On Shame, Continued from Another Mother's Voice:
Dr. Brown has spent her career studying shame, and her work translates directly into
childhood sexual abuse recovery. To paraphrase Oprah's comment during her interview with Dr. Brown, we can get over the acts of the abuser, but the shame brought on by the abuse can continue to damage us for a lifetime. For childhood sexual abuse survivors, feelings of shame are the binder in our ball of inner dread and possibly are the most formidable damages to overcome.
Incest is, perhaps, the best possible environment for shame because predators instinctively know that the three requirements for shame: secrecy, silence, and judgment fairly guarantee that their crime will go undetected and unpunished. Predators wage deliberate and systematic campaigns to grow shame within their young victims. Most incest victims are taught to keep the secret even before the crime is committed. Best yet for the predators, the shame they should be feeling within themselves for their horrific crime is transferred instead to the victim, who carries it for both while the predator lives a life of shame-free sociopathy.
As abuse survivors, we become not just people who had something bad happen to us – we become people who believe that we are bad people. Well before childhood is behind us, we place ourselves into the category of those who do not deserve love and belonging. This self-exile happens because we have been taught by an extremely significant person in our lives that we do not deserve ownership of our own bodies.
Do not deserve not to be harmed in ways we do not even understand.
Do not deserve rescue.
Do not deserve mercy.
Do not deserve our own reality.
This recipe for shame is passed along from predator to predator like a sick, secret
handshake.
As adults we begin to see this thing for what it is, if we are lucky. We begin to realize that some of our most basic human rights were annihilated in the process of making us into objects of adult sexual satisfaction. As the humbling reality sets in that the biggest challenge of our recovery is to overcome shame, the sting is softened by the knowledge that the remedy is contained within the realization. When we tell our secret, when we refuse to be silent, and when we refuse to accept the judgment of ourselves and others that we are bad because someone did something bad to
us, we destroy the environment required for shame to persist. The binder of shame crumbles to dust and releases all of the other elements of our ball of inner dread – unacknowledged or unmanaged anger, inappropriately expressed grief, boundary issues, sex and sexuality, having a voice, other relationships within our family – so that we can begin to examine these elements in an attitude for recovery.
Until we eradicate the shame, no other healing work will be effective.
Of course, we need to share with those who are empathetic to our situation and not
with those who would, in their fear or ignorance, shame us further for doing so. This is why the silence about incest must be broken to such a degree that others truly can understand our reality of the particular pernicious damage done to the spirit by incest. As well, we must challenge and stamp out rape culture wherever we find it because rape culture feeds on shame.
Most of all we must nurture a spirit of empathy within ourselves, for ourselves. If we can do this, we come to realize that our feelings are not abnormal – they are a normal consequence of a deeply aberrant circumstance. We are able to forgive ourselves for feeling shame, and let it go. We become capable of providing for ourselves the loving parent who should have protected us when we were children. We learn to tell the childish selves still cowering within us the truth about what really happened to us. We commit to loving and caring for ourselves.
This is a simple map for learning how to live again, but the way is not easy. We need all of the unconditional love (with accountability) for ourselves that we can get, and we need our community. Recovery doesn’t go in a straight line – some days are dark and the crippling, hot memory of shame washes over us. Other days, we have so much resolve, hope, and self-esteem that we have some to spare for others who need it.
Day by day, we encourage ourselves and each other. We learn who deserves to hear our story and who does not. We learn who deserves our empathy and who does not.
We learn to loosen the sandbag of shame from our heavy spirits, lay it down at
the feet of the perpetrator, and walk away.
God bless you, Dr. Brown.
Dr. Brown has spent her career studying shame, and her work translates directly into
childhood sexual abuse recovery. To paraphrase Oprah's comment during her interview with Dr. Brown, we can get over the acts of the abuser, but the shame brought on by the abuse can continue to damage us for a lifetime. For childhood sexual abuse survivors, feelings of shame are the binder in our ball of inner dread and possibly are the most formidable damages to overcome.
Incest is, perhaps, the best possible environment for shame because predators instinctively know that the three requirements for shame: secrecy, silence, and judgment fairly guarantee that their crime will go undetected and unpunished. Predators wage deliberate and systematic campaigns to grow shame within their young victims. Most incest victims are taught to keep the secret even before the crime is committed. Best yet for the predators, the shame they should be feeling within themselves for their horrific crime is transferred instead to the victim, who carries it for both while the predator lives a life of shame-free sociopathy.
As abuse survivors, we become not just people who had something bad happen to us – we become people who believe that we are bad people. Well before childhood is behind us, we place ourselves into the category of those who do not deserve love and belonging. This self-exile happens because we have been taught by an extremely significant person in our lives that we do not deserve ownership of our own bodies.
Do not deserve not to be harmed in ways we do not even understand.
Do not deserve rescue.
Do not deserve mercy.
Do not deserve our own reality.
This recipe for shame is passed along from predator to predator like a sick, secret
handshake.
As adults we begin to see this thing for what it is, if we are lucky. We begin to realize that some of our most basic human rights were annihilated in the process of making us into objects of adult sexual satisfaction. As the humbling reality sets in that the biggest challenge of our recovery is to overcome shame, the sting is softened by the knowledge that the remedy is contained within the realization. When we tell our secret, when we refuse to be silent, and when we refuse to accept the judgment of ourselves and others that we are bad because someone did something bad to
us, we destroy the environment required for shame to persist. The binder of shame crumbles to dust and releases all of the other elements of our ball of inner dread – unacknowledged or unmanaged anger, inappropriately expressed grief, boundary issues, sex and sexuality, having a voice, other relationships within our family – so that we can begin to examine these elements in an attitude for recovery.
Until we eradicate the shame, no other healing work will be effective.
Of course, we need to share with those who are empathetic to our situation and not
with those who would, in their fear or ignorance, shame us further for doing so. This is why the silence about incest must be broken to such a degree that others truly can understand our reality of the particular pernicious damage done to the spirit by incest. As well, we must challenge and stamp out rape culture wherever we find it because rape culture feeds on shame.
Most of all we must nurture a spirit of empathy within ourselves, for ourselves. If we can do this, we come to realize that our feelings are not abnormal – they are a normal consequence of a deeply aberrant circumstance. We are able to forgive ourselves for feeling shame, and let it go. We become capable of providing for ourselves the loving parent who should have protected us when we were children. We learn to tell the childish selves still cowering within us the truth about what really happened to us. We commit to loving and caring for ourselves.
This is a simple map for learning how to live again, but the way is not easy. We need all of the unconditional love (with accountability) for ourselves that we can get, and we need our community. Recovery doesn’t go in a straight line – some days are dark and the crippling, hot memory of shame washes over us. Other days, we have so much resolve, hope, and self-esteem that we have some to spare for others who need it.
Day by day, we encourage ourselves and each other. We learn who deserves to hear our story and who does not. We learn who deserves our empathy and who does not.
We learn to loosen the sandbag of shame from our heavy spirits, lay it down at
the feet of the perpetrator, and walk away.
God bless you, Dr. Brown.
