- Rage. Some people suppress the rage that stems from being shamed to the core. This can easily turn to depression. Shame contaminates all feelings, except rage. Rage is the most powerful of all feelings. Rage is internalised and makes the person bitter, sarcastic, and negative. If the raging person has power, it can breed violence, revenge, and vindictiveness. Rage protects the shamed person by keeping others at arms length, or by spraying them with shame.
- Arrogance. Bradshaw defines this as exaggerating one’s own importance. It hides the burning core of shame. It is the ultimate cloak to hide the real self.
- Being critical and blaming others. Blaming and criticising others decreases the feeling of shame that the toxically shamed person feels. It makes others seem smaller and failures, and the shamed person correspondingly feels superior and feels better. The parents who blame and brand their children with negative criticism shame them to the core, because the child is too young to make a proper judgement on the criticism.
- Being judgemental and moralising. This is related to perfectionism and to being critical and blaming others. It is a strong way to plant one’s own shame in one’s children. It also affects how children may experience God, and from my experience breeds an unfounded sense of sin. It is an example of spiritual abuse, of which there was much when I was a child in the 1950s.
- Contempt. By holding another in contempt the shamed person shows disrespect for a person’s humanity. It a rejection of another person. For example, the teacher, who is shamed to the core, is in great danger of showing contempt for his pupils (who have less knowledge, and less experience that the teacher). I deeply regret any negative comments I ever made to any of my students, although I was always conscious of the importance of praising them. Nevertheless, this minimises how I was. One negative comment to a vulnerable student is too many. A child who is subject to much condemnation by teachers will in turn learn how to show contempt for others.
Archive for May, 2010
CHARACTERISTICS OF SHAME BASED PEOPLE (CONTD.)
Monday, May 31st, 2010DEATH OF A CHILD
Monday, May 31st, 2010In the near future I will begin serializing my own book on the death of my child. In the meantime I will look in general at the death of a child and its impact. The death of a child can lead to complicated grieving, because it is a particularly painful loss. It is not the natural order of things that a child should die before its parents. There are so many hopes and dreams unfulfilled. My child, who was killed when he was thirteen, would be thirty-three now. I often wonder what he would be like as an adult, how would I relate to him, who would his wife have been, would he have been a good and kind husband, would he have had children, what kind of parent would he have been. It is natural to have such thoughts and memories, it does not mean living in the past. People say that the death of a child is the saddest of all losses, but it is important to remember that every person experiences loss differently. I can certainly say that the loss of my child was immensely more painful than the loss of my father. I can say no more than that, and I cannot project this onto other people. All people grieve differently. Sometimes the death of a child is so painful that some parents try to blot out the memory. I have met individuals who lost their children, and they seem to carry on normally in the very early stages of the bereavement, and show good humour and a sense of optimism about their lives. I am very consciousness of the terrible pain that they have buried. Sensitive and skilled counselling is required to support them in bringing out this pain, and in supporting them as they struggle with the reality of the loss of their child.
complicated grieving
Monday, May 24th, 2010Masked grief reactions are those where the bereaved is unaware that they are related to the loss. Repressed grief will, however, somehow express itself. This can be as a physical symptom, or some type of maladaptive behaviour. This behaviour may be delinquent behaviour in young people.
One type of death that invariably leads to complicated grief is that of suicide. Bereavement writers hold that it evokes more intense and longer lasting grief than other losses. Suicide leaves the bereaved with a struggle to create meaning from the loss. There was a time when suicides were not buried in consecrated ground, but hopeful such a cultural legacy has now faded from the public mind. It is held by bereavement writers, too, that guilt and perhaps a sense of punishment are felt by survivors following a suicide. Some suicides occur in the context of difficult relationships, and this increases the guilt and anger. This can lead, also, to a feeling of rejection that may be accompanied by anxiety and self-destructive impulses. Other factors, which add to the pain suicide bereavement, are abuse and alcoholism.
While I had complicated grief, I managed to get through it without counselling; (my wife and I had two sessions). This is not always possible, and I would encourage anyone who feels that they are stuck in grief to get some counselling. Such counselling may not take very long, but will release the survivor from being stuck, and allow them to move to experiencing their grief. I will look at the death of a child in the next post.
CHARACTERISTICS OF SHAME BASED PEOPLE
Monday, May 24th, 2010
shame based people have many undesirable characteristis, which are a burden to them, and very damaging in a relationship.
- Perfectionism is a heavy burden. Bradshaw says that it comes from expectations by parents from their children whereby they are only valued for doing. That may be true, but that is not why I experienced it. To me it is a means of protecting oneself from the pain of shame. The bottom line is that we cannot be blamed if we are perfect. But, despite superhuman efforts we are never good enough, and are eternally driven to achieve more. The perfectionist hates being compared to others, and competes as hard as he can with others. He is not content to do his best, but judges himself against others.
- Power and control. Being in power means that one has the best means of controlling others, as well as controlling our thoughts, feelings, actions and expressions. We cannot be shamed if we hold the power, we feel less vulnerable, and unfortunately we cannot form an intimate bond with another.
UNHEALTHY SHAME
Monday, May 17th, 2010Because core shame takes place at a very young age, before the child has formed any boundaries, and results in a loss of self-trust, the adult lacks judgement. How often have I heard clients say that they don’t understand why they have made stupid decisions. Such distrust of his basic powers (judgement, trust, feelings, and desires) renders the person powerless and insecure. The shamed person makes enormous efforts to keep the pain of toxic shame at bay, as they appear to lead successful, happy lives, but experience fear, hurt and loneliness. He also develops many defences to ward off the pain. These can be seen as characteristics. And boy, there are such a lot of them. Some are as follows:- denial, rage, envy, criticism, blame, caretaking, rescuing, power control, spraying shame onto others, perfectionism, judmentalness, addictions, alienation (borderline personality), paranoia, narcissism, criminality, eating disorders, patronising, people pleasing, moralising, righteousness, violence, sexual abuser, workaholics, and disconnection.
All of these may not always necessarily stem from toxic shame. But when you look at them and think about them, it is easy to see why they may be connected to core shame. I will look at them in more detail in my next post
complicated grieving
Monday, May 17th, 2010Complicated grief is generally dealt with in counselling, where the complicating factor is first resolved before the grieving can take place. Complicated grief is sometimes called pathological grief, unresolved grief, chronic grief, delayed grief, or exaggerated grief. It has been described as too little grieving immediately after death, or too much grieving long afterwards. It is as if the grief filters become clogged, preventing normal grieving.Some bereavement writers see normal grieving as arising from three sources (1) a poor relationship with the deceased, (2) the vulnerability of the survivor, (3) very difficult circumstances surrounding the death. The crucial factors in deciding if grief is complicated are intensity and duration rather than the painful symptoms of grief. These vary from mourner to mourner. We can look at complicated grief as chronic, delayed, exaggerated, and masked. Chronic grief is one of excessive duration, which is never satisfactorily resolved. The bereaved is aware of the unfinished business, but cannot get back to living.Delayed grief reaction stems from an insufficient emotional reaction at the time of the loss. It is a defence mechanism in the face of awful pain. How often have we heard someone say ‘so and so is taking the death really well’. Not so. In such cases the grief is carried over, and results in excessive reaction to some future loss. Exaggerated grief reactions occur when the bereaved is overwhelmed with pain. Clinical depression is one of the signs of exaggerated grief, and I suffered from this following the death of my child.
unhealthy shame
Monday, May 10th, 2010Another characteristic of the shame-based person may be abusiveness. Abuse breeds shame. Abuse is learned as a child, and the person who has been abused may go on to abuse others, – (at least the tendency may be there). Of course many people who have been shamed by abuse do not go on to be abusers. They exercise responsibility. I need hardly add that sexual abuse, at whatever age the person experiences it, breeds the deepest core shame.One of the unfortunate legacies of being shamed as a child, results in the stifling of human creativity and spirituality. The new born baby is infinitely creative, and has the potential of enormous spirituality. He has the potential for wonderful growth as a human, a growth which is stunted and choked by toxic shame. Such shame dehumanises (as stated above, it leaves us more than human or less than human).
grieving
Monday, May 10th, 2010In my contributions on bereavement so far I have been looking at what is called normal grief. Now I would like to look at anticipatory grief and complicated grief.
Anticipatory grieving occurs when a person has advanced warning of death. Such warning can help the bereaved cope better with post-death grief, especially if he or she has shared the anticipatory grief with the person who is going to die. But anticipatory grief does not necessarily reduce the amount of grieving the survivor has to do following the death. It really prepares the defences to cope better with the full bereavement experience. It is important to realise that anticipatory grief is never complete and if post death grief is not faced then the result can be complicated grief, which I will explain later
unhealthy shame
Monday, May 3rd, 2010At any rate, let us very briefly look at what the literature says about some of the characteristics of the shamed person. One of the characteristics explored is grandiosity, which can be a delusional disorder, or simply a boastful individual who imagines that he is more important and has more talents than anyone else. This is being more that human. Psychologists label this as narcissism (a complex term that cannot be explored here), or over-love of oneself. Shamed people are very involved in themselves, very self-preoccupied with little interest or empathy in others. Bradshaw puts it very well
‘The Narcissist is endlessly motivated to seek perfection in everything he does. Such a personality is driven to the acquisition of wealth, power and beauty, and to find others who will mirror and admire his grandiosity. Underneath this external facade there is an emptiness filled with envy and rage. The core of this emptiness is internalised shame’.
Such a person cannot generate real intimacy with another, must always be in control, they withdraw from others, including their partners and children (by being busy, often seeing their lack of feeling as a strength or a virtue), and they rely on blaming others.
GRIEVING
Monday, May 3rd, 2010In terms of gender, there is evidence that women grieve differently to men. This can often cause tension and misunderstanding in a house where different members of a family are at different stages of grieving. In Western society men tend to suppress their feelings more than women, with the important exception of expressing anger. There is also the cultural context, and in countries with many ethcic groups and cultures there is an even greater diversity of grieving.
Religion is part of culture, and the use of ritual is important. In Ireland funerals are well attended, especially in rural areas, and this can be a great help to the bereaved. The funeral mass can have a powerful effect upon the bereaved, and I recall how vivid the words ‘angels of the Lord take him into paradise’ were. They rang in my ears, and somehow sharpened my sorrow, and made me confront the reality of my loss.
I realise that I have merely touched upon all the factors that influence how we grieve. Some of these can be helpful to some people and some can hinder the grieving process. A strong religious belief, for example, can be of great help, but for those who have a strong conviction of a punitive God, and the existence of Hell, it can add to their pain if the deceased had not lived what they consider a good life.