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Shame - the ultimate voicelessness?

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CC:
that was me above, I thought I was logged on , sorry

Claudiacat (CC)

rosencrantz:
I've been working pretty hard on the 'shame' issue over the past couple of weeks.  Thanks to folk 'out there' for 'being around'!

Finally, today, I think I may have cracked the core of it.

Perhaps my 'defining moment' as a teenager was the image of someone I saw in a teashop window.  An elderly mother (vibrant, talkative) with her middle-aged spinster daughter (dumb, mousy, beaten, doing occupational therapy in the Day Centre).  I realise that this is totally my own interpretation of their situation but what I 'saw' was my mother and me 30 years on.  A daughter deadened by a mother who had built her life on the ruins of her daughter.  This was my fate if I didn't get out.  

I got out. A daughter, as it turns out, who built her life on the ruins of her mother.  (But she could have taken responsibility for her life, it was her choice not to, not mine)

Recently that picture became more real.  On one occasion in recent weeks, I truly believed that my mother had 'won' and that my only option had become either to have myself committed to a mental hospital or commit suicide.  Being aware of my husband's eyes on me, I knew (seeing myself through his eyes) that I was speaking and acting irrationally, out of character, otherwise I'm not sure I would ever have come out of that terrible 'truth'.

More recently, I went much deeper into the pit of shame and became aware it was related to attempts to 'be like' my mother - an aspiration perhaps of every 2 year old.  I was thrown back, rejected, shamed, humiliated as if by a magnet with an opposite attraction.  

I've felt all of this many times in my life.  It puts a barrier between me and success.  I cannot succeed if success = humiliation and shame.

Today I reached the core of the shame and humiliation and what it really means.

It all got turned on its head.

As of today, I know, in my heart,  that it is my mother's aspiration for me is to be committed!  Committed to a mental asylum, commit suicide, commit a crime and be incarcerated. It doesn't really matter...

This is not (just) because she can dump all her unwanted rubbish in me - I've understood that for ages - but mainly because she would get to be the leading lady in the most dramatic role of her life. My Daughter, the In-Patient. (It's a drama already being enacted by three generations in this family)

Can you feel the shame of knowing that that is as much as my mother cares for me - ???  That this is the best that life was supposed to offer me??  That this is the purpose of my existence - in the eyes of the most important and influential and respected and adored and needed person in my life???

Of course you can.  My husband wasn't at all surprised when I revealed this to him - he didn't even blink an eyelid!!  So I'm sure you won't either.

At the age of two, I knew what she had in store for me!

It's 'sort of' not possible - and yet it's what I passionately believe to be true.  I feel completely exhausted and drained - but I won't ever feel that shame again.  It's a promise!  I begin to understand how and why shame means that I am worth so little.
R

mary:
When I found out my kids were so "sick " because of their treatment by their Dad, I felt such shame.  Shame on all different levels.  Shame that I had not realized what was happening to them.  Shame that I had not shielded them from him.  Shame that I had married a N....shame that there had to be something terribly wrong with me that I would marry one.  What was wrong with me that I would marry an N?   Shame over whelmed me.  I am getting better with it.  But shame is real.

Neko:
Rosencrantz and CC, wow.

A few years ago I asked my brother what he thought would happen if one of us were ever wrongfully arrested and our parents were called to testify. I'd had a similar revelation to yours - I was never meant to succeed in life, I was meant to be a miserable failure. Were I ever to be wrongfully arrested, I have no doubt my mother would take the stand stoically and rattle off her list of "why my daughter is horrible, even though we did so much good raising her", punctuated with sobs, of course. She's good at the sob thing. So I asked my brother out of the blue, wondering what he would say - he laughed and sighed, and said, "Do you know how many times I've wondered that? She would so totally testify that we had to be guilty. She expects us to screw up, you know."

Then about pain. Goodness, CC, it was such a relief to read about your experience, as painful as it is, because I've had a hard time believing my mother to be capable of the same thing. I know what she did - ignored my pain - but it's the one thing that I've always been able to make excuses for, even though my excuses have been getting weaker and weaker as I find out just how much my mother knew about my medical condition, and how dangerous it is. Apologies in advance for writing about my experience, the exact circumstances are a little embarrassing to talk about, but it's something I'd love to get off my chest - the only person in the world other than my immediate family who knows about it is my husband. I feel like people here will understand.

I have endometriosis. I didn't know this until it nearly killed me four years ago. I was in so much pain in middle and high school that I could not go to school for three days a month - it sapped all my energy, so much so that I would usually catch a cold at the same time. My mother had painful periods too, but she could successfully treat them with one or two ibuprofen. When that did nothing - and I do mean nothing - for me, her response was to yell and scream at me. "Oh for God's sake, you are SUCH a weakling! I know what it feels like, so stop faking it!" Mine lasted a full 8 days, and resembled hemorrhaging. My mother again told me I was exaggerating, and would never buy enough "supplies" for me. Then she would yell at me for being a financial burden, and that I should "learn to deal with it."

She did take me to the doctor for a routine check-up at one point, and our doctor asked me about my period. When I told her how much pain I was in and how I was frightened by the hemorrhage-like bleeding, she got very concerned - but my mother was in the room too and said, "Oh don't listen to her, she's making it up. She's got the same thing I do. Just give her some painkillers." I was struck dumb, our doctor said, "Well, you know, we could always prescribe her the pill, it would lessen the symptoms, be a lot easier to handle." Goodness gracious did my mother lose it. Not right then and there - she just said, "No. My daughter doesn't need the pill."

She lost it when we were driving back and I said, "Why can't I take the pill?" Her response? "Because you'll turn into a whore, that's why!" Considering that I never wore makeup, never wore dresses and had never had a boyfriend, that was some leap of logic. Oh and, she had taken the pill during the first years of her marriage. When I pointed this out to her, she snarked back, "I'm married. Get the difference?"

I was prescribed the maximum dose of ibuprofen, 800mg every four hours, never to exceed more than 2400mg a day. (Nowadays it's common knowledge that ibuprofen, when regularly taken at those doses, can cause severe stomach problems.) It took the edge off the pain, nothing more. The only time I remember having no pain was after I'd fractured my wrist and was given Tylenol 3 - codeine - for the pain. I was able to sleep, run around, and all without pain! I asked my mother if it were possible to take codeine for the worst of it - she said, "First you ask me to give you the pill so you can be a whore, now you want me to let you turn into a drug addict? For God's sake, no one cares about your stupid exaggerations, we all know you're faking it!"

Four years ago. I start having shooting pains in my lower right side that wallop the breath out of me. My husband, who had appendicitis as a child, says "let's get you to the emergency room." A doctor examines me and says, "I think you've got an ovarian cyst." I'm sent to an emergency room gynecologist who takes some ultrasounds and tells me, "You've got a burst ovarian cyst. Have you ever been diagnosed with endometriosis?" I ask what that is, he responds by asking me about my period. I go over my history, his eyes open wide and he whispers, shocked, "You've NEVER been treated?! ... with those symptoms! ... oh my ..." I had to have emergency surgery to remove the cyst and stop the bleeding, could have lost my ovary from extensive damage if we had waited any longer, and also could have died from the hemorrhaging. I may or may not be infertile because of how long I went without treatment, only time will tell. (I've always wanted to have children.)

I was immediately prescribed the pill, after which I have led a normal (physically speaking) life, the likes of which I had honestly forgotten.

It turns out that endometriosis runs in our family. I have three aunts with it, on both my father's and mother's side. One of my grandmother's sisters has it too. My mother knew this.

rosencrantz:
The trouble is, they encourage us to accept their perspective as the truth - so we think we don't deserve proper treatment even when, as adults, we have become capable of looking after our own interests.  I've been much more ill than I needed to be because of that.  And I never rest

But there's a difference between the overt messages (and our interpretation of them) and the covert ones - the ones that are so fundamental that no-one ever 'knew' they were being handed out (not even the person handing them out!).

I read yesterday that guilt is about our actions (what we did) - shame is about our fundamental 'self', our being (who we are)...

I'm coming to the conclusion that, for children of parents with narcissistic problems, the core issue of shame is that we don't exist!

For a two-year old, not existing at all is pretty shaming, I'd guess!!

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