My Shame

I feel shame.   

Shame is different than guilt.   Guilt is when you do something and,  afterwards,  you regret having done it.    When we apologize for what we've done and try to atone for it,  we then can alleviate the guilt.   It's possible that it can go away.

Shame is different.   Shame is when you feel bad about yourself because there is some basic flaw in who you are.   Within the framework of shame,  there is nothing you can do to alleviate it.   It is intrinsic.   Some churches do the world a monumental injustice and call this shame "original sin".   They try to tie our shame to some kind of spiritual "truth."   That way,   it's much easier to control us.

My shame is not far under the surface,  though I hide it quite well (at least I think I do).  Underneath my sense of well being and positive spin on life,   I feel,  well,  bad about who I am.    At some level I think I am unlovable,  even though there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.   When I receive love from others there is part of me that says "yeah--they're doing that now….just wait until they learn who I REALLY am".   

I have to admit that my wife loves me so well and so,  shall I say it,   sincerely,   that this voice has lost a good deal of its teeth.   And,  nevertheless,   there it is.     It is more buried than it used to be.   It flashes those teeth from time to time.

So where does my shame come from?   Here's my understanding:

When I was a kid,   I had a number of experiences,  both chronic and traumatic,   that told me,   "I am not a worthwhile person".   

When I was between the ages of birth and four life was fairly un-bumpy.   On the other hand,  my dad was a severe alcoholic,  my mom had untreated bipolar and they both,  as reported by mom,  were having affairs.   So,  perhaps "un-bumpy" is relative.

During that time both parents gave me attention and love,  in spite of the fact that they were fairly consumed by their own personal issues.   They loved me,  but they probably only had a limited amount of attention they could give to their active and rambunctious youngster. Their attention was probably pretty spacey (mom) and pickled (dad).

My bonding with both of them was likely pretty tenuous due to the realities of their mental health.

My wobbly bonding with my parents probably is near the root of my shame.   Then,  other stuff came along to add to the shame.

My parents divorced when I was four.   My dad,  whom I longed deeply to bond with,  I now only saw sporadically.   My mom was under a great deal more stress and was not fun to be around.   The attention I had received from my parents was,  at age five,  a tiny fraction of what is was before they split.    My experience was that I became much less important to each of them.   They just did not have the time for me beyond providing me with the basics.

When I was six,   I was molested by my fifteen year-old female babysitter over several months.   And my dad exited my life.   He shot himself when I was fourteen.   Between the time I last saw my dad and when he died,  eight years passed.   To say he was in sporadic contact with me during those eight years would be generous.

My mom is a good person;   she means well and she tries.   But her deep narcissism meant that she was not aware of pretty much any of my emotional needs.   She raced around and tried to do things that a "good mother" does,  but she never listened to me.   Instead,  she talked.  She had a low-level to medium-level mania going for much of my growing up years,  as well as a few nervous breakdowns.

Neglect,  sexual abuse,  abandonment.   These were some of my most formative experiences;   they told me who I was in the world and what I meant to the people I was closest to.   This was definitely not the whole story of my life.   But it is,  most likely,  the story of my shame.

It's no wonder I feel shame.   It's logical.   Anyone with childhood experiences like these would have to deal with shame.

Next post:  What to do about it?

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Dissociation

From the ACA ((Adult Children of Alcoholics and Disfunctional Families) Big Red Book,  p 344:

"What is Dissociation?

Dissociation is a survival tool from childhood.   Adult children can dissociate from themselves in a variety of ways that can be difficult to recognize until we get help.  In addition to drugs,  work,  sex or food,  we dissociate in other ways that can include:  compulsive cleaning,  compulsive exercising,  obsessive reading,  fantasizing about sex or romance,  telephone sex,  pornography,  compulsive masturbation,  workaholism,  or harmful thrill seeking.   There is also compulsive spending and cluttering.   Dissociation responds well to honesty about our behavior and a willingness to do program work."

So,   I dissociate ALL the time.   I have done this for as long as I can remember. How do I dissociate?  Let me count the ways….

Out of the fifteen dissociation "avenues" listed above,  I can personally relate to about ten.    Anyway,  well above half of them I have experienced at one time or another.      The most common is my just getting spacey and not being fully present with myself or anyone I'm with.    I "check out".   Where do I go when I dissociate?   

On page 87 of the Big Red Book,  the ACA authors describe dissociation as a child repressing their true feelings in order to survive in the face of abuse, neglect or other traumas.   They further describe three distinct methods of dissociation.   

1)  The person represses,  projects or rationalizes the feelings which are causing him/her pain.

2)  The person uses a substance (such as alcohol,  sugar,  nicotine, caffeine)   to alter the painful feelings.

3)  The person uses negative excitement to keep him/herself unaware of deeper fear.   By focusing our attention on phobias,  obsessions,  dreams and taboos,  and compulsively tensing in response to these fears,  we force the body to build a protective physical armor and to produce adrenaline,  endorphins,  and melatonin to chemically block the perception of pain.

"All three forms forms of dissociation keep us imprisoned in a narrow and familiar range of behavior,  never reaching the extremes of panicked exhaustion or of collapse into suicidal despair"  (BRB,  p 88).

I believe that I,  and all people,  are spiritual beings.   I believe that my spiritual nature joined with my earthly form which comes through my parents' biological lineage.   In an ideal setting of childhood,   the spiritual nature of a person can join with the material in a lawful and harmonious way.   What happens is an integration of spirit and material which leads someone to have ideas,  feelings and behaviors which are closely aligned with their highest ideals for themselves.   

For those of us who got kicked around a bit,  we have more work to do.    We have to identify,  to whatever extent we can,  with our higher self,  and try to gradually empower our higher self to be increasingly in control of our thoughts,  feelings and behavior.

So the answer to the question,  "Where do I go when I dissociate?"  probably goes something like this:   As a child I wanted to flee the circumstances which were around me.   But where does a child flee to?   Where was I to go? 

I think that my spiritual nature,  what ACA calls the "inner child" tried to flee out of of my body.   When I was being molested,  when my dad abandoned me,  when my mom was chronically unaware of my needs,  my inner child,  (sometimes acutely,  sometimes gradually),  separated from my every-day consciousness.   While I was going about my business of being a kid,  part of my consciousness was often hovering over my body,   not wanting to "integrate" with my material form because it seemed too damn dangerous.   And because my inner child was "out of the building",  there could be "other stuff" that was more than happy to come in.   The "other stuff" includes the ten out of fifteen of the behaviors listed above.

It is a quantum level easier to "integrate" when one is a kid.   The recovery of the human species can be achieved only by doing a better job of raising children.   I firmly believe that.   But,  we can still recover as adults even when the road behind has been rocky.   It is  a lot harder.    But what's the alternative? For me,  the alternative to recovery is years of confusion and misery.

No thanks.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben