Shame & Guilt Answers

[anthony]

I am going to write a specific piece on how to deal with shame and guilt, yet need some ideas from those feelings these two things specifically, so I can tailor it using examples and scenarios that will resonate with members as a majority. It is impossible to cover every situation, but if I nail the majority, then that is a decent start.

What I need to know... what gives you these feelings specifically? Traumatic event? Circumstance? What you have, but can't get past?

I will not provide answers here, but if people provide me their insight, I will review pieces to include within the wiki page itself / article for SSA, providing an overall generic response using specific examples as best as possible.

 

[The Albatross]

Shame... not handling stressors as well as I think I "should", intentionally or unintentionally harming another person (verbally or physically), not living up to the expectations that I believe others set for me, not being able to actualize and maintain my own independence and autonomy as a person emotionally or financially, acting out in self harming ways like addictions, substance abuse, making bad life choices (it's a start?)

Guilt... the realization of how my actions, inactions, and choices have had on the people who love or are important to me.... the people I feel like I failed... the people who needed me I wasn't available for because I was drunk.

 

[becvan]

I find that shame and guilt is from secondary wounding, at least for me. The whole, well you deserved it, or it didn't really happen or whatever stupid people say. Learning to not listen to others "shoulds" and find my own ideal reactions helps negate that effect. Also learning to live true to me (authentic and trusting my intuitions) helps me to keep a firm internal compass that is less affected by what others think and more guided by what I feel.

bec

 

[Lionheart]

Shame for having been a victim of sexual child abuse. I was told and believed it was my fault for many years. As a child, I just accepted the responsibility for the things that others did to me. My (wrongful) belief was that men were abusers and women were victims, but if I were a victim then, what did that make me?...something less of a man, something to feel ashamed of.

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.

Putting the blame where it belongs and understanding that I do not have to remain a victim, helped me to deal with the shame and guilt.

 

[Mina]

Feeling like it's all my fault: that I should have done something differently...that I should have *known* to do something differently. That if I had, I could have prevented things from happening.

To add, there are two different kinds for me, I guess...the guilt/shame put on me by myself (some of it valid), and that put on me by others (a load of BS), mostly by family. The first has required learning to forgive myself, and for going forward, what "reasonable" expectations of myself are. The other has required realizing that what others were putting on me was/is misplaced and undeserved and invalid. I've had to learn to draw my own conclusions, to set boundaries and NOT take on the guilt and shame they are trying to make me feel (think guilt trip) instead of just taking what others would hand me.

 

[LawPhotos]

I was taught to believe that I should be ashamed of who I was. The constant degradation, criticism, correction and comparison that I went through every day along with the physical abuse cemented in my brain that I should be someone other than who I am--someone far better. If I was just _______ (fill in the blank) then my mother wouldn't hate me and she wouldn't drink or abuse me. She wouldn't have to do all those things to me if I could just find the right way to please her.
That shame has never left me for an instant--any time anyone is less than ecstatic with anything in the universe that I could've changed in anyway then I feel shame. It is my job to make the world perfect for everyone, -- then if I do they'll like me or love me. I people please to the incredible extreme 24 hours a day. I think about how to line up my groceries on the conveyer belt so that they will be most helpful and pleasing to the cashier. I think about exactly how I place my trash can on the street so that the trash man will find it easiest to lift them. I rearrange things in the refrigerator so that the favorite drinks/snacks of the next person coming home will be at the front so they won't have to reach or search, etc. etc ad nauseum......

Any correction whatsoever causes me an overwhelming "shame attack". For instance, a few days ago I turned away from my shopping cart in the store to look at something. A sweet, tiny, old woman came up to me and said, "you know, you shouldn't leave your purse in the cart like that, anything could happen." I had a huge shame attack--I was so humiliated that I wanted to die.....all the while realizing how insane this is but I can't stop it.

I am overwhelmed with shame every time I talk to my therapist about any of my childhood trauma (much of which I have yet to share). It is as though by telling her these things I am confirming that I was/am so miserable a human that this had to be done to me.

My repetition compulsion played out in a very recently ended 23 year marriage to a pornography addict. That has allowed me to torture myself daily that if I was just prettier, younger, thinner, taller, fair-haired, bigger chested or whatever, then he wouldn't have this addiction. I couldn't begin to describe the shame surrounding all of that!

 

[Nicolette]

I was made to believe I should be ashamed of who I was simply because my mother resented my father.

I was made responsible for all that which was not mine as a child so I was always in trouble even when doing nothing wrong. Guilt and fear became automated reactions to any parental contact. My first response was, as sometimes still is, defense to anything negative (automated from the beatings for doing something wrong) along with guilt. Even when I know what I did was right for me.

A lot of guilt and shame disappeared when I disconnected from my family. I am slowly building my personal self esteem, being much better at it in the workplace.

I managed to keep shame out of my work, as I am damn good at what I do and it was all my own doing, but guilt still haunts me.

Actually for me guilt is entwined with confrontation........ learned as a child.... if there was confrontation I had supposedly done something wrong so it was easier just to be 'guilty' and accept the punishment than fight it and get worse.

 

[KP the nut]

Fear - facing up and answering this thread. Fear - if I am not perfect that I will be abandoned. Fear - I am no way perfect and so I am constantly waiting to be abandoned. Fear of playground bullies (even now) and not being clever enough, pretty enough. Fear that I am unliked and unloved which is irrational since I know my family and dogs love me. Fear of confrontation, I must do as I am told, be good, be quiet, don't upset anyone, don't lose control.

Guilt - it is my fault Dad left us as I am unlovable. Guilt that I am not the person they wanted. Guilt at feeling this way and being unable to stop the feelings. Guilt that I've become emotional over answering this thread.

 

[anni]

I'm clueless as to why these feelings are evoked at that moment, when they arise- it's too instantaneous. Various things provoke the reaction- it's kind of across the board anything which is 'You did something wrong'. When I first joined here, for instance, there was some light banter in a thread-forget what- members being funny about something which I engaged in. Some senior members disliked what we'd been discussing and sort of flattened the whole thing with comments saying why they disaproved. ( I'm not saying who might have been right/wrong, just what happened, as in the situation ) I logged off, with the whole shame/guilt thing just pretty much permeating the entire world- felt AWFUL, as in, in tears. It was a good lesson. Nobody died. I was able to figure out that no, these feelings were not deserved, came out of nowhere, perhaps I was responsible for not allowing them to ruin my day and also speaking up and telling the other members how they'd affected me.Logged back on and tried to rationally do that. It didn't precisely go down all that well but for the first time I could put my finger on these stupid feelings- where one had originated, how overwhelming they are, that perhaps it wasn't deserved that I felt this way. Therapy hadn't even acheived that. I still get this ridiculous reaction-at least can identify the dynamic.

Shame/guilt- something I'VE done-which makes someone else feel bad is one thing, another is being reminded by anyone( by way of critical or judgemental commentary or even a look) just what a dreadful, ineffective, perhaps blundering and in-the-way on the planet person I am. Suppose that's the self-worth thing.

 

[freakofnurture]

I feel shame and guilt for doing what's right for me and cutting ties with my abusers who now say they are so sad and sorry and that they miss me and wish I'd come back.

My abusers also smile courageously saying that they respect that I need time. I sometimes feel a tinge of guilt for the hatred bs like this incites in me.

I feel guilty for resenting that my abusers now don't seem to feel worse about themselves in any meaningful way.

I feel guilty for confronting my abusers with their failures and making them feel bad about their own behaviour (although their denial takes the edge off considerably, I guess).

I feel guilty for making the abuse known to my extended f*mily who now has to deal with it.

I used to feel a lot of guilt for not loving my m*ther, but that went away when I realised that I had good reasons to not love her.

I feel guilty for not being able to forgive my abusers and for not actively seeking a way to forgive.

I feel guilty for not being able to take better care of my inner child.

I feel guilty for not being able to go to work and earn money. I feel shame for being so lazy.

 

[Ron]

I was raised by a shaming mother. So, it's no surprise when I was hurt bad on the job back in 1993 I felt ashamed to the core. I blamed myself for it over and over and over again for many years. It ate away my self-confidence and self esteem. I felt ashamed. Also, it wasn't a help to read that trauma victims blame themselves automatically. So, with me, it was a two prong attack on myself.
But now I am working very hard to re establish my self esteem,self confidence and talking about the trauma to people without shame. The company was negligent to the fact that the machine that injured my hand had no safety guard. Now, I walk tall, proud, and hold my head high.

 

[intothelight]

What I need to know... what gives you these feelings specifically? Traumatic event? Circumstance? What you have, but can't get past?

The guilt comes from the culmination of years of abuse where the abuser blamed me for their acts. There was always something about me they used to justify or rationalize their behavior. Intellectually I know this is what causes the feelings and I know they were not justified, but emotionally I still can't shake it. Anything that goes wrong, a comment that would normally roll of someone else's back, and even a look; can send me into feeling there is something so fundamentally wrong with me that I start down the road of depression, self-hatred, self-harm, worthlessness, suicidal ideation.

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.

The feelings are linked to the traumatic past, but they have become larger than this. It feels like they exist in my body at a cellular level, and permeate every aspect of life.

I am my own worst enemy and my own worst abuser.