Uncovering shame

[axa]

Hops,

I am also trying to work with my shame.  I have a sense of really trying to avoid it.  I found GS post very very enlightening.  I am avoiding like crazy at the moment and find this thread bringing me back.  I will post later about it but just want you to know that I am battling with it also.
axa

[GS]

However, what actually happened was that they only succeeded in making you feel bad about being yourself, for you did not possess what they were demanding as you had neither the power nor the talent to change yourself in order to enter into their good graces.

I think of all the statements from my previous lenghty post that this sentence really gets at the most paralyzing aspect of shame in my life.  The impotence, the inadequacy and the rejection have loomed so large in my life. 

A parent demanding of a child what a child has neither the power nor the talent to do.  Isn't that the opposite of what parenting is about.  Isn't the role of a parent to help a child discover and develop his or her skills and talents and to develop his or her own power through developing those skills and talents? 

I see that anything that I did develop was belittled or controlled until I moved into a place of "knowing" that I was not of value and did not deserve good things.  This helps me see how I got where I am and that helps me get in position to undo the damage, to loose the binds. 

It is actually painful to even write this, to acknowledge this but I am certain that in doing so I am participating in healing.

[Gaining Strength]

The transition between repressing the shame and facing it to uncover it is astonishingly painful.  and lonely.

[Overcomer]

gs I FEEL FOR YOU AND ME!  I am with you totally.  It feels like you are drowning and you just come up for air enough so you dont die-almost but not.  That makes me think of a book-Just Enough Light For The Step Im On-Gonna read it and see he it helps this overwhelming sense of despair I think we are both feeling!

[axa]

Just back from therapy, discussed shame AGAIN.  I think there is something about being "found out" and this is linked to the shame.  That if I am seen and heard the real me that is the shame will be unbearable.  STruggling with this at the moment but feeling the pain and the shame

axa

[Margo]

One of my faves is about vulnerability - he says being abused creates a deep vulnerability in us (I guess 'cuz we're so desperate for love but also 'cuz the abuser WANTS us vulnerable in order to control us.) Carnes says - I love this - "Keep the handle to your (psychological/emotional) zipper on the INSIDE. That way no one can "unzip" you but you." Isn't that a cool image??

Kate

::PAT PAT PAT.....PAT PAT::::  Psssst..... where's that zipper supposed to be, lol?  Margo

[Gaining Strength]

Axa and Overcomer - so glad we are in this together.  It helps so much to travel this road with others.  I am choosing to believe that I have been relieved of the shame and am just living with the lingering effects.  That helps me not panic when I am gripped with any aspect of shame (which is 1000 times a day.)

[towrite]

[quote ]



The other thing I'm wondering about is, if we're all shame based and we all do things to run from the shame--is the real difference between us and N's, the damage we do to those around us?  Do enablers do less damage?  Is the difference actually a personality difference in how we deal with our shame?  Can I be really, really transparent and say that there is a certain amount of mileage that I got out of being a martyr?  Of suffering for Jesus? 

Sheesh. 

And I can quit hiding in shame from the narcissism in my heart.  I can look at it and know that it doesnt define me, it is just an ugly part of me that needs to be dealt with.  If it doesnt define me, then it can't shame me. 

CB

[/quote]

CB, 'preciate all your honesty and soul searching. This is just in my quest and may not be true for others: shame was used to control me as a kid, to keep me down, to prevent me from being a threat to my parents. I have learned in therapy that when I get scared, stressed to the max, hurt, or confused, I revert to my "basics" - my childhood reactions, which are automatic and include shame. I don't believe we are all shame-based; those of us who struggle with self-esteem, and certain deep-seated fears seem to find shame at the bottom and the ultimate obstacle. What helped me was developing "hearing" to listen to all the shame messages I was given - of course, the most important one was, "You won't remember" or "No one will believe you", so it was really hard to let those bubble to the surface. Shame, to me, is the opposite of acceptance, approbation, and praise. In that way, I can see what you're saying about not letting it define you. Is it possible that you were made to feel ashamed whenever you strutted your stuff as a kid???

Best, Kate

[Hopalong]

What she said...((Besee))

You all are brave and strong and acquiring such CLARITY.

This is deep deep growth, the kind that creates new foundations for a self.

Admiringly,
Hops

[axa]

[
Shame, to me, is the opposite of acceptance, approbation, and praise. In that way, I can see what you're saying about not letting it define you. Is it possible that you were made to feel ashamed whenever you strutted your stuff as a kid???

YESYESYES

This has hit home for me.  When I was me I was made feel ashamed.  I was too funny, adventurous, smiley..... this is what I remember.  So I stopped.  I was getting happy and too big for my boots so it had to be destroyed so I became withdrawn, angry, depressed and defined myself in other ways.  I was not allowed be me.  I was not accepted.  In fact, my sense is that the real me was hated by my Nmother.  She could not bear my joy.

Move on forty years.  XN hated my joy.  Once he said to me I envy your ability to feel joy.  Again, beat me down, shame the happy part of me.  Wow I did not know this.  I took on labels which others appreciated, smart, hard worker, compliant, passive and became these things.  My NMom was such an angry and unhappy person she sucked life from me.  What is being revealed to me in this post is astonishing.  XN was my MOM!!!!  I was allowed be happy when she was the instigater of the happiness.  She had to control the good feelings as well as the bad feelings.  She projected her negativity onto me and I took it on and became her victim.  The pattern between Mom and XN is so similiar that it is sending shivers down my spine.  I never saw the similarily so clearly before. 

I want to say this to IZZY especially....... but they never destroyed my joy, they never broke my spirit.

I was ashamed of being full of life.  I think this is fundamentally what it boils down to .  I was ashamed for my feelings of happiness.  I was ashamed of being myself so I abandoned me in all my loveliness and innocence and became what she wanted: a VICTIM.

Thank you all,

axa

[Hopalong]

Wow, Axa.

Whittling
and
belittling

And they didn't win. Your inner girl is strong and busting out of her boots all over.

(A T once told me that she people often marry someone with whom they might be able to recreate their unfinished business with the parent of the same sex. I was amazed too.)

Fine thinking, Axa, fine post, thank you for sharing this awakening.

love
Hops

[Stormchild]

My NMom was such an angry and unhappy person she sucked life from me.  What is being revealed to me in this post is astonishing.  XN was my MOM!!!!  I was allowed be happy when she was the instigater of the happiness.  She had to control the good feelings as well as the bad feelings.  She projected her negativity onto me and I took it on and became her victim.  The pattern between Mom and XN is so similiar that it is sending shivers down my spine.  I never saw the similarily so clearly before.

 
Axa, this says so much. I know you aren't here to collect respect and admiration, but I hope it won't bother you to be told that I really respect and admire you. Tremendously.

Skates and all

[axa]

CB

The word omnipotent comes to mind.  XN could also be generous but always on his terms.  But before the generosity was always the withholding and the waiting and when I had given up he would shower me with "care" and a gift, usually not what I asked for.  I have seen him do this with his D over and over again.  his need to be the one who controlled the happiness was pathological.  The more I stepped back the more I saw the pattern, sadly his D had not figured it out by the time I dumped him. 

The last year we were together and he moved Xwife into the house, he saw little of his D having been her primary carer for most of her life.  D withdrew from him and I could see the pain she was suffering.  When I threw him out he went back to Xwife and D and of course she was so grateful......... the same pattern, withholding, waiting and then enmeshment....... they really are so predictable.  His cruelty to his D was probably one of the key actions that helped me see him.  As I was so tied up in my stuff with him and trying to make sense of it I could not see the wood for the trees but I could see what he was doing to his D and what she was suffering.  She is like a lamb to the slaughter.

Storm,

Thank you for your kind words.......... you are right I am here to break the bloody cycle, set healthy boundaries and live my life in a less destructive way.

Axa

[Gaining Strength]

in response to CB's post above, "If I asked for it, the answer was "no".  "

I found this paragraph on someone's personal website re: narcissistic parents

First, narcissists lack empathy, so they don't know what you want or like and, evidently, they don't care either; second, they think their opinions are better and more important than anyone else's, so they'll give you what they think you ought to want, regardless of what you may have said when asked what you wanted for your birthday; third, they're stingy and will give as gifts stuff that's just lying around their house, such as possessions that they no longer have any use for, or -- in really choice instances -- return to you something that was yours in the first place. In fact, as a practical matter, the surest way NOT to get what you want from a narcissist is to ask for it; your chances are better if you just keep quiet, because every now and then the narcissist will hit on the right thing by random accident.


My father did not allow joy.  I remember standing beside the trunk as he pack it, weekend after weekend as a young child.  My brothers and I were required to stand there as he packed the trunk to go to our river house.  We couldn't laugh or joke but just stand.  Now I see that as the incredible narcissistic need for complete control and complete attention.  We would have been packed an waiting for him to come home and we had better be ready by the door when he pulled in.  And then we were expected to stand motionless and voiceless beside the car while he packed.  We weren't inside the car because it was too hot and we weren't in the house because we had to be ready to go the second he got ready.  Punishments were always meted out because we couldn't meet his demands.  But now I realize that he simply set us up so he could vent his broiling rage and feel justified.  I was set up in that household an awfully lot.  But nowhere but here have I found people who can understand that.  Everyone else says, "a father wouldn't do that.  You have remembered wrong or you must have misunderstood."  But I didn't.  I was set up.  Over and over to receive his rage and his shame - because I was bad.  No there was no joy in our house.  Could have been a sign on the door - "No Joy Allowed"

[Gaining Strength]

Last night I woke up at 3:45 and never fell completely back to sleep.  I tried over and over to meditate and relax.  What emerged was an image of me in Kindergarden (my son's age).  The image, dreamlike, that kept coming up over and over was one of me on the playground.  There was so much stress - and suddenly I saw it - even at age 5 or 6 I was trying to work out a "belonging". 

As I was playing, I was trying to be included with the boys.  I was playing rough.  This wasn't so much a dream as a memory.  Then suddenly I knew that even at 5 I kept trying to find a way to be included.  In my family, my father ruled and my brothers came second.  Females were definitely at the bottom and I had already perceived that.  I am astounded that at 5 I was already trying to work out the acceptance I longed for in my family out in the world. 

This fits under shame because it is my experience of shame that was rejecting. And rejection was shaming.  Even as a young child I wasn't playing to have fun but playing to find a way to be included.

As benign as this sounds it was incredibly painful.  I suspect this may be the beginning of a long experience of reprocessing old memories of shame.  It is ridiculously painful.  I actually live with the expectation of shame ground into a deep unconscious place.  I so hope that this processing will release that. - GS