Thoughts on Shame

[Siúil a Rúin]

Sometimes I try to imagine how I would feel about someone else with my shortcoming or failing. If I find myself more able to tolerate it in someone else, then it helps to turn it back towards myself viewing from the outside. There are some things I have felt shame about where that approach helped. One question worth exploring as well is whether the shame is a nebulous, generalized feeling, or attached to something specific. The strategies to overcome it may have commonalities, but also distinctions. The specific shame lends itself more towards overcoming that limitation and the more generalized the shame, the more it can't go away without self acceptance? In both cases letting go of a sense of perfectionism or impossible ideals is necessary.

 

[zago]

I think shame is part of the reason I can't get perspective and reign in certain parts of my personality that I find difficult (social anxiety and isolation), and I wanted to get some ideas about how people tackle shame, or rather, work with it.

So if you didn't feel shameful, are you expecting that you would remain socially isolated, or would not?

 

[King sns]

what about social anxiety makes you feel ashamed?
Is it the way that you act around people? the general stigma of being socially anxious? the feeling that you get in social situations, or afterwards? A mixture of factors? Its kind of a broad category.

 

[Anja]

You are quite right.
The book I recommended earlier in the thread corroborates your statement.

Had a thought when I awoke. Truly a banner week here. Heh.

I believe I confused you with Ivy when I mentioned your competency on shame.

If so, you know the rest. . .

 

[Synarch]

Love destroys shame like sunshine destroys shadows. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Shame is an illusion. The only thing that matters is today and then the todays after that.

 

[INTJMom]

I loaned out Facing Shame a couple of weeks ago, but here are some of my notes from the first 20 pages:
I'm not sure how many of these are exact quotes, but I put them in quotes just in case.

"taking on responsibility for compulsive behavior provides a way to face the shame directly"

"No significant growth or learning can take place until secret behaviors are confessed and dealt with: obsessive. compulsive, abusive, or phobic."

"Shame is an absence of self-affirmation."

"Shame de-humanizes."

 

[Synarch]

Good stuff, Mom.

 

[Hirsch63]

Shame can be a useful tool for self-help....Though sometimes so powerful in it's appearance that it is difficult to face down and examine. If something this distracting appears in front of you on life's path like an unexpected roadblock on the high-way where others sail by and you are forced to detour....

We have a couple of options? Stop. Get out of our auto and ask the autority figuring waving us off towards the detour "why? What happened up there? why can't I get through?"

...or just take the detour and ignore curiosity at our situation. It is easier to just go along and ignore the difficulties that this looming distraction would impose...

I have found my shame to be linked to expectations that I had of myself and how I am percieved in the world as living up to them. I am wrestling with this every day...I sense that there must be a resolution available and usually that comes down to my perception or state of mind...So, it is all an illusion? Okay then, now what? Why can't I disabuse my self of the notion? Where and how deep do the tentacles of this run into my being? What are they wrapped around? Is this something like what you feel Edahn?

 

[Anja]

Yes. Good stuff.

Your second point is especially useful, Mom. In that sense, Edahn, you are on the path of healing by admitting that you have a sense of shame.

Social Anxiety Disorder is a cause for shame in a society which denigrates people with emotional disorders. Unjustly so, of course, but very difficult to avoid.

My hunch is that the disorder is not the root cause of the shame. Shame tends to become generalized with maturing and attaches itself to anything about ourselves which troubles us.

But it is not necessary to discover the roots of one's shame in order to deal with it. It's somewhat of a red herring to think that discovering the cause of an emotional disorder is the goal. Although in many physical ailments that is a must for prevention cure/maintenance.

A saying I like is, "When the barn's on fire you don't need to go out and find the arsonist. You work on putting it out."

Discovering the causes of our shame aids in the healing process but it isn't crucial for dealing with shame.

So, I'm thinking:

1. Recognize and acknowledge it.

2. Tell someone else about it. Watching one's step with this one. Picking someone who isn't sensitive to shame may result in reactions which can trigger additional shame.

3. Familiarize yourself with the symptoms and methods for counteracting them.

4. Find a group of companions who understand and support your efforts. This can be done without formal action on your part, but an actual group working on shame will speed the process.

5. Practice, practice, practice.

 

[Hirsch63]

Boy have I been on the wrong track, then. I have an instatiable need to understand why this is happening in order to devise a startegy to manage it. If by red herring you mean it relieves one of directly confronting the problem, I can see how that would be possible and even likely in some situations.

...A saying I like is, "When the barn's on fire you don't need to go out and find the arsonist. You work on putting it out."

Shame is a chronic experience so I find this analogy a bit off. I think of it more as termites undermining the structure of my self or a regular roadblock on the way to work....not an all engulfing blaze that springs up violently. Perhaps there is a difference in how we experience it? I still feel that shame is an opportunity, a tool with which we can understand a great deal more about our true selves if we can use the experience wisely. I take your comments seriously regsrding the red herring aspect though...it would be easy to slip into an avoidance of purposeful self evaluation.

 

[Anja]

I don't know if different personality types experience shame in different ways, Hirsch. That's certainly a possibility. I'm guessing that shame is the same in everyone and the way it plays out/degree of recognition is the difference.

I think what you are talking about is generalized shame. It's that slow-burning fire that's always there eroding our self-confidence unawares. Shame a kid enough times and it can become generalized.

Certainly a singular focus on causation will distract from the goal and that may be an unconscious motivation.

Those flare-ups I describe, while seldom for me, are cause for caution to avoid rekindling the original fire. Make sense? Ach. Metaphor. . .

If someone is experiencing chronic shame it's a safe bet to say that at some formative stage someone, perhaps many, implied that that child's acts and thoughts were wrong in some way and that, over time, the person internalized those messages to mean that they were inherently flawed as a human being.

I used to think of it as , "Once upon a time Mom shamed me a lot. Now she doesn't have to follow me around and do it anymore. I carry her within me and can do it for myself." Heh.

 

[INTJMom]

Boy have I been on the wrong track, then. I have an insatiable need to understand why this is happening in order to devise a strategy to manage it. ...

I'm the same way.
And that method has worked for me very well.
However, if there's one thing I know for certain having spent over a year on this site,
no single approach works the same for everyone.
My method usually involves grieving my pain from past abuse, neglect or loss,
and forgiving those who have hurt me.
The more specific I can be about how they actually injured me, the deeper the healing.
(My method also involves prayer to God,
but I know that's not a very accepted concept in this forum,
so I usually don't mention it.)


Perhaps Anja means that if you can't discover the cause,
it shouldn't prevent you from doing the things you can do to overcome it.
Certainly I can agree with that.

 

[INTJMom]

...
I used to think of it as , "Once upon a time Mom shamed me a lot. Now she doesn't have to follow me around and do it anymore. I carry her within me and can do it for myself." Heh.

Very familiar with that.
And sometimes that is specific enough.
In my case, when I started to face the pain, I had flashbacks of the actual things she said to me. (How could an adult say such things to a child... I can only pity her now.)

Cutting that voice off is very difficult but it can be done. I had to emotionally divorce myself from the fact that she is my mother, in order to reject the things she said to me.

 

[Anja]

And, the good news is that, with time and practice it gets easier and better.

I've been at this for thirty-some years and can honestly say that my old shame is triggered perhaps once a year! And dispensed with in moments. Think it's a life-time process.

I also have been able to learn how to have a satisfying relationship with Mom, something I'm especially grateful to have accomplished. Never expected, or even wanted, that to happen.

And she didn't need to work at it at all. I did the work and she made adjustments over time to the new and improved me. Not to please her, but to please me. Aha!

But that work was in a different realm than shame work and involved learning to self-reparent and boundary setting.

You are very fortunate, Mom, to have been able to discover the original source of shame for you. Some people are never able to do so.

And my point is that that doesn't have to be a roadblock to recovery.

 

[INTJMom]

And, the good news is that, with time and practice it gets easier and better.

I've been at this for thirty-some years and can honestly say that my old shame is triggered perhaps once a year! And dispensed with in moments. Think it's a life-time process.

I also have been able to learn how to have a satisfying relationship with Mom, something I'm especially grateful to have accomplished. Never expected, or even wanted, that to happen.

And she didn't need to work at it at all. I did the work and she made adjustments over time to the new and improved me. Not to please her, but to please me. Aha!

But that work was in a different realm than shame work and involved learning to self-reparent and boundary setting.

Awesome. It's tough but it's worth it.

You are very fortunate, Mom, to have been able to discover the original source of shame for you. Some people are never able to do so.

I think the book, Facing Shame, suggests potential sources of shame in a person's life.
When I was reading it, I remembered things I hadn't thought of since I was a child.

And my point is that that doesn't have to be a roadblock to recovery.