Shame - the ultimate voicelessness?

[rosencrantz]

I've just 'discovered' shame.

Well, I guess I've been living it for 50 years, but I've only just 'discovered' it.

The second time in my life I entered therapy, my therapist said that I was 'too needy'.  Where did that come from?  Seemed a strange thing to say and not very therapeutic.  But I was still strong and rational.  After months of similar messages that didn't seem to relate to me (but which seemed to relate to some kind of transference) I was in a very bad state and after a year left that relationship with nothing - no job, no career, no friends, no close relationships and nowhere to live.

That's therapy?!

That was projection!!!

That was HIS shame - as a psychiatrist-in-training, just like my mother as a young parent-in-training - and I've only just worked it out!!!  At that age and that stage in my life, I wasn't too needy.  I 'needed' a rational amount of help and support to sort out what was going wrong in my life.  But my mother had made me such a ready vessel for other people's projections!!!

MY shame is different.  My shame is about 'knowing' - with both my mother and my therapist - I knew that there was something wrong and I wsan't supposed to 'know'.  I'm still not supposed to know - but I do, even better than ever before.  And I can't share it without feeling terrible debilitating annihilating shame.

I (rather stupidly?) wrote to the hospital where my mother was being 'assessed' after she made suicidal gestures  (she did that because I said I needed a few days of not calling as I was just not coping very well).  I 'shared' with the staff what I had discovered about narcissism.  I knew that it related to how they were experiencing her (entitlement, grandiosity, superiority, etc etc - she was even getting them all stirred up!!!).  

I was told that it had been 'passed on' to the psychiatric consultant.  There was never any reply.  (Remember that narcissism as a personality disorder doesn't 'exist' where I come from.)  My mother was sent home the next day with anti-depressants.  I haven't picked up the phone to speak to her or to the mental health people since.  I feel angry at being 'let down' but also deathly ashamed for having 'dared'...dared to know 'more than', dared to ...??? (Dared to speak the truth, I say, indignantly, briefly without shame!!)

I probably can't even get near most of the elements of my shame because it is too devastating.  How will I 'live' shame and still function??

And I'm sure that it's their own shame that makes our parents do what they do.  Shame drives me to hide under the table and 'sit on' the truth; my mother uses rage to (a)void it.

Any other thoughts on shame?  Seems to me it's 'hidden' from us - meet shame and you fall into a deep pit before you can get a grip on it...

(In fact, just previewing this post, I am descending the shivery slopes of shame already!!!). I'm going to close my eyes and hit 'submit'!!!

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

I'm glad you hit the submit button.   Shame is a familiar adversary of many of the voiceless.  Clearly, shame has a function in the survival of the species:  when we do things that adversely affect others, shame (a form of self punishment derived from voices and actions of parents and significant others) stops us from doing it again.  In our evolutionary days, anyone who took too much of the available resources threatened the existence of the community.  Since too much time and energy are wasted making sure at all times that everyone took just the right amount of those resources, the societies that survived were ones in which most people had an internal sense when others were jeopardized by their actions--hence conscience and shame.  But the shame pathways in our brain can become superhighways if they are triggered again and again--and other competing pathways reflecting a sense of inherent value, esp. to our parents, do not developed.  When we (as young children) see in the faces of our parents continuous anger and frustration in response to our physical and emotional needs, we learn that our very existence deprives others, and we deserve nothing.  This is the root of voicelessness--or as rosencrantz suggests, the ultimate voicelessness.  And we become totally alone in the world.

Rosencrantz, as you know, your therapist was not only ignorant, but damaging.  The last thing the voiceless need is to be shamed.  Of course the voiceless are needy, but that is their healthy side, longing for something they never got and fully deserved--the right to a valued existence.  Thanks again for your courageous post.

[Nic]

Although I'm not an evolutionist, I must agree that shame has shaped much of my existence as well.  Rosencrantz, I was made to feel it as well, always, it has become a way of life.  Your post as well as Dr. Grossman's  hit home hard..because although i've felt ashamed and been made to feel ashamed often by my parents, i've learned to live with it.  Not well mind you, I don't live well with it at all.  It's like a main theme of my existence.  A reflex.
In fact, before I sat and quickly typed this post, I couldn't help but notice that I have many of them here already..I thought and felt shame.  The voice inside me said" there you go again Nic, always something to say, always an opinion, always feedback on something or other..do you really need to answer rosencrantz..her comment got a reply from Dr. Grossman"

You see, the shame cassette, is on all the time..like elevator music..perpetually there.  I can't find the "off" switch.  It sneaks up on me, especially when I speak the truth or think it..or acknowledge it.  You see, I think that having had N parents, where my perceptions were always toyed with ( parents had fun looking at me as a child  in a mean way..IN MY FACE saying OH! Nic...Oh nic.. until I would actually cry..and when I did they hugged me as if the whole thing had been a big joke!  Can you imagine the messages I got from these repeated experiences? )  I was unprofessionally trained at being ashamed, whilst being told to become needy. And so they caught me in their net.  I was shamed publicly, especially at family functions, I was expected to " take it".  I was taught there is a price to pay for everything good that happened to me.  I was never to be proud of myself, or think well of myself at least I should never think more of myself than my parents, individually or collectively, thought about me.

There's Nic with his big overcoat of shame!   There is a great song by Annnie Lennox, Lyrics something like:  Take this overcoat of shame, it never did belong to me.

Shame like guilt " sucks" if you'll permit..it's hard to get rid of.  But validation Rosencrantz, from good friends, wonderful spouses, etc. like you say help.

when I'm subtly attacked by shame and guilt, which is often, I think God has a greater plan for me than my Parents ever did. It helps me.  When it's a " live" attack by my parents and their lawyers for example I feel like running away, hiding in shame, I become paralysed with fear and I want to cry as in the past, and I begin hoping they'll make everything better.  Sometimes if it weren't for my wife who pulls me out of the dirt pool, i think i'd succomb to the pressure.
So , my support system is !. God 2.my wife 3.this board 4.understanding friends .  
And like you Rosencrantz, before I hit the submit button I hear in the background how needy I am, how if I only played the game, gave up my own life and sacrificed it to my parents..life would be soo much simpler.

Bull! I know better now, I'm on the mend.
Thank you for your post.
Nic

[Pat]

Shame, as an overcoat...I love that description because it is so absolutely on the mark.  I'm 51 years old and I still am fueled,each day, by the messages, you're too silly, you'll never be good enough, the things you need and want are always going to inconvenience and deprive others, good things can't happen for you because....and on and on.  I wake up in the morning with a list of all the things that will stop me from moving forward on anything - it's like an automatic recording that activates the very moment I become conscious (or some form of conscious).  About 80% of the time I can use rational thougth, the support and enthusiasm of others and a long list of affirmations (God bless those) to readjust my thinking enough to proceed on into the day.  Then throughout the day these tapes play on - when I am aware that they're playing I can rearrange via rational thought enough to achieve a bit of balance.  The 20% of the time that this does not work I teeter along the edge of an abyss that I experience as a kind of threat of annihilation or maybe death....        

I have a shame button that big enough for almost anyone to access.  The older I get the harder it is to hang on to an optimistic attitude about recovering from this dreadful mental garbage.  I think I'm in the 20% zone today........... :

[rosencrantz]

Thank you for all the lovely comments.

RG - No-one has said that it was damaging (or ignorant) before - although intellectually I might believe that to be true - you made a difference.  Thank you.

Nic - Aw, 'hugs' old friend.  You are a very kind and generous person - it shows in your posts.  Thank you for contributing.  I'm glad you posted.  Every opinion is valuable - the more the merrier.  Actually, more comments mean less shame!!

'always an opinion' - I feel the same way.  My version : 'I must be like a rash all over this forum'. Groan!  (Where is everybody so I can be me but also become invisible in the crowd?).  Oh yes, shame lurks close by.  

Hi Pat - Good for you for adjusting your thoughts. Through desperation, I decided just to shut out all those messages.  They simply weren't allowed in.  I'd tell them to push off if they got too noisy!!  Maybe, I thought, I'll be living a lie if I don't listen to them, but so what!  I'll live the lie and function!!  

But, of course, I 'honoured' myself far more by ignoring them.

I've come across a saying since then : Change your mind, change your life.  And it's true!!  Choose what you will think and stick a pin in the messages - go on, be brutal!!   I could be wrong, but I think WE are just too, too 'nice'!!!

[CC]

If you'll forgive my pun, it is truly a SHAME that you have been let down by mental health care professionals (except for Richard, of course)  If we cannot trust the people we ask for help from, whom can we trust?  I have been very fortunate with therapists, thankfully - I can't imagine having been misunderstood by one. I have heard of this often, though, unfortunately.  It is unfortunate but many therapists are in the field for their own needs, conciously or not.  This is even addressed in "Prisoner of Childhood", it discusses the tendency of narcissists to become therapists (the ultimate irony)!!  

And the tangled web the narcissists weave, deceiving even those who should know better.  It is admirable that in your own discovery you have stayed true to yourself, and you were able to stick to your guns, knowing where you came from despite other's oblivion. Blessings.

[rosencrantz]

Thanks CC.  Scary isn't it!  

I've been trying to reconcile the concept of an overcoat of shame and the pit of shame.  I think they are two different things.

I recognise the overcoat now and the link with RG's description of where it comes form - (it occurs to me it's something that perhaps we could physically shrug off our shoulders with a shake!!??!).  I think mine is more a cloak of invisibility!!  Hmmm...interesting concepts, these!!

But the pit of shame...

Groan.  I find I just can't enter into a better understanding of this right now as I'd intended.  I've just had an email from a cousin telling me that my problem with my mother is

"a) your sensitive personality (someone else wouldn't take her to heart so much)   and

b) you have been her undiluted focus. It would have been easier for you if you had had brothers and sisters."  

No, no, no, no, no!!!  

Her mother is my mother's sister and I'm discovering that they were as like as two peas.  I thought my cousin had begun to understand her own predicament - especially as she and her siblings were manipulated and set off against each other and she KNOWS that.

(Oh, here I go struggling not to descend into that pit of shame!!)  

I'm trying so hard not to say 'it's me, of course it's me, it's all me. It's my fault, I am so shameful for thinking these terrible thoughts about my mother, how could I think she has something 'wrong' with her, of course I should be able to deal with her, elderly, sweet, vulnerable. there's obviously something wrong with me'   Just like with the therapist.  Of course it was all 'my' perception, my fault, or maybe it just never really happened (except I know it did!!).  

But I 'know' from what I've read that it's wrong to say it's because I'm 'sensitive'.  That's what set me on this trail in the first place.  I was rivited by reading 'my' experience as someone who always felt 'no-one would believe me' because no-one has seen exactly what goes on, no-one has experienced it (and I couldn't explain it) - and people don't 'want' to believe it, anyway. It upsets the applecart.  

As father said : 'She doesn't really mean it...'    

But the scorpion doesn't 'mean' to sting the frog and drown them both!!!

'It' 'it' 'it' - what's 'it'!!!

What I fear most is becoming the scapegoat, the receptacle, the dustbin  for the family as a whole.  I'm good at knowing what a group wants and then supplying it.  I despair, I really, really do.  Let's all lay it on [R], then we can be 'well' and she can hold it for all of us.  

Two are nurses, one is a doctor and one has been diagnosed as 'bipolar' (eldest/black sheep/scapegoat as a child) so you can bet they're experienced at it.  

That's what I feel about my mother, too - she 'dumps' all her rubbish in me so I can be the one who is ill (then she can look after ME!!)  

I think my father's death may have catapulted my mother into the worst of her 'disorder'.  And I know I'm a Myers Briggs NF (Intuitive/Feeling) type but, still...

I've got that 'rabbit caught in the headlights' feeling again...

I've been sensitISED my husband has just pointed out (gem of my life).

Thanks for letting me rabbit on!!!    It's so good to feel I'm speaking out, and speaking up, even if still 'invisibly' behind my anonymity.

[Three years later, I discovered that my mother had Aspergers Syndrome - as did my husband and son - so that's what 'it' was! Please be gentle with people who have AS because they mean no harm even while they cause us terrible distress. WE cause THEM terrible distress without meaning to, too]

[October]

<<Since too much time and energy are wasted making sure at all times that everyone took just the right amount of those resources, the societies that survived were ones in which most people had an internal sense when others were jeopardized by their actions--hence conscience and shame.>>  



I agree with this to some extent, but I think that the cultural side of it is far more important than the evolutionary.  You say 'most people' but that is a bit vague and if you think about it, not true.  It is the people at the bottom of the pecking order who need to feel shame, not those at the top.  The rich and successful never feel ashamed of being rich and successful, neither in the past nor now, which shows that this is not an inherant human characteristic but a learned behaviour, deriving from an abusive upbringing.  Shame is inflicted on those people who are most likely to need it, like women or poor people.  It is inflicted by those who make the rules, who are the shamen or religious people, the rich and the powerful.  And every rule about shame has one objective and one objective only; to protect the status quo and keep the powerful in power and the weak in a position of submission and servitude.  Shame relates to taboos; what you should or should not think, be or do.  And the punishment is total annihilation; not just an appropriate, measured response to errant behaviour.  Not just a case of 'share and share alike', as you say, which would be fair enough, but shame goes much much further.  It is more a case of 'I destroy your identity in order to preserve my own'.  It is beyond fairness, and is therefore pathological.  It is not a natural part of human existence; it is inhuman.

However, today we can change this through knowledge, which has become the new power, far more important to the voiceless than money or success.  Through self knowledge we can move far and away past those who have inflicted the shame, and learn to laugh at what has now lost its power in our lives.  And the most important thing that we as parents can do is to refuse to pass on the false shame to our children.  We teach them instead to be proud of who they are, and guess what, it works!!  So shame is not in their genes.

It is like a magic spell, or curse, passed down through the generations.  We cannot escape it completely, but we can refuse to pass it on any further.

Wanted to contribute more, to other posts, but no energy left.  Another day.

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

October, thanks for your insightful and thought-provoking post.  I'll look forward to more.  Welcome aboard!

[mcg31360]

Rosencrantz:
I have found that the shame issue never leaves me, but lessens in time with my healing from NPD mom.  All therapists are not created equal.  My realatives seem to just be coming to the conclusion that there IS something really wrong with my mother, and she's 74!  What's WRONG with these people?  Thank God for the good people in our lives that make a difference!

Hugs,
Cathi

Thanks CC.  Scary isn't it!  

I've been trying to reconcile the concept of an overcoat of shame and the pit of shame.  I think they are two different things.

I recognise the overcoat now and the link with RG's description of where it comes form - (it occurs to me it's something that perhaps we could physically shrug off our shoulders with a shake!!??!).  I think mine is more a cloak of invisibility!!  Hmmm...interesting concepts, these!!

But the pit of shame...

Groan.  I find I just can't enter into a better understanding of this right now as I'd intended.  I've just had an email from a cousin telling me that my problem with my mother is

"a) your sensitive personality (someone else wouldn't take her to heart so much)   and

b) you have been her undiluted focus. It would have been easier for you if you had had brothers and sisters."  

No, no, no, no, no!!!  

Her mother is my mother's sister and I'm discovering that they were as like as two peas.  I thought my cousin had begun to understand her own predicament - especially as she and her siblings were manipulated and set off against each other and she KNOWS that.

(Oh, here I go struggling not to descend into that pit of shame!!)  

I'm trying so hard not to say 'it's me, of course it's me, it's all me. It's my fault, I am so shameful for thinking these terrible thoughts about my mother, how could I think she has something 'wrong' with her, of course I should be able to deal with her, elderly, sweet, vulnerable. there's obviously something wrong with me'   Just like with the therapist.  Of course it was all 'my' perception, my fault, or maybe it just never really happened (except I know it did!!).  

But I 'know' from what I've read that it's wrong to say it's because I'm 'sensitive'.  That's what set me on this trail in the first place.  I was rivited by reading 'my' experience as someone who always felt 'no-one would believe me' because no-one has seen exactly what goes on, no-one has experienced it (and I couldn't explain it) - and people don't 'want' to believe it, anyway. It upsets the applecart.  

As father said : 'She doesn't really mean it...'    

But the scorpion doesn't 'mean' to sting the frog and drown them both!!!

'It' 'it' 'it' - what's 'it'!!!

What I fear most is becoming the scapegoat, the receptacle, the dustbin  for the family as a whole.  I'm good at knowing what a group wants and then supplying it.  I despair, I really, really do.  Let's all lay it on [R], then we can be 'well' and she can hold it for all of us.  

Two are nurses, one is a doctor and one has been diagnosed as 'bipolar' (eldest/black sheep/scapegoat as a child) so you can bet they're experienced at it.  

That's what I feel about my mother, too - she 'dumps' all her rubbish in me so I can be the one who is ill (then she can look after ME!!)  

I think my father's death may have catapulted my mother into the worst of her 'disorder'.  And I know I'm a Myers Briggs NF (Intuitive/Feeling) type but, still...

I've got that 'rabbit caught in the headlights' feeling again...

I've been sensitISED my husband has just pointed out (gem of my life).

Thanks for letting me rabbit on!!!    It's so good to feel I'm speaking out, and speaking up, even if still 'invisibly' behind my anonymity.

[October]

October, thanks for your insightful and thought-provoking post.  I'll look forward to more.  Welcome aboard!

Thanks.  Very diplomatic.  Could mean worthwhile or total nonsense.  

Didn't mean to sound so much like I was lecturing.  Forgot the 'IMO' bit.  However, have looked a lot into ancient cultures, and in particular the transition from hunter gatherer to civilisation, just as a hobby, and it is amazing what you find.  The Bible is good for this, because a lot of the old testament was written long after this transition, but contains older texts and bits of poetry etc which are clearly much much older, and give a glimpse into the earliest culture of that area, including the child sacrifice that went on.  You might be amazed how many references there are in the OT to the pagan practices which were going on of sacrificing their firstborn children, and the overtones from that continue into present day Judaism and Christianity.

Whenever anything is presented as genetic, I think of these people, and wonder whether it is, or whether it is cultural, because cultural evolution is so much more rapid, and covers a multitude of sins!!!!

Lecturing again.  Time to shut up.

Not only have Nmum but also have ptsd.  Doesn't make for a lot of emotional energy, I'm afraid.

However, thanks for listening.

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

I truly appreciated your post--your point that human beings are highly status conscious (which includes garnering control and power), and that they are heavily invested in maintaining and bettering their status--and that shame is one of the destructive tools used for maintaining status---is very important.  By the way, a new study in the Archives of General Psychiatry suggests that humiliating losses--losses that often involve a reduction in status and hence, one's self-esteem--were significantly more powerful than other losses (e.g. loss of a loved one) in driving people into depression.

[October]

I truly appreciated your post


I thought you probably did, really,    but there is always a demon on one shoulder and an angel on the other, and I have to make the demons visible in order to take away the power of their lies..  

<humiliating losses--losses that often involve a reduction in status and hence, one's self-esteem--were significantly more powerful than other losses (e.g. loss of a loved one) in driving people into depression.

>

This would seem true in my family's case, where laughing at children is pretty well standard practice, as is denying their evaluations of their own bodies; ie hunger or thirst or pain etc.  

Having been on the receiving end of that laughter in many situations, it was always very painful.  Never laughing with the child, always ridiculing and humiliating.  Makes you curl up and die inside, and makes you say over and over again, I must never let them see me do/say that again.  So you (I) cultivate invisibility, and you learn not to speak, or you get laughed at.  Or worse, shouted at.

[Amelia Rose]

Hi.  I, too, have suffered from Shame.  Addressing it and recognizing it is a big step.  My mother used to use "words" to control  me - fists, too.  Only my friend who lived acrossed the street - her mother was using a metal baton on her - so I thought I must have had it good compared to that.  My mother used to say "Shame on you!"  Or "you don't deserve . . . "  Because of behavior like this -and other things - I walked around most of my life with very low self esteem, feeling very ASHAMED for just being me.  I didn't have any reason to be ashamed - except because my mother drilled it into my head that I should be ashamed.  I was very grateful when I became "aware."
About the therapist.  I was concerned about my son - very good reasons - I saw some emails he wrote that frightened me - I was fearful he was going to harm himself.  (by the way - I was married to a N man for 22 years at this time - that was 2 years ago).  I chose a therapist out of the phone book.  I told him our needs. My son, husband and I met with him.  It turned into family therapy.  I had 2 friends who must have had intituion - the both warned me to be careful about negative therapists.   This man - didn't like women.  I was a wife, mother, woman, person who was seeking help - to try to help her son - her family.  No mattter what I would say - this man would criticize what I said.  He would invalidate anything I had to say.  He would not ever take anything I had to say of importance.  After about 6 meetings - that I paid out-of-pocket, my husband, son and I agreed that we were not getting anything out of the therapy.  So we ceased going.
When I shared with a good friend - the therapist's behavior towards me - she urged me to tell him.  She told me that I should tell the therapist.  I hestiated - I didnt' want to make a special call to do this. I decided to leave it at that.
About 2 months later - the therapist surprised me with a telephone call. He said he wanted to know how we were doing and when I told him - that my son was doing good, but my husband was pretty much the same - he urged us to return to therapy.  This is when I took the opportunity to tell him how I felt .  He was surprised. He asked me if it was "one" thing he said.  I explained to him- NO - it was whenever "I" - a woman, a person, a mother, a wife - who was trying to get help for her family - I was the reason we were there - I was seeking help - that he criticized everything I had to say - I also asked him if he did this because I was a woman.  Needless to say - he didn't say much. The telephone call ended.  I hope that this person thought about what was said - I hope he benefited from it.  I feel that I did.  I feel that he called me for a reason - not the one he thought it was for - he called me so I could tell him and give him something to think about.  Hopefully it helped him and his patients.  Take care and have a great day - all of you.  Thank you Dr. Grossman for being here . For Validation.  For growth.  You are a very special person.  I appreciate you and what you are doing.  Thanks again.

[Anonymous]

You talked about how our N parents didn't acknowledge our own assessment of our bodies (hungry, thirsty, etc.)


(I didn't do that quote thing correctly, still learning)

October, I had forgotton all about that!  But it is something that I experienced constantly.    And even to more extreme.  My Nmother to this day tells other people "she tends to be a bit of a hypochondriac" referring to me, because any time I was in any kind of pain, or felt any discomfort in my body she would either minimize it or completely ignore it altogether. SHE would decide when I was sick.    I really had to "convince" her if i WAS sick.  It was soooo frustrating and invalidating.  I was told that I was imagining things.  

She even told me that before I was born she entertained the concept of Christian Science, which probably worsened an already existing tendency to ignore her children's pain.

Interestingly, as an adult I carry ALL of my stress in my body - most of it I was unaware of for years because I was taught to ignore it.  When I began craniosacral and other forms of therapeutic massage, not only discover a world of pain that I had been carrying around, but I am now so "back to normal" physically that I can acknowledge the pain if it comes and treat it so its normal again.  Back pain, neck pain, clenched jaw, lactic acid in every area, you name it I had it.  Now it has all but disappeared, only resurfacing under extreme stress.

It is possible that some of that was psychosomatic pain - but what many people (Ns or otherwise) fail to realize is that it doesn't mean it's not real.  And I wonder if this was a defense mechanism to the N abuse.  Its the chicken or the egg, isn't it?[/quote]