Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Shame - the ultimate voicelessness?
CC:
If you'll forgive my pun, it is truly a SHAME that you have been let down by mental health care professionals (except for Richard, of course) If we cannot trust the people we ask for help from, whom can we trust? I have been very fortunate with therapists, thankfully - I can't imagine having been misunderstood by one. I have heard of this often, though, unfortunately. It is unfortunate but many therapists are in the field for their own needs, conciously or not. This is even addressed in "Prisoner of Childhood", it discusses the tendency of narcissists to become therapists (the ultimate irony)!!
And the tangled web the narcissists weave, deceiving even those who should know better. It is admirable that in your own discovery you have stayed true to yourself, and you were able to stick to your guns, knowing where you came from despite other's oblivion. Blessings.
rosencrantz:
Thanks CC. Scary isn't it!
I've been trying to reconcile the concept of an overcoat of shame and the pit of shame. I think they are two different things.
I recognise the overcoat now and the link with RG's description of where it comes form - (it occurs to me it's something that perhaps we could physically shrug off our shoulders with a shake!!??!). I think mine is more a cloak of invisibility!! Hmmm...interesting concepts, these!!
But the pit of shame...
Groan. I find I just can't enter into a better understanding of this right now as I'd intended. I've just had an email from a cousin telling me that my problem with my mother is
"a) your sensitive personality (someone else wouldn't take her to heart so much) :? and
b) you have been her undiluted focus. It would have been easier for you if you had had brothers and sisters." :shock:
No, no, no, no, no!!!
Her mother is my mother's sister and I'm discovering that they were as like as two peas. I thought my cousin had begun to understand her own predicament - especially as she and her siblings were manipulated and set off against each other and she KNOWS that.
(Oh, here I go struggling not to descend into that pit of shame!!)
I'm trying so hard not to say 'it's me, of course it's me, it's all me. It's my fault, I am so shameful for thinking these terrible thoughts about my mother, how could I think she has something 'wrong' with her, of course I should be able to deal with her, elderly, sweet, vulnerable. there's obviously something wrong with me' :? Just like with the therapist. Of course it was all 'my' perception, my fault, or maybe it just never really happened (except I know it did!!). :?
But I 'know' from what I've read that it's wrong to say it's because I'm 'sensitive'. That's what set me on this trail in the first place. I was rivited by reading 'my' experience as someone who always felt 'no-one would believe me' because no-one has seen exactly what goes on, no-one has experienced it (and I couldn't explain it) - and people don't 'want' to believe it, anyway. It upsets the applecart.
As father said : 'She doesn't really mean it...' :cry:
But the scorpion doesn't 'mean' to sting the frog and drown them both!!!
'It' 'it' 'it' - what's 'it'!!!
What I fear most is becoming the scapegoat, the receptacle, the dustbin for the family as a whole. I'm good at knowing what a group wants and then supplying it. I despair, I really, really do. Let's all lay it on [R], then we can be 'well' and she can hold it for all of us.
Two are nurses, one is a doctor and one has been diagnosed as 'bipolar' (eldest/black sheep/scapegoat as a child) so you can bet they're experienced at it.
That's what I feel about my mother, too - she 'dumps' all her rubbish in me so I can be the one who is ill (then she can look after ME!!)
I think my father's death may have catapulted my mother into the worst of her 'disorder'. And I know I'm a Myers Briggs NF (Intuitive/Feeling) type but, still...
I've got that 'rabbit caught in the headlights' feeling again...
I've been sensitISED my husband has just pointed out (gem of my life).
Thanks for letting me rabbit on!!! :) It's so good to feel I'm speaking out, and speaking up, even if still 'invisibly' behind my anonymity.
[Three years later, I discovered that my mother had Aspergers Syndrome - as did my husband and son - so that's what 'it' was! Please be gentle with people who have AS because they mean no harm even while they cause us terrible distress. WE cause THEM terrible distress without meaning to, too]
October:
<<Since too much time and energy are wasted making sure at all times that everyone took just the right amount of those resources, the societies that survived were ones in which most people had an internal sense when others were jeopardized by their actions--hence conscience and shame.>>
I agree with this to some extent, but I think that the cultural side of it is far more important than the evolutionary. You say 'most people' but that is a bit vague and if you think about it, not true. It is the people at the bottom of the pecking order who need to feel shame, not those at the top. The rich and successful never feel ashamed of being rich and successful, neither in the past nor now, which shows that this is not an inherant human characteristic but a learned behaviour, deriving from an abusive upbringing. Shame is inflicted on those people who are most likely to need it, like women or poor people. It is inflicted by those who make the rules, who are the shamen or religious people, the rich and the powerful. And every rule about shame has one objective and one objective only; to protect the status quo and keep the powerful in power and the weak in a position of submission and servitude. Shame relates to taboos; what you should or should not think, be or do. And the punishment is total annihilation; not just an appropriate, measured response to errant behaviour. Not just a case of 'share and share alike', as you say, which would be fair enough, but shame goes much much further. It is more a case of 'I destroy your identity in order to preserve my own'. It is beyond fairness, and is therefore pathological. It is not a natural part of human existence; it is inhuman.
However, today we can change this through knowledge, which has become the new power, far more important to the voiceless than money or success. Through self knowledge we can move far and away past those who have inflicted the shame, and learn to laugh at what has now lost its power in our lives. And the most important thing that we as parents can do is to refuse to pass on the false shame to our children. We teach them instead to be proud of who they are, and guess what, it works!! So shame is not in their genes.
It is like a magic spell, or curse, passed down through the generations. We cannot escape it completely, but we can refuse to pass it on any further.
Wanted to contribute more, to other posts, but no energy left. Another day. :oops:
Dr. Richard Grossman:
October, thanks for your insightful and thought-provoking post. I'll look forward to more. Welcome aboard!
mcg31360:
Rosencrantz:
I have found that the shame issue never leaves me, but lessens in time with my healing from NPD mom. All therapists are not created equal. My realatives seem to just be coming to the conclusion that there IS something really wrong with my mother, and she's 74! What's WRONG with these people? Thank God for the good people in our lives that make a difference! :wink:
Hugs,
Cathi
--- Quote from: rosencrantz ---Thanks CC. Scary isn't it!
I've been trying to reconcile the concept of an overcoat of shame and the pit of shame. I think they are two different things.
I recognise the overcoat now and the link with RG's description of where it comes form - (it occurs to me it's something that perhaps we could physically shrug off our shoulders with a shake!!??!). I think mine is more a cloak of invisibility!! Hmmm...interesting concepts, these!!
But the pit of shame...
Groan. I find I just can't enter into a better understanding of this right now as I'd intended. I've just had an email from a cousin telling me that my problem with my mother is
"a) your sensitive personality (someone else wouldn't take her to heart so much) :? and
b) you have been her undiluted focus. It would have been easier for you if you had had brothers and sisters." :shock:
No, no, no, no, no!!!
Her mother is my mother's sister and I'm discovering that they were as like as two peas. I thought my cousin had begun to understand her own predicament - especially as she and her siblings were manipulated and set off against each other and she KNOWS that.
(Oh, here I go struggling not to descend into that pit of shame!!)
I'm trying so hard not to say 'it's me, of course it's me, it's all me. It's my fault, I am so shameful for thinking these terrible thoughts about my mother, how could I think she has something 'wrong' with her, of course I should be able to deal with her, elderly, sweet, vulnerable. there's obviously something wrong with me' :? Just like with the therapist. Of course it was all 'my' perception, my fault, or maybe it just never really happened (except I know it did!!). :?
But I 'know' from what I've read that it's wrong to say it's because I'm 'sensitive'. That's what set me on this trail in the first place. I was rivited by reading 'my' experience as someone who always felt 'no-one would believe me' because no-one has seen exactly what goes on, no-one has experienced it (and I couldn't explain it) - and people don't 'want' to believe it, anyway. It upsets the applecart.
As father said : 'She doesn't really mean it...' :cry:
But the scorpion doesn't 'mean' to sting the frog and drown them both!!!
'It' 'it' 'it' - what's 'it'!!!
What I fear most is becoming the scapegoat, the receptacle, the dustbin for the family as a whole. I'm good at knowing what a group wants and then supplying it. I despair, I really, really do. Let's all lay it on [R], then we can be 'well' and she can hold it for all of us.
Two are nurses, one is a doctor and one has been diagnosed as 'bipolar' (eldest/black sheep/scapegoat as a child) so you can bet they're experienced at it.
That's what I feel about my mother, too - she 'dumps' all her rubbish in me so I can be the one who is ill (then she can look after ME!!)
I think my father's death may have catapulted my mother into the worst of her 'disorder'. And I know I'm a Myers Briggs NF (Intuitive/Feeling) type but, still...
I've got that 'rabbit caught in the headlights' feeling again...
I've been sensitISED my husband has just pointed out (gem of my life).
Thanks for letting me rabbit on!!! :) It's so good to feel I'm speaking out, and speaking up, even if still 'invisibly' behind my anonymity.
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