Author Topic: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping  (Read 17586 times)

Brigid

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #30 on: August 15, 2005, 07:18:39 PM »
Quote
PS where is the quote button on this thing?

It's the icon with the yellow box in it.  Sorry, that was a lousy description. :oops:, but the best I can do.

Brigid

longtire

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #31 on: August 15, 2005, 11:05:47 PM »
Stormchild, great thread!  I'm glad you started it.  I've been really busy at work the last few days and am just now getting caught up.

I realized reading this that I have been trying to have the "perfect divorce" and avoid offending anyone because of shame.  Hell, I have been trying to be the "perfect person" because I thought that was the only way to get people to stay close to me.  Shame is one of the reasons, or maybe the main reason why I have been so hard on myself through a lot of this and worried about what other people thought.  I felt guilty and ashamed and "not good enough" so I have to work extra, super-humanly hard to "earn" other people caring about me.

I have done so much biting of my tongue, I'm amazed I still have one.  When people say the stupidest, rudest things, I would say nothing and even nod and seem to agree!  Yuck!  I put up with selfish, abusive, annoying behavior from my wife for years thinking that if I was "perfect enough" I could get her to not just stop, but completely change her behavior.  Always trying to be better so I can finally "deserve" something good in my life.

Maybe some of this is coming from work.  Despite wroking a lot, I am not able to put the same energy into my job for this upcoming deadline.  I even told my boss that I would not be able to go that extra mile like have in the past.  (My boss is really understanding and supportive, so that was OK.)  There is just so much going on in my life in moving toward divorce, building a relationship with God, all the changes and growth that I've been going through.  It like I only have half the energy for work with all this going on in the background every day.  In the past, I would have worked right up to the point of exhaustion at the deadline and been proud of myself for gauging it correctly and not collapsing before we finished. :(  Now, even though I am very tired most of the time, work is the first thing to go when I need to take care of myself.  I value myself far more that this job.  Now, I value myself more that a relationship, especially a bad one.

This is all stream of consciousness, so I apologize if it doesn't make sense.  I think since I haven't posted for a couple of days, the pressure was building up to let it out.
longtire

- The only thing that was ever really wrong with me was that I used to think there was something wrong with *me*.  :)

Stormchild

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #32 on: August 16, 2005, 12:08:27 AM »
Yea long! Makes perfect sense. Thanks for sitting in.

I agree, the fear of shame - the need to escape shaming - has driven a lot of my past 'need to perform' too. Thinking that if I were only good enough at whatever, my poor evil echo-empty mother would finally appreciate me. Or the incompetent, nasty, narcissistic teacher or boss or whatever. Sad, that. Craving mercy from the merciless, love from the unloving, kindness from the cruel. Because they shame us, in defense, making us feel as though WE are the defective ones, keeping us from seeing where the defects really lie.

I think it's what drives the 'crab bucket' too. That thing that keeps people from breaking free of dysfunctional families and groups... the way crabs in a bucket will pull down any crab that manages to get near enough to the edge that it might otherwise escape. Shame. Get back down here in the quicksand with the rest of us, who do you think YOU are?

And heaven help us, we don't know any better because we've never had anything better, so down we slide, in we wade, feeling all the time as though something isn't quite the way it ought to be but never knowing what's wrong.

It's been interesting to see the panorama of responses here. A kaleidoscope... different people refracting the light in their own unique ways... thankfully, reactive shaming - which I thought was probably inevitable with a topic this emotionally loaded, where we're all walking wounded in various ways - seems almost nonexistent.

Interesting thing has happened for me since I articulated this. I've had some really delightful recent encounters - I'm being sarcastic - with total jerks; typical Ns-in-traffic, at work, at the store type stuff. My response is different. I see the shame being thrown, and instead of being angry about it, or reacting in some way to defuse it, I'm just sort of taking one brisk step to the right or the left and watching it whiz past. Feeling a thankfully mild contempt, mingled with a very cool (temperature-wise) sort of pity, and then going on about my business. It's so obviously THEIR problem - and not worth any emotional expenditure on my part - at least, it seems obvious now!

Hmm. So... the point of Ns shaming us is to deprive us of confidence in ourselves. Which, of course, makes us easy to manipulate and deceive. And god bless us, when we reactively shame others, because we don't know any better, we're doing the Ns' work for them.

Makes perfect sense, then, that one of the first things that would happen, when we see and reject shaming, would be an increase in confidence and in resistance to manipulation and deceit.

Wow. I hope this sticks. Nice, it feels. I'm looking forward to reaching the point where the mild contempt and cool pity are replaced by detachment and compassion, too, but right now I need to feel exactly what I'm feeling, in order to get away from what I used to feel. I've extended the wrong kind of compassion to Ns all my life.

This URL is a link to an amazing cartoon series by a person whose faith is as real and reality-based as anything I have ever seen. But please don't click on it if you are prone to nightmares about Ns being monsters, because this strip shows someone 'exposing' their inner N, and their whole countenance changes into something monstrous. It's as ugly as anything Steven Spielberg could come up with in a special effect. But I swear I've seen something like this happen, in the faces of Ns hurling shame.

http://www.comics.com/comics/levelpath/archive/levelpath-20050813.html

[Just in case the URL takes you to today's strip (for whatever day you access it) the strip I meant to direct to is the one for 8/13. If you want to see a fairly amusing sample of his work instead of this amazing depiction of an N's inner core, copy the URL above, paste it into your browser, and change -20050813 to -20050814 before you hit the return key.]
« Last Edit: August 16, 2005, 01:18:40 AM by Stormchild »

miss piggy

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #33 on: August 16, 2005, 02:18:59 AM »
Hi Stormchild and everyone,

I'm just catching up on this thread.  Very thought provoking, so I wanted to read it through carefully first.  Lots going on in this one.

I just wanted to share something that happened only days ago.  One of my kids' summer instructors and I were having a conversation in passing and he threw out an off-hand remark that just hit me like a bolt of lightening.  I had such an intense physical reaction that I knew I had better not say anything and go sit down.  I sat there shaking and wondering why I was practically breaking down.  To say I was over-reacting to what happened in this present moment is an understatement.  (I had misinterpreted what he had said, but the fact that I was so primed to take it a certain way also told me something...)

So I asked my T about it and basically whatever he said (inadvertently) hit an old buried wound.  Basically the hurt has to do with the Shame of growing up being a girl in a very male-oriented family.  That there is Shame.  Bad feelings for what you are that is no fault of anyone.  My realization was wow, it was worse than I am able to remember.  Perhaps I feel this now because as an adult who is working on these things, maybe only now I can allow myself to feel that pain.  Does this make sense?  It was almost as bad as a panic attack and just came out of nowhere.

On another aspect of the discussion, I find that I really clamp my mouth shut when angry because I don't want to fire back and then feel bad about it afterward.  I wouldn't want someone to feel bad because I was angry and went off the handle.  My father does enough of that for everyone! 

Wish I could say more (want everyone to know there were many "gosh, I've felt like that, too!" reactions to all your posts), but gotta go now.  Hugs, MP

Plucky

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #34 on: August 16, 2005, 01:11:01 PM »
Wow Stormy that comic was so real!  I have seen my mother's face distort like that into something scary.  I even have a photo of it, taken by accident before she was ready, and she was furious that I, in her mind, was trying to show her looking unpretty.  Because everyone knows that she is so so pretty and will always be.
Plucky

Stormchild

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #35 on: August 16, 2005, 10:54:31 PM »
Hi Plucky, Yes, I've seen something very similar in my own mother, and a couple of other people. Male as well as female.

I was floored to see it depicted by a comic strip artist. I knew what I was seeing in my mother, and these other people, when their expressions changed so extremely, was real --  but I had no idea anyone else had ever seen anything like it.

I guess quite a few of us have seen this kind of change come over someone. Don't know if that's reassuring or frightening - a little of both, I guess.

Hi MP -- oof, that must have been rough. Did your kid's instructor have any idea something was happening to you? I'm sorry you were shamed for being. Literally for being who you are. I got that from my mother for being like my father. I'm sorry you got it at all, and especially that you got it just for being a darling little girl. 
« Last Edit: August 16, 2005, 11:27:31 PM by Stormchild »

miss piggy

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #36 on: August 17, 2005, 01:43:10 AM »
Hi Stormy,

No, the instructor and I were walking in different directions when he made the remark.  He really meant no harm and actually what he was saying was sort of a compliment, once I calmed down from my traumatic flashback.  The damage came from my own interpretation of what he said.  (I am deliberately not quoting him, because I get a little weird about getting too specific on message boards--but that's a different topic/phobia!  :) ).  What really blew me away was my own reaction to a casual remark. 

The stuff I dealt with as a child was under the radar from my parents (communicated more through attitude--women are to serve the men) and more open with my siblings.  I was praised long and hard for being so quiet and easy-going.  But anytime I had a problem with my Nbro, I was sent to my room.  Mom always took his side.  It was unbelievable.  I know this sounds like petty sibling rivalry.  But add that to the anti-female attitudes from both my parents and dont-bother-me rage from my Nfather, it was unbearable.  So I became invisible.  Kinda dicey growing up during the feminist movement.   :shock:  I've heard that ambiguity can be more damaging than overt physical abuse.  Not that it's a competition, but you can kind of figure out that ma and pa are whacked if they're beating the cr*p out of you and not pretending to like you while they are messing with your head.  Even as a teenager, I would wonder at the confidence other girls had and ask myself how they got it.  What was different?  It was such a puzzle. 

I haven't check out the comic strip yet.  Hmm.  Kind of like pandora's box.  Think I'll wait!   :wink:  MP

Stormchild

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #37 on: August 17, 2005, 08:00:49 AM »
Hi MP

Glad you didn't have to deal with a confused instructor on top of everything else.

Covert abuse is horrendously damaging, I think because so much of it is nonverbal, and so much of our ability to analyze things depends on our being able to verbalize them. Until you can describe in words what has happened, even if those words are only in your thoughts or a journal, you can't really see or grasp or evaluate or deal with it...

I got the same kind of favoritism flip side in my FOO (family of origin, I love that acronym. Foo!). Nsib could do no wrong, and no matter what I did it was never good enough. Shame, shame, shame, and always on me. You know the deal. It's been revolting to find the same garbage thriving lushly in my current workplace... favoritism, etc. ... but now I can articulate it! I can call it out! I know what it is!

Sometimes I wonder how much of the opposition to 'labeling' is an honest concern about stereotyping, and how much of it is a desire to prevent people from being able to name, understand, and overcome the things that drive, harm, and oppress us.

About that cartoon: it really is ugly, and you really ought not look at it if you have even the tiniest likelihood of being upset by it.

The link won't be any good a month from now, that site doesn't retain archives for more than 30 days, but I didn't want to post the image since it's copyright material and the artist deserves his site hits.

Gotta go... hugs to you

miss piggy

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #38 on: August 17, 2005, 12:27:57 PM »
Thanks Stormy!

great point about verbalising.  really helpful.  hugs back, MP

October

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #39 on: August 17, 2005, 05:02:59 PM »
I have seen my mother's face distort like that into something scary.  I even have a photo of it, taken by accident before she was ready, and she was furious that I, in her mind, was trying to show her looking unpretty. 

My Nmum's face looks like that on one of the photos taken at my wedding.  Ex and I are smiling away in the middle, with one set of parents either side.  My mum has her face towards the camera, but her eyes looking sideways towards me, and the most evil expression you have ever seen on her face.  As if her resentment towards me is at its strongest on that day; when she was in second place.

Maybe this is why Ns hate having their pictures taken.   :?

plucky as guest

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #40 on: August 19, 2005, 10:13:07 PM »
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As if her resentment towards me is at its strongest on that day; when she was in second place.
On the plane I saw the movie, 'Monster in Law'.  In real life, my mother insisted on wearing a white dress to my wedding, just like Jane Fonda's character.  I asked her not to, I had already bought her a dress, but she insisted that it was not flattering to her.  So I became the one trying to make her look bad.
That Bitch!
a really bad
plucky



miss piggy

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #41 on: August 19, 2005, 11:37:51 PM »
 :shock:

Hmm...I remember a couple of my mother's friends wearing white to my wedding.  It really bugged me.  One went so far as to wear a small white hat complete with a little peekaboo veil!!!  What does that tell you?   :?

Whenever I go to a wedding now, I stay away from the women in white, except the bride of course.  They are up to no good.

MP

October

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #42 on: August 20, 2005, 06:53:51 AM »
I didn't wear white when I married.  My dress was pale silver, with a rose pattern woven in.  White veil.  I made it myself.

Thinking back, though, I have a very N friend, who wore a white suit that day.  Never thought about it before, because whatever she was saying, it didn't work.   :lol:

Stormchild

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #43 on: August 20, 2005, 03:22:03 PM »
Reading these posts about women deliberately choosing to wear white to someone else's wedding - how incredibly unhealthily competitive! Reminded me of some of the horror stories people were posting about other important life occasions. Maybe we should have a thread about how Ns try to hijack everyone else's sacraments!

October, brava, how lovely that it never had any impact. MP -- ewwwww! Even a veil??? Ditto Plucky... ewww... mom from hell...

Portia

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Re: Narcissism and Shame-Dumping
« Reply #44 on: March 17, 2006, 05:44:52 AM »
What’s the objective of the post above please? (The one with lots of Mandarin(?) links, just in case it gets deleted.)

Is there anything you want to say here?

Everyone, is anyone else bugged by these posts? I am.