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Guilt and shame

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anthony

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Guilt and shame are two of the most common, difficult, emotions to be dealt with in healing a majority of traumatic events. Guilt and shame are often both present in sexual abuse, childhood abuse and events that encompass death of another, eg. survivor guilt. These two emotions have been combined in this page because they are intertwined core feelings that eat away at a person, constantly provoking Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms. They are near paramount within all cases of complex trauma, often referred to as Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), which is not an actual diagnosis. To try and separate these two emotions would be negligent on my behalf, as one more often than not, goes with the other, as you will read.

What is Guilt and Shame?

Guilt and shame are frequently thought of as the same concept, and the terms are often used interchangeably; however, theorists have recently made a distinction between the two concepts. Both emotions involve concepts of “wrong” behavior or having done something “wrong,” either by omission or commission. They also both involve negative emotions and cognitions related to the perceived offensive behavior.

Shame

Shame is a painful emotion arising from the knowing (consciousness) of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, disgraceful, embarrassing, etc, done by oneself or another. Shame is directly attributed to feeling guilty about something, hence shame and guilt intertwine. Shame consists of a negative evaluation of one’s own worth, because he or she has acted “wrongly.” Shame is conceptualized as including feelings of disgrace, disrepute, dishonor, loss of self-esteem, loss of virtue, and loss of personal integrity.

Guilt

Guilt is the fact of being responsible for the commission of an offense. Guilt is composed of negative emotions related to wrongdoings or perceived failures to act appropriately. Guilt includes feelings of sorrow, repentance, and disappointment in one’s actions. Guilt is both a cognitive and an emotional experience, that occurs when a person realizes that he or she has violated a moral standard and is responsible for that violation. A guilty conscience results from thoughts that we have not lived up to our ideal self.

Summation

According to the above definitions of both guilt and shame, it could be summated that, guilt is concentrated on one’s actions, while shame is directed toward one’s moral integrity and self-worth, and/or past actions and how they are perceived. In other words, a person who feels shameful may think that he or she is to blame for the immoral act and is therefore a bad person. Conversely, a person who feels guilty may believe that he or she acted wrongly and therefore feels that his or her actions were wrong, but they can still maintain a positive view of the self as a person.

Guilt and Shame's Impact Upon PTSD Symptoms

Previous research has found that guilt and shame, although related, have differential relationships to PTSD symptoms, with shame related to higher levels of PTSD.

Guilt and shame in trauma survivors are important emotional responses to understand for several reasons, being:
  1. Guilt is found in both depression and PTSD, in fact many studies have commonly found comorbidity between depression and PTSD.
  2. Guilt has been found to be an important symptom cluster of PTSD among trauma survivors.
  3. Guilt and shame appear to be related to overall symptom severity.
  4. Shame research suggests that guilt and shame may interfere with PTSD treatment.
Resolving Guilt

As stated above, guilt intertwines directly with the feeling of shame. Shame is a near impossible emotion to try and resolve, because there is an underlying component of guilt and/or emotional cocktail. The primary resolution to shame is directly through guilt itself.

The theoretical answer to understanding guilt is extremely easy, and comprises four points to ascertain the realistic facts of a situation for use towards changing guilt cognitively, being:
  1. Who owns what blame for the actual event?
  2. Remove any "pre-outcome" knowledge you had convinced yourself of knowing!
  3. Review the choices made under the events actual situation, not hindsight.
  4. Moral standards / self expectations must be gauged against the facts at the time, not hindsight.
I told you the theoretical answer is easy. This allows you to understand the facts based on the event itself, removing "what ifs" and "but if I only did..." such negative thinking styles, which often cloud understanding an event itself, using the events facts vs. what you have otherwise told yourself.

A further problem with guilt, is that many use self-blame, which invokes guilt, in an attempt to reduce shame. Nasty little problem these two emotions, as they can directly become there own cycle of internal emotional abuse. You begin feeling guilty for being ashamed of something you or another did, which creates self-blame, further shame, more guilt and the cycle continues until you intervene within it or breakdown.

Notice how I said "you" intervene within it? You are the only person who has the capacity to change you. External influences can only assist, guide, provide you knowledge or techniques, you have to actually evoke the change to remove shame.

The above method has been encapsulated in what a member (Eat0429) replied to another, what I deem to be the perfect answer to resolving shame and guilt, being:

"The therapy and the validation of the therapist is what got me over it, as was educating myself about my trauma and being honest with my husband about what happened. I now place the blame where it belongs, and I excuse myself for the way I acted because there is no way that I can be held responsible for it.

I also know that the people who victimized me wanted me to feel ashamed because this is how they could control me. Now I let them take every bit of blame for what happened and let myself off the hook. Why should I continue to suffer for their mistakes and cruelty is how I look at it."

In reviewing that response, you can clearly ascertain that the member shifted their guilt from them, onto who was responsible for holding it, they were honest with their partner, removing guilt encompassed within secrecy. Guilt is gone!

Guilt Cycle & PTSD

It is theorized that PTSD symptoms are maintained by guilt through a cyclic pattern; guilt-related thoughts often accompany traumatic memories and these guilty thoughts also produce a negative emotional response (e.g. distress, guilt, anger) within the individual. Through this type of conditioning, traumatic memories trigger negative emotions, and the experience of the negative affect reinforces the aversive nature of the traumatic memory. This negative cycle also tends to increase avoidance of the traumatic memory which reduces the likelihood of improvement through extinction and explains why these painful thoughts do not get better with the passage of time.

In other words, deal with the core problem which removes all negative emotions, which stops feeding PTSD to create symptoms, or continually suffer.

What If I Own Legitimate Guilt?

Firstly, owning legitimate guilt actually has a positive side to it. This means that you aren't a sociopath, you do have empathy, remorse and feel the correct feelings for something within your life that has gone terribly wrong.

Legitimate guilt is the most difficult type of guilt to have providing you are actually at fault, however; you cannot just assume you own guilt, you must still go through the process to ascertain what degree of blame you own, if any, and then only own that portion. Otherwise, you must assign guilt to its rightful owner.

When you own legitimate guilt, regardless the percentage, then your options do become far more limited to minimize or remove the guilt, such as:
  1. Forgiving yourself based on the realistic and factual circumstances (age, situation, etc).
  2. Acceptance and learning from your mistakes to change future choices.
Part of being a human being is that you will make mistakes. Some small, some large, some gigantic. You don't need forgiveness to forgive yourself, or to acknowledge your wrong doings.

The reason making amends was not included in that list, is that whilst it can be a positive experience, often people entangle guilt directly with making amends, and it can become counter-productive, even self-abusive.

Understanding Shame

It is theorized that the key emotions that evoke shame are, hurt, failure and helplessness, which create anger, that when Link Removed. The thing with shame and abuse is that it can stem backwards to early childhood, where an abuser reinforced feeling ashamed. As stated earlier, whenever shame is present, there is guilt and/or other emotions. To try and tackle shame by itself it extremely difficult, if not impossible, due to its complexities of being so self inflicted, a part of a person.

Removing Shame

If shame is tremendously difficult to shift by itself, then how do we reduce and/or remove shame? Well, you deal with the other emotions present that cause shame. You target guilt, hurt, failure, helplessness, disgust, etc, and by dealing with those emotions, shame lessens and/or removes.

What many traumatized persons confuse regarding shame, and even other key emotions, is mixing past feelings with present feelings. You can heal present, you can understand the past, but if you remember feeling shame in childhood, that is different to feeling shame now based on past memories. Nothing you do now will remove your memory of feeling ashamed at an earlier period in your life. It is important that a person differentiates between the two. One is memory, the other is present tense. Present tense is where focus must be applied.

You may still feel ashamed of the past, you may still carry shame with you because the past has not been dealt with, though you do not have to carry shame from past events into your future for the rest of your life. Thinking about past tense may invoke the feeling of being ashamed, memory, which is different than feeling ashamed, present tense.

Assertiveness and self-esteem behaviour techniques are the key to keeping shame in check within the future, once existing emotions have been dealt with, as most shame is associated to those with a low self-esteem and passive or aggressive personality. It is extremely unlikely you'll ever find a primarily assertive person with healthy self-esteem who carries a life-time of shame within them, because they have learnt how to deal with complex emotions and communicating with people, so they don't carry such negativity within.

Examples Of Shame & Guilt Being Processed

Due to the complexities and significance of shame and guilt within trauma, it would be unrealistic to not provide direct examples of real shame and guilt, and how the process is applied. A few key situations have been covered below:

Family Values - Shame

As adults, we learn our values based on our trusted sources, typically parents, then brothers and sisters, followed by other family / caregivers, during our upbringing. Physical abuse is not required to cause complex shame and guilt later in life, you just need screwed up family values to achieve an abuse cycle. These values are seen from poverty to extremist religious beliefs, to the richest of families through avoidance of contact.

Muzikluvr said, "SEX is Shameful. It's gross, it's bumping uglies, it's inappropriate, it's nasty, men are the only ones who like it, anyone would be ashamed to admit a man was able to put himself inside you, that's disgusting! Being raped by an ugly man, gross! Being raped by an attractive man after you said you thought he was cute... your fault. Blame. Shame. Women get married so they DON'T have to have SEX anymore. I can't even relate to you, I would never come in here talking about having sex no matter how it happened. You must be more like a boy than a girl. There's something wrong with you. Shame. Shame. Shame. I'm not meeting their standards. I'm inadequate. I'm not natural."

Family values can become quite a toxic and complex case of negative emotional core values being instilled, which are the most difficult to change, yet every behaviour can be changed. Lets look at the toxicity of negative core beliefs instilling shame from childhood:
  • Sex is shameful = I am at fault, guilty, if wanting or enjoying sex.
  • It's gross = If I have sex, then I am digusting.
  • It's bumping uglies = Human organs are disgusting.
  • Ashamed to admit a man was able to put himself inside you - sex is disgusting, I am disgusting for being raped, I am guilty for being raped.
  • Men are the only one's who like it = I am disgusting and guilty for wanting or enjoying sex.
  • Being raped by an ugly man = I am guilty of being victimized.
  • The list goes on and on in the above given example.
You can quickly see how deep the underlying negative emotions have built a core perception of disgust and guilt around sex and even men outright. What would be said by a parent/guardian if gay? Even more damaging. Negative family values become core beliefs, as you have typically endured them your entire life, then in adulthood, discover that you are different to what the majority feel or think about the same beliefs. You discover your family inflicted their negative toxicity upon yourself, yet changing is easier said than done. Add that you are now a victim, and suddenly these existing core beliefs enhance negativity to the nth degree, substantially increasing such surface emotions as shame.

Perfectionism - Shame

A very common trait within childhood abused persons is, perfectionism. Parents abuse a child for everything and anything, depending on their mood, so the child attempts to please them, to get it right, which in itself is an impossible task to achieve for an abusee to begin with. Yet this behaviour becomes instinctive and the result is:

IntoTheLight said, "The shame comes from never being "good enough". Again, it is one thing to know it intellectually, but another to have it internalized so completely that it governs so many of my behaviors. I set impossible standards, fail to meet them, therefore I am not "good enough", feel guilty, and the cycle repeats."

Notice how "guilty" was used in the statement with shame. If you were to identify key emotions from that statement, you will find:
  • Never being good enough = I feel like a failure.
  • I set impossible standards = I fail to meet them.
  • I am not good enough = I feel like a failure.
  • Topped off with, I feel guilty for failing to meet expectations.
You can pull a paragraph apart and isolate out key emotions, which above resonates from an example provided, the key areas that require work to reduce shame is to target feelings of failure and guilt. These will no doubt uncover further key emotions which will lead back to the actual relationship itself, which when all combined, can be logically resolved and enhanced with self-esteem and assertiveness behaviour training.

Reinforced Perfectionism - Shame For Accidents

Continuing from perfectionism, this is an example of how retraumatization occurs within daily relationships, reinforcing negative core beliefs (perfectionism) that are already damaging and often hinder the process of positive change:

MissAntiSunshine said, "A couple of months ago, I bent down to get something. Two very close friends were around along with my fiance. My fiance walked by me, looked down, and yanked my shirt down violently. I felt my lower back and realized that my jeans, which are too big on me, had slipped down a little and revealed the top of my underwear. He gave me this disgusted look, like I'd just grabbed one of my friends and started making out with them or something. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to let myself show like that. I didn't even know. I wasn't paying attention."

From the above quote, one could ascertain the following underlying possible emotions causing the shame:
  • He gave me this disgusted look - I feel failure, disgusted, embarrassment, sadness that I let someone down I love.
  • I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to - Reinforcing the feeling of failure again.
  • I didn't even know - I feel guilty for not knowing something I couldn't see was showing.
This is a direct example of how something so innocent, turned into causing the person to feel shamed, based most likely around reinforcing prior feelings associated with abuse, primarily failure to be perfect, even disgust.

The actual caring and assertive solution, would have been to calmly notify the person that their underwear was showing, and let the person choose whether they cared or not vs. having something imposed upon them, especially in the moment, reinforcing guilt and shame.

Pleasure From Abuse

Many don't understand that the human body reacts at times regardless what you may want it to do, this means, orgasming or feeling pleasured, even though being raped / sexually abused at the time. Your bodily functions are not something you always control.

LionHeart777 said, "Guilt for having enjoyed some of the physical aspects of the abuse....my body responded to the stimulation, therefore I must have liked it and to my thinking that made it my fault. What I didn't know is that the body will respond to stimulation regardless of who is doing the stimulating. I also did nothing to stop the abuse. I suffered extreme shame and guilt over these things."

If I pull the above statement apart to discover the underlying emotions, then we end up with the following possible outcome: (Possible because all emotions must be clarified with the person before they become substantial)
  • I must have liked it = I blame myself
  • I did nothing to stop the abuse = I blame myself
One paragraph that resonates the truer underlying emotion to feeling guilty, being self-blame. This then expands into feeling guilty, thus shameful. Add being a male, with genetics at play that a male should be tough, strong and indestructible to be abused in the first place, merely deepens self-blame that much further.

Conclusion

As you can determine for yourself by now, guilt and shame go hand in hand, and often with common emotions that create or enhance negative core beliefs. Shame is not an emotion you can directly target, but instead you will always find deeper emotions beneath shame, and that is what you target and deal with. Shame is not something you just remove or lose, due to its complexity, though the aim is to reduce it so it withers away and no longer dominates. Time will normally complete this process of removing shame completely through assertiveness and self esteem building.

Just remember the key component to both guilt and shame, be honest with yourself and look at the deeper emotions and/or the actual facts of a situation, NOT what you have told yourself or have come to believe. Forums are very handy for laying out a situations facts, then asking for honest feedback to help you determine such ownership or deeper feelings. A good trauma therapist can also help you.
 
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This makes a very good point, and gives some great advice, especially in the legitimate guilt section. I’ll try to see if following these steps/advice might help me past my own problems. I plan on coming back and rereading these words often, if that’s alright with you. Thank you.
 
Thanks for this article. I don’t know if there could be anything worse than shame based ptsd. For whatever reason its taken me a long time to come around to the understanding that my issues are related to shame. I think I felt shame at being ashamed…the word conjures very negative, almost mocking images to me. Thus my own messed up, judgmental understanding of shame makes the fact that I live with deep shame even more shameful. It embarrasses me. I embarrass myself. I don’t know if that makes a lot of sense…I’m ashamed at my shame, and mostly that I can’t seem to deal with it, its never gone away or gotten better. I am 30 now and the traumatic event which caused my shame happened 16 years ago, more than half my lifetime ago. Shame based ptsd gets under your skin and transforms you in an unbelievable way. Not to belittle anyone else’s ptsd experience such as soldiers, but I know that shame based trauma experienced as a young person, particularly a child/adolescent, is one of the most devastating things that can happen to a person. The shame and trauma literally becomes a part of your DNA. Its not the world thats wrong, its YOU that are wrong. The difference is immense.

I can’t remember what it was like before. I’ve tried so many things to change it but they do not work. As a result of my shame based ptsd I’ve been a substance abuser since 14 and almost died of an overdose. I have never been able to conceptualize a future for myself and thus have failed career wise. I’ve never been able to plan or see any kind of future for myself. I’ve pushed away every relationship I’ve been in, always thinking it would not last, nothing will last or work out. I have extremely severe insomnia and social anxiety. I suffer from terrible self consciousness and thus cannot experience others unless numbed by alcohol or drugs. Thus its impossible for me to form true relationships with anyone. Before the event I looked at the world as full of goodness and potential. After, it was dark and scary and strange and awful. If you read this and can relate, please know that you are not alone. I know how bad this is. I’ve seen countless therapists/psych people in my life and its hard to take them seriously because I’ve always felt that unless someone has lived with this emotional cancer its simply impossible to comprehend how all consuming and powerful it is.

I’ve talked about what happened so many times but the relief has never stuck or caused any great change. I’ve gotten to the point of very seriously contemplating suicide and still often think theres a damn good chance I do it. And I would not be ashamed about it. There is nothing comparable to feeling this way, constantly critiquing yourself, judging yourself, hating yourself and thus critiquing the world, judging everyone and hating people. If there is a god I hate him. I’ve had to deal with so many people who cannot understand this or what I feel and go through on a daily basis. Living with deep shame changes you and destroys your life beyond compare. I hope you can learn to live with it. For me, one medicine helped me feel more normal and that was called Clonazepam, but I was taken off of it due to my drinking problems, which has only made me 100x worse. For a supposed psych “doctor” to take someone with this off a helpful medication proves to me that they have no idea what they are dealing with. The medicine only helped calm down my anxiety levels and helped quiet the negative self talk a bit. I’m still trying, and I’ll keep trying my ass off as I always have. That is, until I just can’t do it anymore.

I still really hope I never get to that point. The irony is that I pat myself on the back for enduring this far with this but to normal people, I’m a complete failure. Everyone in my life thinks I am crazy and they cannot for the life of them understand why I can’t just be ok. This is another aspect of shame based ptsd that is godawful. It can’t be seen. Its invisible. You can be good looking, have money, etc…but to the person afflicted none of this matters AT ALL. Nothing truly matters. I hope you are ok. I won’t sugar coat this by ending with a “but god and personal strength conquers all” blah blah shit lie. If you have this man I feel for you, and I get you, believe that one. I GET IT. Its the worst thing in the world, it really is. The absolute worst. It is a goddamn shame.
 
g rif – Have you ever considered talking to a pastor or going to a retreat and really getting in touch with God? He is the only one who can help you by giving you the grace to move forward. Just trust in Him. I do wish you all of the best and hope you are able to work thru this. Also, maybe trying to help someone younger than yourself that is going thru the same thing would give you a different perspective and help you to heal.
 
Well-written article. I wish the author listed their name. One aspect you touched on that is rarely discussed is the arousal response in sexual abuse. I am the only person I know of who lectures, trains, and consults internationally on this aspect of sexual violence. Thank you for mentioning it here!

Sidenote to MM: Introducing concepts of religion and god only increase the shame and guilt factors for many victims and survivors, especially those raised within a highly moralistic framework. Please be aware that most people do not ascribe to one particular view of the world and that imposing such views can worsen trauma.
 
Hi SAT, I believe that was me. Certainly looks like my writing. Sorry about the no names, we stripped them all and have only included them in newer articles. As we progressively go backward through articles and have them professionally edited, names are added.

Thank you for your kind words.
 
I agree with @anthony that shame and guilt are so intertwined. I have not endured physical abuse but bullying made me very ashamed of myself. Only now by peeling away the guilt do I get to feel like a worthwhile person again. My world has changed for the better because I have found people who understand and care, it is hard when you are surrounded by people who blame you and add to your shame. I have a lot of friends here at university who share my values and really help people overcome their problems – for me it is friends at first aid society, lovely supervisors, and people who really believe that the victim is never at fault.

I hope that you find the same and that your life gets better.
 
I don’t know you…. but you really touched me. I don’t suffer any kind of ptsd or shame but my beloved one suffers from this….
Thank you very much for sharing your feelings… it really helped me understand alot of things.
I really hope you get over this and please don’t give up.
 
I think more needs to be done to base on sexual arousal when been sexually abused and how guilt and shame comes inside. This is what I find more difficult to accept and blame myself
 
I have survivor’s guilt and ptsd regarding my husband of 44 years. I wish I had died instead. My life is a shadow of what it was. A young woman drove into the side of our car without using her brakes claiming we came out from nowhere without warning. We were sitting on the road for minutes. That’s why I cannot forgive her, she lied. And killed my husband. I have trouble driving now; I wasn’t even driving. It’s 2 years ago. It feels like yesterday. I can’t stop crying. I still see the moment of the crash. She should die in a raging fire or something really bad. She was distracted and lied to the police. If I didn’t have my 2 cats I wonder if I would have survived the worst mourning period but now I see that the long haul can be worse. No one invites a widow out especially if she needs a pickup and return. So you lose your friends too. Isolation is a fun.
 
Thanks Anthony for a really good article. It was important for me because I personally feel shame/guilt/embarrassment about situations in my life and certain people. It's difficult sometimes knowing that I've made really bad decisions whilst being unwell and it just created more problems for myself. Sometimes I can shrug it off and tell myself to stop beating myself up about it but it takes work and I just try to learn from it because I can't turn back the clock. Anyway thanks again.
 
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