The Purpose Of 'shame'

[Valentino]

But the interesting this is that thread made me realize just how much I HID my shame, especially from my abusers.

This type of discussion is cutting edge within the world of trauma. There seems to limited research and understanding towards exactly how shame works within trauma, attachment, and even just regular social relationships. It also seems to be intermingled and a subtle motivating driver underlying a lot of behavior and reactions that seem unconsciously driven and hard to understand externally.

I find that when other's share their definitions, explorations and personal stories, I learn a lot, and it opens up the door for other's to learn. But I know it can be hard to break out of old habits of simply trying to fight over what's right or wrong.

I'm now exploring and learning that I dealt with a lot of societal confusion growing up, I was confused trying to make sense of Traditional Chinese culture which is actively shamed based and interpersonal, while also trying to fit into an American culture which was more guilt and independent individual based, but still has strong elements of social shaming that's appears quite unstructured and unpredictable from my childhood training, expectations, and perspective.

One struggle I still deal with when communicating with other's from a western upbringing, is that I get shamed, judged or cause confusion for others; when I place a focus on interdependent or other perspective. Like it's shameful not to be highly independent personal and individual, or it might just feel fake to a westerner, who's just used to expecting other's to come from a my needs and wants first perspective.

Here's some research exploring the differences between western upbringing compared to actual Taiwanese families, his results seem to point towards a focus towards empathy within western culture, while Chinese culture primary focus is shame (or empathy towards moral advancement).

According to Hoffman's affect primacy theory, there exists "inevitable conflict" between caregiver and child in discipline encounters because the child tends to perceive any intervention on his egoistic desire as unfair and unreasonable. In order to alleviate the tension and bring the child's attention to the moral message in the inductive component, a reasonable amount of imposed fear through the elicitation of empathetic stress is necessary ("the emotion work"). Appropriate arousal of empathy enables the child to put himself in a third person's perspective and focus more on the content of the reprimand instead of its source ("from affect to cognition"). Over time, from countless discipline encounters encoded in long-term memory, and owing to the child's active role in processing the information, the child will move "from compliance to internalization," transformed from being compelled to obey to internally deriving moral norms and the anticipatory feelings of guilt.

Similarly, in my ethnographic and longitudinal observations of daily parent-child interactions in the homes of young Taiwanese children, affect was also found to play a central role in discipline encounters. Nevertheless, instead of empathy, the highlighted emotion was shame. In an effort to forestall or stop the child's transgression, the caregiver, consciously or unconsciously, use various verbal, paralinguistic and non-verbal communicative devices to provoke shame feelings by casting the child in an unfavorable light.
This elicitation of shame feelings is accompanied by lengthy reasoning and a reminder of rules. In order to add extra weight to the moral message, a respectable third party (whether present or not) is often invoked to witness or judge the child's behavior. While parental discipline is triggered by a precipitating transgression, similar past transgression(s) may also be reenacted and reexamined. Along with the request for confession and compliance, there is also a strong future-oriented expectation for a better self who does not violate the same moral rule again. In sum, empirical findings in Taiwanese families not only confirm Hoffman's affect primacy theory, but the highlighted affect, shame, also appears to serve similar functions as empathy.
---- source: Link Removed

I think that shame is worth exploring and understanding. It seems to be an integral human emotion, and is quite powerful, subtle, and intertwined within all social interactions, one-on-one relationships but also within group social and large cultural contexts. It also likely plays an integral role in trauma both as part of the abuse but also as a potential roadblock in recovery and healing from PTSD.

 

[fyredrift23]

I totally get that, @fyredrift23 , thank you. If I might ask, without diverting the thread, what do you think about internalized shame, or shame as regards 'one's self' or being (versus our actions)?

I'm so glad it helped!

Basically, I'm still figuring that one out myself, lol. But, I do think the others were onto something regarding taking on the shame of abusers. We can substitute 'abusers' for anything that feels appropriate, but it's as if shame is a cloud, and, once someone creates it, it has to go somewhere.

If the one causing harm doesn't 'accept' the cloud, as it were, then the one who got hurt does. It's really really weird to me, but I think internalized shame about the self is something that was once small and important tovan extent. I think we have it so we can feel regret or question our actions. Shame makes things we do very personal, but, sometimes, that's a really good thing! We can better empathize with others when we hurt them, I mean.

I think something goes wrong, though. I think some outside force/s start feeding the little shame lies and half-truths, so it grows up inside of us all distorted and not-quite-all-right, if that makes sense. Like, instead of an abuser 'taking on' the responsibility of hurting someone (causing them to feel shame), for whatever reason, they do not.

Instead, they 'push' the responsibility on to the one who got hurt, so now that person starts to feel shame at an inappropriate time. So, now, instead of reflecting on the pain and the emotions that resulted from it, the person is focused on questioning their 'selves.' They wonder why they 'let themselves' get hurt, or try to convince themselves how stupid they are, how they 'deserve' to be in pain since they're such a crappy person. "That's what I get for trusting people," "Of course I failed, I'm a loser," "I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I'm so stupid!"

 

[Tinyflame]

I think that is exactly right @fyredrift23 , thank you. :hug:

And a 'cloud' is an aptly descriptive analogy.

 

[xena21]

I guess I don't understand the meaning of shame. I always feel shameful. Thats why I bludgeon myself with a hammer or wrench and stab myself to the point that I need antibiotics to heal.

I have had multiple abusers as a young child, then again as an adult. Obviously the worst is as a young child. They are innocent. They don't know life as it really should be. I went into the military and experienced more trauma, but nothing like I did as a child. A young child is terrified. They have no idea who is really on their side. Sometimes they are lucky and have one person that takes control in general. A lot of times that child is left to the world.

Some children are strong for some unknown reason they persist. I remember thinking how how much I hate myself and the hate that went with it. The only thing that would make up for it was if I could move on fro this life. I thought if I could succeed in law enforcement I could put EVERY bad person away. How funny it seems now. Oh well...

 

[ghotiff]

Some children are strong for some unknown reason they persist

I challenge this statement, and I challenge it because firstly I don't think its healthy for you @xena21 and secondly because I don't think it is true.

For example, I think if you put any child in my exact same circumstances (completely the same from birth to end of abuse)....they would not have been able to be 'stronger'. I don't say that because I feel I was strong, I felt very weak (still do), ....but what I am starting to understand is that my perceived 'weakness' were actually strengths at the time. My ability to deny and pretend and fake normality to the world allowed me at least partially partake in the normal world. If I had spent more energy on fighting back or speaking out type actions (which are considered 'strong' actions), worse things would have happened (not just abuse, but generally) and I would have been less able to blend into the normal world. My weaknesses gave me a better chance of living a closer to normal life.

So while I used to hate myself for being weak at the time, I'm now starting to think that I did the best that I could with the hands that were dealt me. I'm not going to blame my child self for not doing 'more', she couldn't do 'more', she did the best she could with what limited options she had. (Obviously this is still a work in progress, but I'm getting there).

 

[xena21]

For example, I think if you put any child in my exact same circumstances (completely the same from birth to end of abuse)....they would not have been able to be 'stronger'.

I guess I dont agree. I was extremely strong through this period until I was about 12, and I had been abused since I was an infant.

 

[ghotiff]

I'm sorry, I think I have misunderstood what you were trying to say.

 

[xena21]

I think the point I had originally meant to get across is not based on a child being weak or strong during the abuse. It was how they dealt with life after the abuse. I think some seem to "persist" where many others do not. It's no fault of that child, it's just a strange thing that children go through such horrible traumas and come out so differently on the other side.

Some children can never recover and become murderers or abusers themselves. Obviously this is their own fault and shame to be taken to the grave. Other children feel the shame of their abuse but overcome the obstacles of their young lives and go out and live a relatively purposeful life, not hurting others and potentially being very helpful to society.

In either case the shame is there. It's how and what you do with it that matters.