sized regret about a specific thing.

If something has been sitting in you unspoken, consider telling one person you trust. Not to be absolved, only to hear it in the air. Notice whether what comes back matches the size of what you were carrying. Most of the time the difference is startling.