How do i handle the shame?

[Scarlet13]

so, I am in trauma therapy with a wonderful psychologist who is focused on working with child abuse survivors (and other traumas). My story is that I was raised by a mother with narcissistic personality dissorder and a step father who is a psychopath. I am the victim of verbal abuse and physical abuse from my parents as well as as sexual abuse that occurred from a babysitter when I was 4. I have struggled with PTSD for most of my life but I have always thought I was fine and actually I am an overachiever. 4 years ago l had a baby girl and struggled immensely with insomnia and post partum depression and I did not receive any comfort or help from psych meds. I actually was harmed by them and am still healing from klonopin withdrawal. This immense struggle with insomnia and anxiety forced me into therapy where I learned for the first time (at age 35) that my mother is a narcissist. I always thought she was the perfect mother who saved me from abuse, which this is messed up because she was ushering the abuse into my life. I have survived for most of my life in sort of a narcissistic way-I do not actually have this personality dissorder, but I have been taught to cover up my pain with a 'false self'. My false self is an attractive woman with a wonderful career, who is a perfect mother and is always happy. When in reality I feel as though I am an ugly monster who deserves abuse. I am in therapy and I feel that I have knocked down or destroyed this false self and now I am residing in what lays underneath which is a disgusting pile of bruises and a black hole tumor. I think this is progress, but very hard to reside in the disgusting piece of trash that I am. So, I am really putting myself out there in therapy and showing my doctor exactly what is there and there is so much shame. I have a mother transference for my psychologist and so this can be ok and we talk about it, but it especially intensifies my shame. I was often punished for showing depression as a kid and for being down on myself which is ironic.

So I am trying to use DBT skills to manage shame, but shame and very poor self worth are tricky to handle and to know what to do with. Shame just sits there like something rotting inside. It is so bad right now that I can't even be touched by my husband and I am so convinced that my therapist hates me that I want to quit and find a diff Doctor (I won't). Can anyone relate? If so what helps you tolerate shame and pain until you get to see your doctor?

 

[Ocin]

Meditation. Especially the guided ones that deal with inner child stuff. I use the insight timer application. It has a million different meditations available even down to a 40 sec "turbocentering". Also journaling. Attending a support group and doing the associated step work has helped me too. I finally after prolly 6 or so groups was able to say that I feel like the "f@ck up" in my family despite my accomplishments. Admitting my suicide attempts from my teens was really freeing too. I used to feel like my career would collapse if anyone other than my tx, pdoc or family knew.
Ventilate that shame. Speak the unspoken. The more you open to it in safe spaces the less power it has.

 

[Scarlet13]

Yes, thanks you are right about admitting to stuff that brings shame. I like the idea of talking about it to other people who are safe but who are not my doctors. Shame and guilt are interesting emotions because either you should feel them and they are warranted or they are not warranted. For example if you commit a crime you should feel shame and guilt, but if you are suffering from abuse it is not warranted to feel shame. I don't know if that makes sense. Shame is that feeling of internal badness and I just want to hurt myself or punish myself and then I have a lot of suicidal thoughts. But really I am a suffering human. I have such dissonance like I have a beautiful daughter but I just can't understand how she even came from me because I am so bad and disgusting. It makes sense to me on a weird level that all the abuse happened because I am inherently disgusting and an ugly monster. This obviously does not make sense logically I was hurt by people with personality disorders and random bad luck, but the wiring in my brain tells me I deserved it all.

 

[Ocin]

My kids keep me motivated to do battle with my self hate. I just wish they didn't hear me self flagellating in the car and around the house when the shame gremlins get me (Brene Brown, power of vulnerability lecture series). My son liked this concept and mentioned it last week when he heard me trying to "talk back" to my internal critic. I have found EMDR helpful as well. I've come a long way but have so very far yet to travel. Sigh.
Honestly the fruits of our labor in therapy and recovery will likely be most visible in our grandchildren and in the way they care for themselves and their children. Breaking the cycle is hard. Our parents are not going to praise us for our honesty or our boundaries. But our kids will watch and learn and add their own strengths as they grow.

 

[Scarlet13]

So my therapist stresses how important it is for your children to see you as imperfect. You are not perfect. It was very damaging to me to have a mother who thought and acted like she was perfect.
When you are down on yourself in front of your children and then showing you are aware that is good for them to see how you handle your issues.

The shame is better now because I emailed my T and she responded telling me to hang in there and vulnerability is hard.

Thank you for your responses.

 

[Tinyflame]

Yes pefrect ( ;) ) is over-rated, and praising the trying is what counts, IMHO.

I think it's very very difficult to feel we are viewed in a different way than we view ourselves.

:hug: @Applesunflower13

 

[Scarlet13]

Yes I agree with this. My daughter who is 4 adores me. She looks at me with these admiring eyes and wants me to do her hair exactly like mine. I feel such dissonance because it is there inside of me the feeling that I am a disgusting monster who is ugly, yet here she is with love for me. My mom who has narcissistic pd abused me and saw me as no good yet I still adored her but often I was confused and so hurt by her. I am working so hard in therapy with everything and now I am in this space of shame where I am residing in my monster bad identity where as before I often resided in the perfect shell of myself, I was the perfect mother, artist and teacher yet underneith was the poor self worth and core of shame. I do not have npd, but was raised to be like one. So I consider it progress that I have ripped down that false self and am in my real, but badly damaged self. I just have to overcome what seems like years of evidence pointing to my badness from multiple abusers. So hard to be in this space. How to I develop at least some self esteem so I can be a good mother? A completely imperfect yet good enough mother? That is happening in therapy but it is so incremental and then I feel guilty for spending the money. Then again I feel guilty for being alive. Thanks this has helped with the shame.

 

[amosmorris]

I can relate on many counts here. I don't have a simple solution for you @Applesunflower13 but...a couple things that I'm trying to stick with over here that might be of use to you:
1) I share your overachiever style/persona and have come to resent it immensely...I have many times told my T that this is not who I am--that I just trick people into believing good things about me--but she has pushed me to think of these parts (like your being that good teacher/mother/and so on) as also real aspects of who you are...Now--no one is perfect (my mother had/continues to have this vision of herself and it was our work as children to uphold it)--but you might imagine (that's the best I can do for now I think) a time when you allow for some integration, the dark and the light; these are all you. This helps me to imagine this kind of coming together as a goal.
2) I try really hard to bring it fully to my therapist--the ways in which I react with shame in light of my attachment towards her, the ways in which my attachment towards her causes me great pain. If I can't articulate it, we can't really work on it--she has to know. It sounds like you're already working at this--and I would say--stay in it. It seems to be, for me, the only way to fully learn about what we have needed/haven't gotten. It's awful, for sure, but I think...the only way to actually grow and heal is to contend with that pain of absence and loss.
I send you many healing vibes. I started a thread a while ago re mother-daughter abuse if you want to check it out and hop in there sometime. :hug:

 

[Scarlet13]

Yes, thank you both for your replies. I have to admit I felt some insecurity posting. Like what if no one responds? How do I find the mother daughter abuse thread?

My mother has narcissistic personality disorder and she married a psychopath (my stepdad) and also not so great men before him that abused my sister and I. There was also a 13 year old girl and another woman who raped and molested me at age 4 and my mother believed me and stopped it but never emotionally supported me. I developped ptsd then and I was punished and invalidated for having those symptoms. I was the scapegoat. She had this parenting style where she always saw me as bad, selfish, lazy, and irresponsible and she would criticize me and use the yard stick on me. She wanted me to be like her and I failed that. Accept with art and theatre and she lived through that and controlled any talent I showed. She let my step father physically and verbally abuse me and she would join in on the verbal abuse. Sorry if this is triggering I tend to talk about my past easily, but holy cow I struggle with shame. I used to tear up my art work (I have a BA in studio arts and am MA in Ed Psych) so this kind of hurts my career as an artist. I am making it through though because of therapy. I too love my therapist so much and it makes me want to vommit and sob uncontrollably when I think about her and my love for her. I just had a session with her about all of my shame and lack of identity and she just has this way of reaching in to me and healing me. I am going to need to do a post about my relationship with her. I think the mother transference is the hardest thing. She points out over and over again that my mother was abusive and ultimately was my biggest abuser and the biggest betrayer. I don't know. I do not have BPD, but I have a lot of abandonment issues. It is hard to love a therapist I guess. And also wonderful. I have no idea how someday I am going to stop therapy.