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Why are people so ashamed of themselves?

Elfboy

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I don't get it, why do people feel ashamed of themselves, hate themselves or feel like they somehow need to do something to validate their existence? what is the psychological root of shame and feelings of worthlessness? they don't make any sense to me.
 

xisnotx

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although I don't feel ashamed of myself, or hate myself (anymore), I do feel the need to somehow validate my existence on this earth because I refuse to be just another human who came and went without being of at least some significance. My life, as short as it is, was given to me outside of my choosing, so therefore, I choose to make it have some external value, since I recognize that there are forces outside of me. The truth is I'm perfectly happy with the way I am. I could very easily just set up shack in the middle of nowhere and live out my days in relative happiness, provided I had a family (which wouldn't be too hard). However, I choose to go through the hardships, the struggle, because I recognize that it is necessary for me to do so if I want to live a life of significance, which is the only life worth living. This attitude can lead to feelings of seeming self hate, but in actuality it's more a feeling of frustration...which stem from a core truth. I love myself so much that I refuse to take the time to love myself.

In short, I (and, possibly we) feel worthless because we know that we can, should, and must be useful, not just to ourselves, but our friends and families, and even perfect strangers (past, present and future). When we recognize we aren't being as useful as we could be, we go to the other extreme and become self loathing. And the big secret? For every minute of self loathing there is at least one of extreme self love. I'm not sure if people less self depreciating feel the extremes of self love that we do. We sacrifice contentedness for the lows and the highs, knowing that the highs are not only worth it, but necessary for growth in all senses of the word.
 

Betty Blue

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Interesting thread.
I think it boils down to societal pressure as well as personal desire to be a "better" person.
Hard to seperate the two though as one may be born from the other.
I once read something interesting about the way we berate ourselves and there being a relation to the way we were talked to as children.
 

Craft

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It's largely environmental. Some people are raised in a very demanding environment where they're fed with singular views of 'what matters' or 'what is competent'. Without any other reference, these people accept what they hear. Aside from that, it has to do with the innate function of being critical.
 

Chloe

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I once read something interesting about the way we berate ourselves and there being a relation to the way we were talked to as children.

Yes, I think this is it. As kids we are very self-centered. Everything around us is saying something about "us". If we interpret situations as "this is my fault", "my dad is drinking because i am not interesting enough for him to hang with me", etc... you end up with low self-esteem and feeling ashamed of yourself because "obviously" you're not good enough since nobody likes you/loves you.

The only difference between high self-esteemed people and low self-esteemed people is that those with high made different conclusions in childhood than those with low. Someone can interpret alcoholic abusive father as "he is a jerk and he doesnt know what he is missing by ignoring me", or "he is ignoring me because i am bad"... and it will make the whole difference later in the life. Because the person who interpreted the 2nd thing, "i am bad", will NEVER fully question it, because he thinks that is what he SAW, in the situation, when his dad was abusive... he will maybe try to feel better about himself with achievements and approval, but only to cover up for "i am bad", but he will always (unless he goes to some excellent therapy or has really awesome circumstances later in life) think that..

the person who just interpretted it as "my dad's an idiot", will not even understand why would someone think - ex. his brother - that he is bad.
 

Coriolis

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The only times I am ever ashamed of myself is when I am ashamed of my actions. If I let a friend down, or make a really stupid mistake that I should have been able to avoid, I feel ashamed because I know not only that I should have done better but that I could have done so. I did not live up to my own expectations. I do my best to learn from the experience, so the shame doesn't stay long; it is more the initial reaction to failure.
 

King sns

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For me, it's just thinking of my life objectively that makes me feel that way. I can really look at it one way or the other, but when you put it in perspective of the whole world, and even more-so, the whole entire universe. I'm really a nothingful nobody. I don't have a reason to believe that I'm important in any way. Sometimes I think of the world (or things larger than myself) like a human body. Bunch of cells communicating together- or doing their job. If a lot of them aren't functioning, the person is not really functioning, so all together they are important. But if I'm say, one brain cell, or one kidney cell and I die, it won't really matter. And hopefully another cell will come about to take my place. If all the kidney cells fail, we got a problem.

So I don't really feel sad or worthless... I just feel like a cell- I'm only just as insignificant or as important as all the other cells in this tissue/ organ/ etc. (And the importance of each organ is relative, too...)
 

Such Irony

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To me, it makes no sense, NOT to want to validate one's existence. Who wants their life to be inherently meaningless?
 

ygolo

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Worth is an inherently subjective thing. That can be confusing, initially, to someone believing only in objective truths. I think, part of my issues, stem from that.

Other than for that, I was the smallest person in my class throughout most of my childhood. I was picked on a lot, and I never told my parents about it. I was very much a "do it yourself-er", I taught myself how to tie my shoes, ride a bike, etc. (and I still do these things, according to some in "weird" ways) I figured out how to get my bullies to stop too (Usually involved helping the bully out of a pinch without coercion). I guess, from that experience, I feel like if I am not useful to someone, I will get some abuse from them. It's irrational. I know.

Also, I was praised for my performance in school often. So I took pride in doing well. Eventually, I got sent to a competitive "magnet" high school where I was no longer the top of my class. I still took pride in school, but my identity as the "smartest" was gone. That drive to be the best at something never went away. So my self-esteem got wrapped up in my performance at school or work.

So, as an automatic response my self-worth is contingent on my performance at work/school and being useful. I know, intellectually, that worth is subjective, and that my self-worth need not be contingent on anything. But, that doesn't seem to be enough.
 

Beorn

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Worth is objective. Human worth is based on the imago dei, that is being created in the form of God. I believe shame, guilt, and feelings worthlessness come from feeling the reality of falling short of living up to the image of God which our worth is based on.

Christianity allows a person to acknowledge the guilt of falling short and gain a sense of self-worth not from any human aspect, but from the perfectly lived life Of Jesus Christ. This allows self-criticism without guilt, because one's self-worth is dependent on someone else.

It's really amazing to see this lived out.
 

miss fortune

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live life a bit differently and you'll view the answer to your question differently :newwink:

I went through a few tough years and wasn't exactly the best person- I used my gift of gab in order to con people into doing things for me, was a rather accomplished liar, had lighter fingers than necessary and drank like a fish... I've been trying to straighten that all out lately and redeem myself as a decent human being by going out of my way to offer second chances to other people and make them believe in themselves again. There's nothing that I can do to change my past... I'm ashamed of it and I feel guilty for the things that I've done. Unfortunately, for any good that I may do, all of the things that I've done are still a part of me as well. For any pride in my accomplishments that I may feel there's the flip side of knowing what I'm capable of and who I am.

Until you experience something of that sort you really won't understand :yes:
 

William K

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Personally I feel that some of it has to do with the way that society as a whole depicts what is success and what is failure. We are so used to being told either by the people we interact with or by the media that this is how a successful person lives. Anything less and you're a failure. In a "me too" environment like this, is it a wonder that someone will feel like a loser if he/she doesn't have the latest and greatest gadgets? The line between success and failure is too black and white for most people.

This is not to say that we should not strive to make a difference and just live a "breathe, eat, defecate, sleep" existence. It's just that with a world population reaching 7 billion, it's getting harder and harder to do something significant enough. And given the current economic problems around the world, it's not just a feeling of worthlessness but also helplessness for a large portion of the population. But that discussion is for another part of the forum :)
 
A

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Lily flower

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Worth is objective. Human worth is based on the imago dei, that is being created in the form of God. I believe shame, guilt, and feelings worthlessness come from feeling the reality of falling short of living up to the image of God which our worth is based on.

Christianity allows a person to acknowledge the guilt of falling short and gain a sense of self-worth not from any human aspect, but from the perfectly lived life Of Jesus Christ. This allows self-criticism without guilt, because one's self-worth is dependent on someone else.

It's really amazing to see this lived out.

That is why I love being a believer in Christ. I have looked at many other religious belief systems and they all are based on needing to "work harder" or "do these 5 things I require of you" or God will punish you, (or it will go poorly for you in life/afterlife). Some supposed "Christian" groups believe these sorts of condemning things as well, but if you look at the Bible, instead of expecting us to earn God's love, instead he sacrifices Jesus to give us love. We don't have to wallow in our guilt. We can just be free to accept His love.

From the Bible:
"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death." - Romans 8:1-2
 

Mole

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The Worthless and the Brave and the Good

I don't get it, why do people feel ashamed of themselves, hate themselves or feel like they somehow need to do something to validate their existence? what is the psychological root of shame and feelings of worthlessness? they don't make any sense to me.

It doesn't make sense to you because you don't live in a shame society, rather you live in a guilt society.

If you lived in a shame society like Japan, it would make perfect sense for you.

But instead you live in a guilt society like Oz, and so you feel guilty if you can't justify your existence.

For instance, when we go to a party the first thing they ask is, "What do you do?", in other words, "How do you justify your existence?". And so if we are unemployed and not studying, we feel guilty because we can't justify our existence.

However those with strength of character and courage can transcend our own culture of guilt by saying, "I don't need to justify my own existence, I am an end in myself".

Very few of us have the strength of character to say this, and so we will feel guity that we don't measure up to the imperatives of our culture.

And not meauring up to the imperatives of our culture we feel worthless.

At this point our culture becomes a trap and the only way our is transcendence.

And transcendence is not for the faint hearted or those of poor character, transcendence is for the brave and the good.
 

Viridian

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It doesn't make sense to you because you don't live in a shame society, rather you live in a guilt society.

If you lived in a shame society like Japan, it would make perfect sense for you.

But instead you live in a guilt society like Oz, and so you feel guilty if you can't justify your existence.

What's the difference between the two?
 

FireShield98

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I'll always be ashamed of myself because no matter how much I do, there will always be more things I could do, and life isn't long enough to do everything (and I have a strong desire to do everything in the world - well, not everything, but more things than could be done in one lifetime).
 

redacted

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It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective that we are programmed to be excellent reinforcement learners. The side effect of this is that we're very sensitive to external reinforcement. Irrationally so a lot of the time -- it just goes along with our learning speed.

Imagine a childhood with a bunch of confused/inconsistent messages about self-worth... our learning mechanisms will run with these ideas in various seemingly crazy ways.

Most parents are shitty.
 
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