Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: axa on April 26, 2007, 07:37:14 AM

Title: Uncovering shame
Post by: axa on April 26, 2007, 07:37:14 AM: I am starting this thread because I could do with thoughts/insights re the topic.

I am beginning to see that underneath all the feelings I experiece I have a huge sense of shame. I do not understand this but I feel it. Like when I peel back the layers, in therapy, what I am left with now is my shame. I want to name it here because I want it to see the light of day. I feel very emotional right now writing this.

My shame feels young and dirty and I feel like I have spent my life hiding it from others and myself. I want the wind to blow through it, shake it up and purge it.

over the past decade I have dealt with many issues and challenged myself to wake up and be real. I have made progress with many issues but see them as layers of protection keeping me from looking at this very very young shame. I do not know what else to say other than I would appreciate feedback.

axa
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: bliz on April 26, 2007, 08:02:55 AM: Yes, I think we are our own worst emenies and shame is behind it. I remember having a mental yard stick, all the time, as to how I was shaping up, daily, on the worthlessness scale. Now when I start that cycle, usually over some perceived thought or deed, I stop myself and remind myself, I am not the worst person in the world.

You were probably brought up that way. To hold all the shame for the family. Very common in the N world. There has to be a black sheep, because otherwise they would have to look at their own dispicable deed and hold the shame.

Maybe we can think of some shame releasing exercies. I try to picture myself as an innocent child and how that innocent child did not deserve the shame that was heaped on. I try to honor and help that child see the light of day. It is an old theroy, "the inner child", but it seems to work. That is when the shame was first put on us. It helps to love all our parts, even the parts we are not happy with. Try to love our inadequacies. Everybody has them. We are all humans.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on April 26, 2007, 08:17:50 AM: I logged on this morning to write about shame and saw your post Axa. I am running late this morning and do not have time to post much but I do have much to say. I was headed to the Baldwin post because his rage is about shame and touches mine. Shame is the binding force in my life and I am determined to face it head on. Thank you for this topic - from the depths of my soul.

I love the Bradshaw book Healing the Shame that Binds but I found it most useful for identifying shame and its crippling power and quite weak on the issue of healing shame. - GS
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Portia on April 26, 2007, 09:43:45 AM: Shame! My shame feels simply defective: that I am not “good enough”, I don’t measure up to other ‘normal’ people. Here’s an example. Someone can send me an email telling me all about their recent life and I’ll feel…empty because I don’t feel normal, because I don’t communicate like that, because I’m not grabbing life by the horns and doing all this ‘stuff’, going all these places, seeing all these things, meeting all these people.

The shame that because I don’t match how I perceive their way of life ….. that somehow I’m basically wrong. And then I catch those destructive negative nasty thoughts for what they are – rubbish and balderdash. I do tell myself that different to one other person is not mad, bad or wrong. Different to one person means zero.

But that underlying feeling of being wrong at core: it crops up from time to time.

And the thing that really annoys me about the subjects of shame, lack of self-worth etc – hey!! Aren’t those traits that we associate with narcissistics? Those trains of thoughts can get up such a head of steam that they can go anywhere some days. Some days I find the best way for me to deal with them is to get very angry with the thoughts. Sounds bonkers probably, but if it works, I don’t mind.

All this self-rating, comparing self to others…..de-struc-tive I find.

I don’t think I can love my inadequacies but I’m hoping to accept them and know that they're not that bad, no, not really, even that tendency I have to........<censored>
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on April 26, 2007, 09:49:51 AM: Would you be interested in exploring ways of healing shame? I have found a number of excellent descriptions of how shame attaches and how it destroys. These descriptions have been so wonderfully affirming to me. But I am ready, desparately ready for the next step - to move beyond the shame into a fulfilling life. I would so love it if anyone here would be interested in working on this with me.

Here is a descriptive paragraph that I found today. It nails the problem quite effectively.

Shame is the inner experience of being "not wanted." It is feeling worthless, rejected, cast-out. Guilt is believing that one has done something bad; shame is believing that one is bad. Shame is believing that one is not loved because one is not lovable. Shame always carries with it the sense that there is nothing one can do to purge its burdensome and toxic presence. Shame cannot be remedied, it must be somehow endured, absorbed, gilded, minimized or denied. Shame is so painful, so debilitating that persons develop a thousand coping strategies, conscious and unconscious, numbing and destructive, to avoid its tortures. Shame is the worst possible thing that can happen, because shame, in its profoundest meaning, conveys that one is not fit to live in one's own community.

http://www.psychsight.com/ar-shame.html

I have found that the two most debilitating reactions to shame for me are shutting down and raging. I have moved past the rage (with some residual flares) and am determined to move out of the paralysis into real life.

Here is a description from this same page that fits me to a Tee:
[The Abusive Family] is the family which may abuse the child when she is very small, thus establishing a sense of worthlessness in her which, in her adult life, she can give no cognitive content to. She simply feels worthless and that there is no recourse but to re-experience it whenever she experiences a failing, a dismissal, or an aggressive act.

and this:
The shame-bound person is controlling, rigid, and perfectionistic.
She has had to compensate for having not felt a sense of love.

Izzy, I wondered if you can relate to this:
The shame bound person is numb and/or spaced-out. Life is so painful as-it-is that she takes the way of self hypnosis, or enters a self-induced trance-state in order to make her experience bearable. She lives anesthetized, and feeling as little pain as possible
This goes to the very issue I began working on with my T yesterday.
(The demands of a dysfunctional shame-bound family are irrational and inconsistent, for the family only knows it is unhappy and does not know what would make things better. The child becomes the scapegoat for the family's incompetency in solving its problems-in-living.), your parents intended you to feel shame about yourself for your "bad" behavior. Sometimes, they even rationalized that shaming you was "for your own good." 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.

In the past 9 months, I have identified a number of issues for me that fall under the umbrella of shame, some of them are rejection, unworthiness, inadequacy and a variation on inadequacy - not having the resources for what is being demanded. This last one is perhaps the most demeaning of my entire life. I have tried to accomplish that which was impossible given my resources and felt worthless because of it. In my life the resouce was always specifically or directly tied to money. That was the controll that has been and continues to be used over me.

HEALING
While I was driving my son to school this morning I was thinking about the technique that I have been practising this past year. It is a 4 step technique that I learned from The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey M. Schwartz. Essentially it requires identifying the thought and labeling it as a false brain pattern and then replacing it with a more functional thought.

I have been able to do this quite effectively with jealousy and resentment. As I dropped my child off someone I've known from childhood who was behind me pulled out before me and cut me off. There was no intent and nothing other than doing an appropriate act. This person was driving a beautiful mercedes. My sense of injustice flared and I immediately recognized it as jealousy rather than an inappropriate, injust, unkind act. I acknowledged that I was jealous and immediately moved to be thankful for them that their material life from all appearances was going well and that I too would like to have material success as they have. In this process I was able to take a wretched emotion that was self-deprecating and turn it into something that felt positive. I want to learn to do this with shame and it's various forms that have so wounded and destroyed me in my life to this point.

One step towards healing:
There is a great community of the shamed waiting to dare to trust others enough to be open and vulnerable. Sharing your shame with them will be a way of forming a strong and rejuvenating ties with others. Your sense of shame can be your channel of empathy and pathos to the hearts of others.... There is no more powerful bond than that of shared shame transformed into a bond of understanding and mutual support for one another's healing.

In Conclusion:
So the work of healing your shame is as profound as are the potentials of your soul. It reaches down into the heart of your concept of yourself and of your belief in the possibilities of life, alone, and in the company of others. Perhaps you have been mistaken, insensitive, unethical, self-critical, scared, negligent, stupid, masochistic, depressed--behaviors and states of mind you can do something about. But never have you been "bad," never not belonging; always, you have been just an ordinary struggling person and, now with an expanding awareness, joining with others to make your inner and outer life work better, striving to extract from the day its possible satisfactions and nursing a lively curiosity about what's next.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on April 26, 2007, 11:04:31 AM: And the thing that really annoys me about the subjects of shame, lack of self-worth etc – hey!! Aren’t those traits that we associate with narcissistics?

Yes. I do think (it is very true in my personal experience) that at least part of the initial wounding of Ns is profound shame and in my case - with my father he had to pass it on because it was too overwhelming. I opened up to take it fully.

I have a sense that I am at the right place in my healing to take on this core issue fully. I am deeply thankful that it has emerged today and profoundly hopeful that others here will have an interest in exploring this with some depth. - Gaining Strength

I know that for some time to come I am going to immerse myself in this issue, exclusively. I am putting all of my eggs in this basket - they have been here all along anyway.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: axa on April 26, 2007, 11:12:29 AM: Gs

Been reading the same stuff as you today......... found it very interesting.

For me there is a fundamental thought, which the adult me rejects, but I do hold it in me and that is that I am unlovable. All the loving in the world will not change that until I I know for sure that I am lovable. I have always chosen Ns who of course do not love me and play out my self fulfilling prophecy.

Portia, accepting that it is there is where I am at right now. I feel so sad then I feel this. I wonder too where the healthy folks are!!!! I never felt up to much either and always worked in jobs which did not challenge me and then became bored which fed my "I'm no good" feeling

I did go back to University as an adult and achieved a degree which I then discounted as a "piece of cake........like anyone could do it. I discounted the energy, time, work, driving it took and did not attend my convering ceremony. I was ashamed to go there. I felt as if I would be standing in front of all these people accepting my degree when it really was worthless, just as I was.

In my work I often support people to make changes in their lives and I have started taking some of my own advice, which has been an interesting exercise.

GS

Shutting down, isolating myself and raging.........this has been my way. In some ways I feel like I am isolating myself again but I think I am just scared of people at the moment and only inteact with the few I feel safe with. Most people I have had in my life bullied me and I have so backed off from them. I think I was so hooked into the fantasy that when I met the "right" people everything would be wonderful. I forgot that life is a proces, an ongoing journey, where I encounter safe and unsafe people. I know now that a significant part of my healing is to acknowledge my shame and hurt. To name my hurt to those who hurt me, whatever their reaction, to stand up for me. I have not managed this yet but I know this is the way to move on. I have to know that I am worth standing up for. That my feelings are as important as anyone elses. To know when I am the injured party I need to be my own friend, to hear my own voice.

axa
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: cats paw on April 26, 2007, 11:22:57 AM: Hey, GS-

  Great article. And yes, I think that we're all already on board in one way or another in the work of healing shame in ourselves and others, but I just wanted to say- count me in!

  Does anyone ever feel a somewhat inexplicable combination of joy and shame when praised? I am grateful that I can feel the joy along with the shame, and also grateful that I have seemed to have enough self awareness in 3D life to graciously accept when someone does something or says something nice so as not to burden them with my stuff, and enough wherewithall to know that it wouldn't be appropriate to do that in certain contexts, anyway.

  I remember a small victory I had years ago when a woman told me some of the nice things her kids said about me after I met them.
This woman and I were becoming close, so when I felt that peculiar combination and then the fear that accompanies it, I realized I was missing the good part of what gift was being given to me.
  So I asked her to please repeat what she said because it took me back and I wanted to really take in what she said! And I didn't even judge myself as being greedy, N, angling for more, etc. I was able to just be genuine and not self- recriminate over it.

  It is my hope to get back on that path, and I am so glad for all of you fellow travellers!

cats paw

p.s. Axa, Portia, and Besee- just saw your posts when I hit post, and I so get what you said. I need to logoff now because I need to take a stab at some of the monsters I've let develop because of my procrastination.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: isittoolate on April 26, 2007, 03:36:22 PM: Yes GS,
Quote
Izzy, I wondered if you can relate to this:
The shame bound person is numb and/or spaced-out. Life is so painful as-it-is that she takes the way of self hypnosis, or enters a self-induced trance-state in order to make her experience bearable. She lives anesthetized, and feeling as little pain as possible

and this section

Feeling so bad about herself, she does not wish another to know her, expecting for sure that he will see what a shameful creature she is. So she puts up a false front, she pretends and postures and does all the things she believes others will ~~be impressed by,~~ see her as normal (izzy) but she can never do that which is the essence of intimacy, reveal herself to another in open risk taking.

I think Shame will be difficult to overcome--it will take the rest of my life--and joining a 12 step program?-----has anyone heard of one for Shame?

Love
Izzy
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on April 26, 2007, 05:59:49 PM: Besee - Have you tried it, and if so, did it work for you? I've never stuck with it long enough to see if it had a lasting effect. I have a fear of just repressing stuff which is what I did with cognitive behavioral therapy and meditation. I didn't really change my thoughts and feelings, I stuffed what I really felt, reprogrammed myself to think the way I thought was healthy, but really only created a fake false self above my hurt self.

I tried it briefly and something like it called “anchoring” that I read about in another book but it didn’t have the strength that I needed. It felt like a firecracker where dynamite was needed. But also for me saying “Shame is only a feeling” doesn’t help either because I have found that feelings are very significant. I certainly understand how repressing was a real problem for you. I have found that changing my thoughts is different from repression in this way: in repressing I would say to myself, “Don’t feel shame, don’t feel shame, don’t feel shame” in changing my thoughts I say something like, “I am feeling shame it comes from feeling rejected. It really hurts. I choose to change my reaction and finish my task rather than shut down. Each time I do this I will be stronger than the shame.”

Axa - I think I was so hooked into the fantasy that when I met the "right" people everything would be wonderful.
Boy did I pay a price for this one.
I know now that a significant part of my healing is to acknowledge my shame and hurt. To name my hurt to those who hurt me, whatever their reaction, to stand up for me. I have not managed this yet but I know this is the way to move on. I have to know that I am worth standing up for. That my feelings are as important as anyone elses. To know when I am the injured party I need to be my own friend, to hear my own voice.
I also think it is important to acknowledge my shame and hurt but I am going to leave those who hurt me alone. But in the future I believe that I will stand up for myself. My favorite sentence in your post is, “That my feelings are as important as anyone else’s.”

Cat’s Paw - Does anyone ever feel a somewhat inexplicable combination of joy and shame when praised?
Absolutely! It has taken me years to be able to accept compliments. They used to touch the shame of feeling deeply flawed and feeling like an imposter if I was praised and fearing the moment the person would realize that I didn’t really deserve the praise. So ironically, the praise felt like a set up and though I longed for it, it made me feel humiliated at the same time. Talk about neurosis!

Izzy - and joining a 12 step program?-----has anyone heard of one for Shame?
I sort of think they are all essentially about shame.

Gaining Strength

I just found this in the internet. I thought of you Besee and Axa too.

Shamed people build defenses to protect themselves from feeling completely overwhelmed all the time. One defense is escape, a pattern of seeking out private, secure places where one can be alone and unseen. Withdrawal is another defense which includes actually running away as well as emotional withdrawal by developing elaborate masks--like smiling, always pleasing others, trying to appear self-confident and comfortable--that cover the real self.

from - http://www.forhealing.org/shame.html
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: James73 on April 26, 2007, 07:55:14 PM: Hey Axa n all, yes shame seems to crop up a lot when your voiceless as you may be pushed into things you didnt want to do, people may hurt you cos they believe you wont stand up for yourself and of course we have all made mistakes which can bring us shame. I would say that my experience with shame is that it is an all pervading emotion that sucks at our very soul. It is very hard to pinpoint and at times we can live in denial of it, however it is always there lurking making our lives a misery. I think shame can be defeated in a number of ways and self analysis and speaking to people either friends or strangers can release the burden of shame, sometimes this can happen in an explosion of emotion which is intense but quick and the soul is expunged of shame or it can take time while we alter our lives so shame no longer haunts our steps. Either way to start to feel strong emotions is a sign of coming to terms with shame which can then lead to recovery, to deny knowledge of the things that bring us shame ensures that we stay in bondage to it which is not fun at all.
Love you guys
James
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: bliz on April 27, 2007, 08:03:54 AM: I can indentify with all of this. It helps me to realize when I am shaming myself or acting a certain artificial way in order to get through the day. There is plenty of shaming going on in my family of origin. Also interesting since I have refused to accept the shame that they now have a new target.

If thoughts of shame come in or I realize I am getting in a negative spiral, I tell myself to "STOP", these thoughts are not valid. I am okay and worthy. It helps to know that most people feel they are unworthy on some level. Seems better to get rid of those thoughts and try to be a real person. People will accept the real you, if you let it out. At least that has been my experience.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: CB123 on April 27, 2007, 08:20:51 AM: I had a post written, and decided I actually had more questions than I did comments! :?

Here's the big one: If shame is the basis of a narcissist's behavior, and shame is the basis of ours, what is the difference between a narcissist and a co-narcissist? and related to that: Is there anyone that doesn't battle shame?

CB
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: GS on April 27, 2007, 08:36:49 AM: I think everyone feels shame at one time or another but the problem is described by words from an article I sighted above: Healthy shame is temporary. Excessive shame is not.

I think Ns and co or non Ns who experience "toxic shame" simply respond to the shaming in different ways but what do I know.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: GS on April 27, 2007, 08:38:56 AM: Since this post began I have really kicked up the dust in my life. The shame has come to the surface and I feel rotten. My goal today is to push through some of the things I haven't done because of the overwhelming sense of shame. I am thankful for this topic. I am astounded by the pain.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on April 27, 2007, 09:55:32 AM: I'm going to take a stab at responding to your first question. I believe, based on my own experience and my own understanding, that I have internalized my father's shame that so demoralized and overwhelmed him that he projected it onto any and everything that was his. (part of the difficulty is that nothing is quite so linear but there are twists and turns that make this very convoluted.) As a teenager I used to walk through life apologizing: for being in the way, for interrupting, for no reason at all. I remember having people I knew tell me to stop apologizing. At the same time I had a pseudo-confident air. There were two me's and I only knew the one who thought I deserved the lifestyle I had. I was unaware of the demeaned and belittled one who was broiling inside and churned up at anything that would cause reaction from my parents - anything that would put me on their radar blip.

This tormented psychological environment was the perfect host for nurturing my father's judgement. I lived a "shame or be shamed" life - completely unaware. It was judge before they can judge you and judge always meant belittle, criticize, condemn. It was a protective way to exist and I knew no other way. In some macabre way it is fortunate that my world came crashing down and I was forced to find out what the mechanisms were that so flattened me. My father's wealth and social prominence kept him from crashing until very recently. he will never look inside.

This is a long way around to the point that the toxically shamed soul must judge or be judged. The Narcissist can no longer bear another wound and so the N's option is reduced to "judge." As toxically shamed humans we carry that judgement in the shame we took on. My interpretation of those boldened sentences in your post is that one way out of the deeply ingrained shame is to quit judging and that includes those people, those N's who projected all of their shame onto us. Make no mistake, that by no means suggests that we must interact with them nor see their behavior as anything other than the toxic poison that it is, but they themselves must be viewed as deeply wounded beings just as are we. It is in releasing our judgement that we are all set free. I think it is a two-way street but I am not sure. In other words I think as we release our judgement against others (I do not mean to accept their vile behavior but to see their humanity underneath) then the judgement that we hold against ourselves - aka shame will be released and vice-versa. I tend to believe that the more I release the judgement against myself (the shame) the more easily I will release my judgement against others.

Is life a minefield where I continually dodge the next stray comment that will send me spiralling into a shame attack?
Each time I feel the shame triggered I am going to trace it back as far as I can to an early shaming experience and focus on healing that wound.

Thanks for letting me try and work this wretched stuff out. I confess that I am working on your questions not because I think I have anything to offer you but because it helps me struggle with this last trap in my own life. - Gaining Strength
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: cats paw on April 27, 2007, 10:06:58 AM: Hello, All-

  This fits into the conversation that my best friend and I were having the other day. She was saying that if she saw a certain people dying of thirst she wouldn't even give them a drop of her you know what to drink.
   I then responded with a bit of embarrassment that if Hitler was in her driveway and spontaneously combusted, and I heard his human screams of pain, I would immediately, unthinkingly act to relieve that pain. I felt embarrased because that feels like I'm such a wuss.

   However, these dramatic situations are usually not what occur in our everyday life. There are certain people that I just do not want in my life. I would not harm them if given the chance, but I don't want them anywhere near me or even my thoughts.

   How about the situations that we are, for whatever circumstance, "forced" to have them in our lives in one way or another?

   For me, I guess the best thing I can come up with is that I still fear things, and is that just a sign-again, that I give away my power?

   It is still difficult for me to differentiate when I am just being fearful and selfish because of the needs that I have, or I am being greedy and selfish because I'm choosing to be "bad" (not digging deep enough, being compassionate enough, etc.)

   It still goes round and round in my head, and these kind of things are usually what can trigger my shame. I'm really lucky that my H can recognize that sometimes I get a bit quiet, and he asks if i'm experiencing the evil daughter syndrome again.

   It's not just my mother- it's with some other people- but the common denominator is me- my thought, my feelings beliefs, perceptions, choices, etc. I guess I just have to keep peeling away the layers, realize there are no perfect solutions, it's a journey that we embark upon every day that we walk this earth.

   Again, I am so glad I found this place. It is a different experience to actually post rather than just lurk and read.

cats paw
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Portia on April 27, 2007, 12:31:13 PM: Thank you all, this makes for deep reading....

GS
Quote
the more I release the judgement against myself (the shame) the more easily I will release my judgement against others.

thanks for saying this so clearly (and that it works vice-versa too). It's good to have words for things that i think I'm experiencing....(work in progress)

Shame is only a feeling for sure, and feelings are there to be felt, fully, and then examined I guess.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: towrite on April 27, 2007, 04:51:29 PM: Hey, Hops, I also like Bradshaw's book - and you're right, ti does more for identification than for healing.

Axa and Hops, I strongly recommend BETRAYAL BONDS. Patrick Carnes is an addiction expert, but, unlike mnay others, he has cared enough to try to get to the cause(s). And guess what!! Shame is at the bottom - thresulting from many kinds of abuse and many traumatic, shaming, abusive episodes in a child's life. His book is also good on identification of toxic people, but he does give some easy to read tips on self-protection.

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
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: towrite on April 27, 2007, 05:08:23 PM: Quote from: CB123 on April 27, 2007, 08:20:51 AM
I had a post written, and decided I actually had more questions than I did comments! :?

Here's the big one: If shame is the basis of a narcissist's behavior, and shame is the basis of ours, what is the difference between a narcissist and a co-narcissist? and related to that: Is there anyone that doesn't battle shame?

CB

CB, I had the same question. Of course, I'm going to try to answer my own question! (That's one definition of insanity.) Anyway, I wonder if those shame-based folks who turn out to be Ns had their N behavior praised or reinforced as children by the Ns they were surrounded by? I wonder if those kiddies were the product of parents who paid so little attention to them, were so extremely self-involved that the kids got away with N behavior? I know in my own life my parents did not have any other suppliers - they both worked so hard to hide their true natures from the outside world that when they came home all hell broke loose if we didn't immediately get out the slippers, pipe, and have dinner on the table.

Maybe that's another partial answer or another question: may the shame-based kids who turned out to be Ns themselves had parents with other suppliers when they were growing up. This would have taken the burden off the child to be the supplier and also freed the child to exhibit N behavior without censorship. Those like me - and I don't believe I'm an N, tho' we all have a few N charateristics, don't we? - whose parents hid from outsiders and carried on a veritable supply tug-of-war at home, were so focused on the sources of supply in that house that the kids could not possibly have acted in an N way b/c (1) it would have been an affront to the parents, (2) the parents would have terrified the kids would behave that way outside and ruin their elaborate charade, and (3) N behavior would not have been tolerated b/c Ns can't and don't supply other Ns. Or do they?

Sorry I didn't express my thoughts more clearly. I am ruminating.

Kate
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: teartracks on April 27, 2007, 06:35:59 PM: ~~Hi CB,~~ Edit in: Hi axa, Well, I said my noodler is out of whack. See what I mean! :lol:

I like this thread very much because I have noodled the same questions over and over. I'm like a cat chasing its tail :?. My noodler is out of whack today, so I can't make a comment, but I'm reading everything...thanks to you and the others for your shared insight.

tt
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Stormchild on April 27, 2007, 08:38:13 PM: Quote from: CB123 on April 27, 2007, 05:54:23 PM
In the book Verbal Abuse, she says that the difference between kids who grow up to be verbally abusive (she doesnt identify them as N's, but they seem to be), and kids who grow up to take verbal abuse, is the presence or absence of a non-N mentor.

I was struck by that when I read it, and it does fit in the case of my NH and I, from what I can tell. I had a grandmother who was the voice of sanity in my growing up years. She looked at what got dished out and called it what it was, although she didnt actually intervene. And she loved me unconditionally. My NH got both abuse and admiration from the same folks--and his greatest anger as an adult was the fact that everyone else looked the other way. That seems to fit--but I don't know for sure.

My biggest questions revolve around what, if any difference is there between myself and an N? I feel as though, in the beginning of my marriage, we were jockeying for the position of entitled and entitler (sorry, just being honest here! :( ) I remember distinctly and clearly that I realized that if one of us wasnt a grown up our kids were doomed. I decided to be the grown up. I wondered what would have happened if he had decided to be a grown up.

This is absolutely brilliant.... I'm at a total loss for words... you have totally figured it out.

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?

Opportunity and values. If we act out of a desire to preserve our image more than our loved ones, if our first thought is always about how we look and only later - if at all - about how they feel, well then... on those occasions, at least, we're just as N as any of the people we criticize... aren't we.

Quote
Do enablers do less damage?

Who did the most damage? Cho Seung-Hui or the idiots who sold guns to an obviously unbalanced young man*? They're two halves of one process. Ns without enablers would be a lot less toxic, and the damage they do would be much more limited. Stop the enabling [stop the denial, the excuses, the cleaning up after them, the misplaced pity-based defending of them], and you allow the person to face the true consequences of his or her behavior... a few dozen brick walls will eventually stop even a determined N. But refusing to enable is like true democracy, or true Christianity - it's talked about a great deal, but almost never tried.

Quote
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?

Yes, yes and yes...

Quote
Sheesh.

I guess I am asking some basic questions about the designation Narcissist. Not to make excuses for the N's in my life, but to quit making excuses for myself and other "non-N's". This goes back to what GS was saying:

I think as we release our judgement against others (I do not mean to accept their vile behavior but to see their humanity underneath) then the judgement that we hold against ourselves - aka shame will be released and vice-versa. I tend to believe that the more I release the judgement against myself (the shame) the more easily I will release my judgement against others.

I am wondering if my freedom from shame is to see where I am narcissistic and recognize that it is a human condition and not a classification of a kind of mental disorder. NOT that it is acceptable, NOT that it should be ignored, nor enabled, nor excused. NOT that I should continue to put up with unacceptable N behavior--verbal abuse, putdowns, belittling and worse.

As a matter of fact, I can quit doing a quick (or long, agonizing) mental inventory of everyone I meet, trying to decide if they are safe. Is he/she safe? the answer is "no" and also "yes". Everyone (including me) is capable of N behavior. If I attempt to set boundaries and that is not respected, then that person is someone that I don't want to proceed further into relationship with (if I ignore my own boundaries, then I will eventually be able to define the other person as an N!). If I am confident that I can look at each person and evaluate what's going on--and I am confident that I am capable of setting boundaries and enforcing them--then I can quit walking around scared of the N behind every bush!

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.

Anyway, I have a lot of ideas that I'm thinking through, but I'll bet I have to table them for awhile. Tomorrow is my first day of work!!!! And I have four more days this week to work, and school, and everything. But I wanted to write all this down to you all and see if you think any of it makes sense and what your thoughts are.

Much love to you all,

CB

CB: what it all boils down to: There, but for the grace of God, goes every one of us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Edit in: For the record - I'm not anti gun; I'm anti selling guns to unbalanced young men... there's a big difference.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: mudpuppy on April 27, 2007, 09:22:28 PM: CB,

Quote
I am wondering if my freedom from shame is to see where I am narcissistic and recognize that it is a human condition and not a classification of a kind of mental disorder

It's a bad thing to dehumanize someone with an inappropriate label but it is as least as bad to deny that a very real, pervasive and apparently incurable personality disorder called NPD exists, if that's what you're implying.
It does exist and it bears about the same relationship to common garden variety selfish acts by normal people as my brain does to Einstein's; from the outside it looks quite similar, but its operation is different not just in degree but in kind.

In many ways people with NPD of course are human, and they certainly are equal in God's eyes, but they do lack some of the fundamental things that we recognize as human; empathy being the primary one. That is a very, very large piece of humanity to be missing from anyone and still expect humane behavior from them. And of course humane behavior is precisely what they seem incapable of.

mud
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Stormchild on April 27, 2007, 09:27:42 PM: I agree with you, too, mud.

I think it is entirely possible to choose to become less than human. Transiently or even permanently.

I am over 50, and I have seen this happen many times. I've actually been on the spot and seen the choice being made, on a few occasions.

From that I can tell you... it chills you to the bone to see how someone's face changes just before they do the spiteful, vicious, inhumane thing you would not have thought them ever capable of, five seconds before.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: isittoolate on April 27, 2007, 09:50:29 PM: I have read the book about the Emotionally Abusive Relationship and I then found this site that says pretty well the whole thing. I printed each page that I wanted

Izzy

http://www.geocities.com/misogynon/ (http://www.geocities.com/misogynon/)

(http://www.copwt.ca/misogynon.jpg)

Each of those Yellow boxes is another Page!!!
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: CB123 on April 28, 2007, 01:21:00 AM: No, Mud--I'm not denying NPD exists. I think I am just thinking about what it means. There's being a psychopath and there's garden-variety selfishness. Is NPD somewhere in between?

I am thinking about being shame based, and the things we do to avoid feeling shame. I'm thinking about the control issues we all have and which ones ruin other people's lives-- and which one's ruin our own.

Just thinking.

CB
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on April 28, 2007, 08:56:30 AM: Until I found Voicelessness the only person I found who would listen to me talk about the deepest shaming parts of me was my therapist - 1 hour a week unless there was something else on my agenda. I wake each morning overwhelmed by shame. Until recent years I didn't have a name for it. In recent years I have processed layers and layers and layers of shame each time I discover another layer it takes quite some time before I recognize the darkness for what it is - shame.

Shame has shackled my life in so many wretched ways. This discussion has come at a time for me that was ripe for it. I have begun to feel the cracking of the iceburg - the massive iceburg. I suspect it will be a lengthy process.

As I lay in bed this morning I had images of my father dance through my head. Each time I saw flashes of his image I shrank into a shame bound ball. His toxicity is boundless - I have claimed it all my life.

In recent days I have been able to put the name shame to so much that I experience. I am able to put the name shame to every incidence of paralysis. This is so helpful. I believe without waiver that I will break through this and so I am able to experience the shame without recrimination. Up until this day each and every time I experienced shame I becamed shamed because of the shame - spiralling down in a torrent. This time, this discussion has helped me stop that spiral. Now I am satisfied that in naming the shame I will, in time, be able to break this cycle. I know the source and I know it is not me. I believe that naming it each and every time I experience it will begin to break the cycle and I do not expect to be able to act, to break free of the paralysis just yet but that will come and when it does it will come in like a storm. But naming it has become for me the same as healing it. For the first time in my life I am able to look it in the face without shrinking back in even more shaming. That is the power of naming.

Now I can go out in the world and know that part of my rejection, part of my struggle is shame. It is a dread disease that was put on me as a child by my shamed and shaming parents. Once shamed my community heaped it on me as well. Once shamed I acted out in shame and all the parts of shaming that were put on me became me. Today I am able to name them and though naming does not completely shed them it does loosen the binds and in time, in a short time, these parts of shame will fall like scales.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: axa on April 28, 2007, 09:36:22 AM: Gs

Uplifting, inspiring and grateful that we found a name for what has been binding us for so long

axa
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Overcomer on April 28, 2007, 10:08:00 AM: gs DITTO! You said it so well-and even if your parents are not there to heap our internal parents are! Shame on you! What a terrible legacy they laid on us! Now my mom is trying to diagnose me so she can figure out why I act the way I do-look in the mirror my friend!
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: teartracks on April 28, 2007, 12:30:38 PM: GS,

Your entire #32 post is soooooo inspiring. I'm thrilled at the progress you're experiencing. I hope all of those wounded by shame are following your progress and find encouragement.

I so enjoyed your photo a few weeks ago. As I write this I'm picturing you and somehow or other the photo deepens the kinship I feel with you.

My nemesis is, or was ridicule. I honestly don't know if I've purged that part of my woundedness completely. I think I'll go back and put the word ridicule in all the places where you use shame. Do you think that has merit? Thank you so much for the beautiful way you write and the skill with which you explain your thoughts.

Beautiful!

tt
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: teartracks on April 28, 2007, 01:17:14 PM: Hi bliz,

You were probably brought up that way. To hold all the shame for the family. Very common in the N world. There has to be a black sheep, because otherwise they would have to look at their own dispicable deed and hold the shame.

Holding all the shame (except for me it was ridicule) for the family. Very common in the N world...
All these years, I would never allow myself to believe that I was scapegoated. Lately though, I've taken a second look at the possibility. What I'm thinking and examining at this point is my belief that my two siblings and I were triangulated within a triangle. In other words the three of us were given a point position as if we were one unit. We were manipulated or elevated to different positions within our own little triangle by the big triangulator depending on what was needed to keep her position of power secure. Playing us against each other and keeping us at odds guaranteed that we would not form an alliance between us or any sense of cohesiveness, for that surely would have made the triangle shift. Parental alienation from my dad was firmly in place. In reality he was a good and decent, loving, tender, man who was unfortunately dazzled out of his mind by a beautiful, aqua eyed farm girl who could have been the poster child for all things milk maid! He had an inkling before he died, but not the skills to step in and hold an intervention to stop it. By the time he found a little insight we kids were out of the house and making our own way. It ended up that he detached from the manipulator to a large degree and only shared his insights with my sister. They formed an unhealthy alliance that excluded me and my brother. And the beat goes on! And the beat goes on! Or maybe I should say, And the beef goes on! And the beef goes on!

sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind. Oh boy, and how!

tt
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength (guest) on April 28, 2007, 06:36:54 PM: I think I'll go back and put the word ridicule in all the places where you use shame. Do you think that has merit? Oh I think it has great merit! What a wonderful idea and thanks so much for your kind words. I also experienced ridicule. I have a list of words that all fit under my experience of shame and ridicule is definitely one of them. I felt shamed when I was ridiculed.

These past two days have been very, very good. Each and every time I felt shame rising up I named it and traced it back to its origins and then knew that I would soon live life without it and voila - it disappeared. I am so very hopeful about the paralysis finally and permanently lifting. I have been hoping for this and working towards this for a long time.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Stormchild on April 28, 2007, 08:05:15 PM: GS, there's a great book about this, and a pretty good site, too.

Work Abuse: How to Recognize it and Survive it, by Judith Wyatt and Chauncey Hare [a husband and wife team like Gary and Ruth Namie].

Here's a pretty decent web page about the book:

http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/workabus.htm

They talk about shame spirals. Using that term exactly. The basis for pretty much all workplace abuse is shame - and workplace abuse of course has its origins in family of origin abusiveness -

anyway, it's a good book. I bought it, I've read it so much my copy is falling apart -- and I actually spent a couple of months working with Chauncey Hare as a phone coach to help me clearly see and label my experiences when I was going through a really rough spell, a couple of years before I found this site and my current therapist.

That was job-related coaching, not quite the same thing as therapy, but it helped me tremendously. I don't know if they do that any more, but just to be believed - and have someone else describe the patterns I was seeing - was amazing.

And it was tax deductible, too :-) ;-) .

Here's their web site: http://home.netcom.com/~workfam1/

hope this gives you additional strengthening!
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: mudpuppy on April 28, 2007, 08:16:52 PM: Hi CB,

Quote
There's being a psychopath and there's garden-variety selfishness. Is NPD somewhere in between?

A therapist friend of mine said something I thought pretty sharp. She said the only difference between a psychopath and someone with NPD is the psychopath doesn't even care about himself, while the NPDer only cares about himself. Otherwise they're two aliens in a pod. :P That last line was mine not hers.

mud
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Margo on April 28, 2007, 08:50:04 PM: Quote from: axa on April 26, 2007, 07:37:14 AM
I am starting this thread because I could do with thoughts/insights re the topic.

I am beginning to see that underneath all the feelings I experiece I have a huge sense of shame. I do not understand this but I feel it. Like when I peel back the layers, in therapy, what I am left with now is my shame. I want to name it here because I want it to see the light of day. I feel very emotional right now writing this.

My shame feels young and dirty and I feel like I have spent my life hiding it from others and myself. I want the wind to blow through it, shake it up and purge it.

over the past decade I have dealt with many issues and challenged myself to wake up and be real. I have made progress with many issues but see them as layers of protection keeping me from looking at this very very young shame. I do not know what else to say other than I would appreciate feedback.

axa

I remember hearing the phrase..... "shame heaped on top of guilt heaped on top of shame...." years ago. It seemed a bit comic, in the context I heard it.... but it was also poignant and very interesting to me.

I can't recall any reason I should feel so much guilt, but I identify more with that feeling than with shame. Maybe they're the same, I just interpret it differently?

My therapist keeps asking me if I'm not very angry at myself. NO. I'm STILL not very angry at myself, lol. I've been lied to and mislead and obviously manipulated. COULD I have figured everything out before I got in so deep? Why.... certainly, that was possible. I didn't though and I've grown and learned about things I never ever ever wanted to learn about and I'm still growing and will continue to do so. That's life. No sense beating myself up..... I know I'll incorporate the information and lessons and do my best as I move on. As always.

On resolving early conflicts..... they're always very painful. Most people can't do it, so I'm told by a very good friend in the business. He says we spend most of our time going from one distraction to another in order to avoid pain. Figuring out our demons is VERY painful, so it's usually not successful. I think most people here are on the right track to facing their pain and doing the work. Remaining on track, even when things are so painful we almost HAVE to turn away..... is key. It must be remembered that..... there's releif and succor on the other side of the pain, if we can just get through the worst of it. It must also be remembered that I'm only giving my humble opinion. I'm not really sure about any of this but I certainly remain dedicated to the search. Margo
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: axa on April 29, 2007, 04:34:36 AM: Margo,

I think your friend is right. I know that I have gone from one distraction to another to keep away from the pain and it has not worked. While on the one hand I have been in therapy and working on healing I have kept the other hand dipped in the distractions. This feels like the first time I have been able to attend to where I really am with little distraction. It is hard to stay on track and I am aware of some horrible gnawing pain since I named my shame here. To know my shame and hold it without distraction is my work right now.

axa
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on April 29, 2007, 09:00:43 AM: Stormchild - thanks for that reference. I went to those sights and found some very interesting things and references to other workds on shame that are very helpful to me.

I am consumed with this topic and finding this to be so significant in my life. Stirring up the shame really is painful but at the same time the years and years of living under the yoke of shame are finally cracking. - Gaining Strength
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Overcomer on April 29, 2007, 09:51:30 AM: I have this idea that if I break away from my mom that all my problems will go away-maybe that is not right-maybe they will lessen. But I guess this internal parent will always be there to put me in my place! I had something interesting happen to me-I wrote my mom an email telling her that sometimes I could use her help-I mention things and she does not pick up on them so I have to beg. I commented on a laundry thing at her house and she showed up with one but you should have seen her face!
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Overcomer on April 29, 2007, 09:56:26 AM: It was this pained look like this was really uncomfortable for her. Almost like she was trying real hard but it did not fit into her M O . She had this aura about her like she had stepped out of her world and into mine and it was very uncomfortable!
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Hopalong on April 29, 2007, 04:19:53 PM: GS,
When you sit with, or feel, your pain and shame...to excavate it. What do you do? I am trying to learn more about what you mean. Is it sitting alone, in silence, following the thoughts to their logical extreme (like, "My father says I'm ___ so I am actually the worst most complete ___ in the entire state/world/universe," etc.)? Is it like that? Or are you talking more about the physical pain of emotion, where it's triggered by hurtful/belittling thoughts but then just becomes heart pain, body-center pain, and all-over kind of struck-by-a-truck-can't-move-or-breathe agony kind of pain?

(I've been in both spaces but I'm wondering if I'm missing an intentional process about working through pain, or if I'm not understanding.)

I remember one time in college saying to a roommate once, in complete seriousness and with feeling: "Don't you ever feel embarrassed just to exist?" I didn't know what I was saying then. Thanks to your recent posts, I think I know more than I did before about what it was.

Thank you, GS.
love
Hops
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on April 29, 2007, 10:42:24 PM: There is no simple answer to your question - in fact, I don't completely understand your question but I will answer it by giving an example of the process I've been gong through.

As I was siting in church today, on more than one occassion I got a feeling, a physiological feeling, of shame. Like suddenly being dressed inappropriately or singled out or somehow humiliated. I first have to acknowledge that I am (once again) experiencing shame. Then I try to figure out what type of shame I'm feeling. Is it rejection, inadequacy, condemnation, criticism, etc? Well at one point it was rejection and inadequacy. Where did this come from? This is always difficult - hard to remember, hard to bear the pain or remembering and hard to isolate to one event or one age. And then I am able to say, "That was WRONG for that person to do that. I did not deserve it. It was a reflection of their own pain and had nothing to do with me. I took it on and can now let it go, must now let it go. Then the wave of shame is released but I may reexperience it moments later. I just repeat this over and over as many times as I feel shamed.

This helps me. It gives me courage. I no longer have to repress the wretched feeling. I no longer have to completely shut down. Though dealling with shaming things is still not easy. I have only begun to deal with the random attacks when I am just sitting there. Taking on issues that are steeped in shame is still ahead of me. I expect to face a few of them this week. I am not looking forward towards it but am thankful to have begun to develop a tool to help.

I can now deal with external things that engender shame but I haven't developed the strength to deal with this stockpile of shame that has been paralyzing.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Hopalong on April 29, 2007, 11:40:54 PM: Wow. GS, I get it. Or I think I really get it.
Thank you. I hope that wasn't too grueling to post.

I recognize the physical feeling of the emotion--of shame. But I didn't realize how often and how intensely it has coursed through you. You helped me see it. I could have been sitting beside you.

I am awed by your guts and persistence GS. And I get it, more than before, how you are literally accepting the wave as it comes but you are battling it with conscious thought. Like a counter-narrative in your head. You are contradicting it. Not letting a body-memory be more important than your mind.

Magnificent. I am inspired and more certain than ever that your life is turning.

Thank you for sharing all that, GS. What incredibly hard work you are doing.
You remind me that every human carries so many things we cannot see...

Piece by piece, you are setting down the unfair portions of the load you've been hauling.

love
Hops
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on May 01, 2007, 07:58:15 AM: Each day as I delve deeper and deeper into the shame I am amazed at how powerful a control it has had on my life.

It is about my being rather than doing. As I try to emerge out from underneath its cover I am struck by how painful and difficult it is. It feels like being exposed.

I am aware at how my father's clenched jaw raging resulted in shaming me. How unbearably alone I was and remained. I am experiencing the horror of the line - "the only way out is through." It is indescribably wretched to go through the horror of my childhood yet again and so alone again. It is almost unbearable.

I see completely how my needs bumped up against my parents sense of inadequacy and so any expression of need or desire was met by a demeaning reply that left me feeling utterly inadequate. That is a gaping wound of indescribable pain. I have tried to cover it up my entire life - in this world of abundance. That in and of itself has lead to rejection - a whole other excruciating pain.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on May 01, 2007, 08:11:43 AM: The worst thing about healing shame is that you have to relive it and come out of the numbing phase. Here are some excerpts I found on the internet about healing shame. I realize that part of what I am doing is coming here looking for comfort. Is anyone else working through this hell of shame?

http://www.psychsight.com/ar-shame.html
Healing Shame – short sheet

Shame always carries with it the sense that there is nothing one can do to purge its burdensome and toxic presence. Shame is the worst possible thing that can happen, because shame, in its profoundest meaning, conveys that one is not fit to live in one's own community.

There are few experiences that are more upsetting than attempting to communicate, and then receiving little or no response. We would rather fight than be neglected. Passion, risk, hurt are preferable to neglect--benign or malicious.
The Controlling Family
This is the family which is ruled by decree. It is the authoritarian, or the rigid, or the meddlesome family. The controlling family is one wherein any threat of deviation from the "way-it's-supposed-to-be" is rapidly squashed. The shame engendered by the parent's domineering control can cause the child to believe he has no "self" worth preserving: as it becomes impossible to live according to his own desires, and as he cannot give his parent what he wants, he has no choice but to kill himself.

The Abusive Family
This is the aggressive, the attacking family. It can be emotionally, physically, or sexually abusive. It can be implicitly or explicitly abusive. This is the family in which shame goes deepest, for the abused person feels deeply she is a damaged "self" and that her injury has made her unfit to share in this life with others. This is the family which may abuse the child when she is very small, thus establishing a sense of worthlessness in her which, in her adult life, she can give no cognitive content to. She simply feels worthless and that there is no recourse but to re-experience it whenever she experiences a failing, a dismissal, or an aggressive act.
The emotionally abusive family uses ridicule, punishment, putdowns. This is the family where the old and strong intimidate the young and weak.

The physically abusive family spanks, hits and uses emotional intimidation in threatening further spanking and hitting. It may also withhold meals or send the child to do a physically punishing tasks.

THE BURDENS OF SHAME
Shame-bound persons, believing themselves to be seriously flawed, without worth, and hardly belonging in the world inevitably have the consequences of their shame-consciousness show up very negatively in many areas of their life. For a person who has been shamed has no way out, his is the feeling of there being nothing he can do to set things right. Something vague, but decisive, has shrunk his soul.
The shame-bound person may become either an offender or a victim, or, as is most likely, one who vacillates from one mode to the other. If his experiences cause him to access his shame, he may take out his hurt and rage on others weaker than himself in his present community of family and friends. For another person whose defense is less aggressive, if she is re-shamed, she may fall into her accustomed role of victim, as she is naturally adept in this guise, having been an actual victim in her original family. Having learned to make a "virtue" of necessity, she has mastered playing the victim for what consolation rewards there are--some sympathy, some self-righteousness. For the offender there is some momentary sense of revenge and power, for the victim, a brief touch with martyrdom--and beyond these meager compensations, the despair of impotence and participation in the continuing of the cycle of shame. The shame of the parents becomes the shame of the children, and so on...
On the other hand, the shame-possessed person cannot grieve, for it was much too disappointing and painful to dare to believe that he could be genuinely important to another, or vice versa. Depression is marked by alienation and no real opportunity to bring things back together. At the center of depression is the sense of loss, and the shame-bound person carries the greatest loss of all, the loss of a valued self. The loss is made more difficult to emerge from as one recognizes that he is only partially aware of the dimension of his loss, having been deprived of the experience of and the model for respectful caring and nurturing.
The shame-bound person is controlling, rigid, and perfectionistic.
Shame comes from all "love" being conditional. Which, of course means that the love is never complete, never a comment on the person as she is, but as she pleases her parents by satisfying their expectations and demands. Not feeling the warmth of love, she needs desperately to control the world and is not able to tolerate deviation. She lives very carefully, for a slip can cause her to lose her fragile hold on things.
The shame bound person is numb and/or spaced-out. Life is so painful as-it-is that she takes the way of self hypnosis, or enters a self-induced trance-state in order to make her experience bearable. She lives anesthetized, and feeling as little pain as possible.
HEALING SHAME
Most of your shame-inducing experiences happened to you early in your life--when you were small and the world of parents and other caretakers loomed very large. Your fundamental feelings of insignificance, the "shame" that goes far back in your mind and soul, appeared long before you had any "choices" in the matter. Shame was your natural organismic response to the burdens and demands that were being visited on you by your family. Believing that making you ashamed would motivate you to behave as they wished (The demands of a dysfunctional shame-bound family are irrational and inconsistent, for the family only knows it is unhappy and does not know what would make things better. The child becomes the scapegoat for the family's incompetency in solving its problems-in-living.), your parents intended you to feel shame about yourself for your "bad" behavior. Sometimes, they even rationalized that shaming you was "for your own good." 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.
There is nothing shameful about shame.
So the work of healing your shame is as profound as are the potentials of your soul. It reaches down into the heart of your concept of yourself and of your belief in the possibilities of life, alone, and in the company of others. Perhaps you have been mistaken, insensitive, unethical, self-critical, scared, negligent, stupid, masochistic, depressed--behaviors and states of mind you can do something about. But never have you been "bad," never not belonging; always, you have been just an ordinary struggling person and, now with an expanding awareness, joining with others to make your inner and outer life work better, striving to extract from the day its possible satisfactions and nursing a lively curiosity about what's next.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Hopalong on May 01, 2007, 08:49:00 AM: GS,
Got to dash to work, but I noticed you said you have to do it alone?
I think of your lovely picture and want to yank you OUT of that posed DR, and sit you down with a bunch of people who are being real and who will keep your confidences and help you build your confidence.

Is is true you HAVE to do this shame-release work alone?
Is there a skilled caring T in your life?
Is there a women's support group anywhere nearby?

love to you,
Hops
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: axa on May 01, 2007, 09:28:49 AM: 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
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: GS on May 01, 2007, 01:00:25 PM: 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.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on May 02, 2007, 07:39:57 AM: The transition between repressing the shame and facing it to uncover it is astonishingly painful. and lonely.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Overcomer on May 02, 2007, 08:22:30 AM: 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!
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: axa on May 02, 2007, 09:48:12 AM: 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
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Margo on May 02, 2007, 09:51:04 AM: Quote from: towrite on April 27, 2007, 04:51:29 PM

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
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on May 02, 2007, 10:59:08 AM: 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.)
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: towrite on May 02, 2007, 12:10:08 PM: [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
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Hopalong on May 02, 2007, 11:52:00 PM: 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
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: axa on May 03, 2007, 05:32:20 AM: [
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
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Hopalong on May 03, 2007, 08:31:48 AM: 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
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Stormchild on May 03, 2007, 08:59:19 AM: Quote from: axa on May 03, 2007, 05:32:20 AM
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 :-) :-) :-)
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: axa on May 03, 2007, 10:16:26 AM: 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
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on May 03, 2007, 06:18:08 PM: 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"
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on May 04, 2007, 07:46:22 AM: 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
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on May 04, 2007, 07:55:44 AM: I am lonely, My shame is oozing out today. I have a big project for my sons school that I have been working on for several months. It is not quite complete and it touching all my buttons. I am sure it will go well but now, in the morning the worthlessness, rejection, the loneliness and inadequacy are bubbling to the surface even if facts contradict them. I am glad I can share it somewhere. - GS
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on May 04, 2007, 08:37:04 AM: Inadequacy GS, who is judging you and/or your project?

All of these components of shame are from so very long ago. That is one of the things that makes it hard to unearth. The shaming seems to have begun before I was old enough to remember. That inadequacy is one of several shaming aspects that were ingrained in me early on. I simply have carried them forward and loosening them is very painful. Just naming them is painful but it is worth it because I live with them named or not, I simply have denied or repressed them to date. So now I am trying to let them go. - GS
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on May 04, 2007, 11:18:25 AM: Thanks CB. I like that new name and believe I might change my name to that in a few months. After my business is up and going.

Could you be feeling bad about your project BECAUSE it is almost done and about to be unveiled? Do you have any shame about doing a GOOD job?

I am definitely not feeling bad because it is almost done. I recognize these bad feelings as simply old, outdated messages. I work on rewriting them. I have found great comfort in knowing that it will work out in the end. That helps counter the old shame feelings.

I do suspect there is shame about doing a good job. I have finally realized, only in the past year, that my parents and perhaps my brothrs and definitely at time my late husband (and first husband) found any achievement threatening and so they systematically belittled any and all achievements. Consequently there was hell to pay (shame heaped upon shame) when I did accomplish anything, small or large.

I am soooo glad to hve figured this out. This is the kind of thing Noooo one except here would believe. I am glad to be able tothrow it out here and know some will believe me and accept that family can actually do this to people they claim to love. But I am strong now and I can rise above it. It is just that I am in the midst of the process where the old stuff pops up and I must consciously counter it with the healthy understanding.

Thanks so much for your post. Your processing your work issue is a great model for me in my day to day struggle. - yours - Strength (almost)
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: mudpuppy on May 04, 2007, 11:39:53 AM: Quote
I have to run out the door to work,

Your feet must be feeling better. :lol: :P

mud
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Hopalong on May 04, 2007, 01:37:03 PM: GS:
Me, too:
Quote
at 5 I was already trying to work out the acceptance I longed for in my family out in the world.
Only it really kicked in at age six...at The Horrible Private School. Horrible memories. I was too short, too little, almost 2 years younger than some of my classmates, and a scholarsip kid. Uggh.

Dittos to every word CB said about the kind of work you're doing, GS. You're a warrior.

I was wondering if the pain associated with the project for your son's school has anything to do, also, with having to go to an elementary school? I know those buildings call up memories for me...

Bravo, brave woman.

Hops
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on May 04, 2007, 11:36:50 PM: I survived. It went swimmingly. My shame has nothing to do with current life other than to interfere with it. But that is my issue, the shame that has very old roots does interfere with my life - but less and less each week and each month. And as I have more and more positive experiences of setting out to do something and accomplishing it the easier and quicker I will get over this. This has definitely been a transformative year for me.

I had lunch with one of my brother's today. Long story short, I said to him, "One of the things that I resent the most is that our father never said to me, 'Once you leave my house - that is it - don't expect any financial help from me.'" My brother's answer actually shocked me. He said that my father had told him and our other brother that they could expect no financial help. Well he never told me!!! It's an amazing thing because both of my father's parents were quite wealthy and they gave him vast amounts of money. They also set up educational trusts for us that paid for our secondary and college educations (an expense spared my father.) Yet he saw absolutely no reason to help his own children. And he forgot to tell me that he wouldn't be helping me. So I went from wealth to poverty in one fell swoop - without a word and without a hand and without any advice. Pretty rotten from my point of view.

Time to get over it and move on.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: isittoolate on May 05, 2007, 12:07:41 AM: GS,
Is your father alive?
If not, who recieved the vast wealth--and a Will like like could be contested!!
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: Gaining Strength on May 05, 2007, 12:11:32 AM: It's not the money - it's the complete lack of love or concern or caring - it is still astounding to me. How can you give birth to a child or children and not give your life for them? That is what I still can't get a handle on.
Title: Re: Uncovering shame
Post by: axa on May 05, 2007, 03:37:31 AM: Gs

I think one can treat children so badly when they do not see them as humans. That is my experience.

axa