A reader emailed me with a topic suggestion. The reader is having a difficult time dealing with the shame of child abuse, and the shame is interfering with the reader feeling like a part of the family. The isolation the reader feels is reinforcing the shame, and the reader wants to know what to do about it.
I have been in that terrible place, and it is truly miserable. The shame is one thing that drove me to enter into therapy. The shame was so heavy and dark that I could not look anyone in the eye. I didn’t know how to interact with anyone else because I felt like I was so dark and dirty while they were pure and good. How could I interact with them in my “filth”?
Fortunately, I got into therapy soon after this, which really helped me to work through the shame. I found it powerful to have a licensed professional tell me that I was not responsible and did not deserve to feel the shame. I also read several books written for survivors of sexual abuse that dealt squarely with shame and also talked with fellow child abuse survivors at Isurvive about how I was feeling. Isurvive was particularly helpful because I did not see why any of them should feel shame, and they were able to say the same thing to me.
To a certain extent, I had to do things that were good for me despite how I felt about myself. For example, I would tell myself, “I love you. You are safe. I’m sorry,” multiple times a day even though I did not believe of word of it. My therapist gave me “homework” to do kind things for myself even though I didn’t believe I deserved them.
If you haven’t heard of the “Good/Evil Wolf” story, read it here. I think there is an enormous amount of truth in that story. Each time you choose to think bad things about yourself, you are feeding your “evil” wolf, and each time you choose to treat yourself with kindness, even when you don’t believe you deserve it, you are feeding your “good” wolf. As you strengthen your “good wolf” through self-kindness, positive thoughts, and choosing to tell that negative voice inside to shut the h@#$ up, you will begin to lose the shame.
Being mired in shame feels so “normal” to child abuse survivors, and self-kindness feels foreign. To a certain extent, you are taking a leap of faith to try something different that you believe you do not deserve. I am glad that I took this leap because the shame, for the most part, is now gone.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Blooming Lotus 
That was a place where I had to literally, mentally, separate my Adult self, from my child self. It was such a battle for me to love my child self. Children reflect themselves in the eyes of others. My T says that is the most damaging part of any abuse- the mirror the perpetrator holds up. Part of therapy and healing is learning to turn the mirror around to face the perpetrator and not ourselves.
In writing letters from my adult self with my right hand, and receiving letters back from my child self with my left hand, eventually I was able to break through and love that child and was able to say with authority, “Shame on YOU- ABUSER. Shame on YOU- not on me!”
Wow! That is a great idea!! Good for you.
I’m going to try it too. Thanks for sharing HP. I really like this.
Peace,
mia
I feel so overwhelmed with shame. When I was pregnant with my children I felt like I was contaminating them by them being in my body. I found it impossible to breast feed for long because I am so dirty, and it’s such muck inside me I felt like I was poisoning my babies.
They’re older and more independent now. I feel like I contaminate when I’m really low.
I hear my family laughing and having fun while I’m lying in bed sobbing trying to recover from a memory. I feel excluded from it. But when I do try and belong it’s hard too I dissociate, I just can’t hang in there in the moment, someone else comes out.
My husband tells me the kids and he all love me and will be still here when I get better. I just don’t know how they can stand being around me now, when I’m so filled thick fetid sludge. He’s kind, he says he can’t smell it.
I guess the important thing for me is not to give up trying to spend time with the kids and my husband even though it’s hard.
Hi, KK.
I think you can learn a lot from Heavenly Place’s comment above. You are seeing yourself in the way that your abusers saw you. Your family sees who you really are — a beautiful, precious spirit.
I was blown away when I attended my 20-year high school reunion because I believed that I was this terribly damaged and dirty person until therapy. I learned that these people who knew me in high school — many years before therapy — saw my beauty way back then. I was the only one who couldn’t see it due to my shame.
– Faith
I experienced the shame, in bits and pieces. In a way I would tell my therapist and wait for her to be disgusted with me. She would not so I had to do it for her. That did not feel right and so I had to think about it.
I would look so hard for her to be disgusted that I would see any frustration with not being able to help right then as a precursor to her becoming disgusted.
With all the therapists that I dealt with before my current therapist I accepted that something was wrong with me out of my control yet somehow still my fault and all I could do was cope. Some of us were good coping so that sounded pretty good to some of us. Fortunately some of us felt different. Fortunately some therapist feel and think differently.
The therapists that did not know how to help defaulted to something was wrong with me and that is why they could not help. My fault.
Most of the work was done alone just as how I concluded something was wrong with me. It started with my therapist and was all done in a strong therapeutic relationship.
I once heard an adage or saying, that the more intelligent we are, the more intricate and complicated web we weave. If your therapists had a hard time figuring out the right way to help, it’s likely due to your high intelligence! I noticed your smarts right away!
Glad you found your own way.
m
So if I was smart enough to weave this web I can untangle it right. Smile
Thanks for the compliment.
Don’t tell my current therapist but I am not sure I am the smartest person in the room. My daughters figured that out when they were about 3.
MMF~ I fully believe that while we may not totally untangle our webs, we can sure as hell get better at understanding and navigating them. And I have faith in all of us and our abilities to appreciate and command our own web space! I can already see evidence of your movement in that direction.
Your fun side, your humor is connected to your healing. At least that’s my belief. smile.
Thanks for reminding me about the wolf story. It’s soooo natural to feed that bad one… I do it automatically if I’m not paying attention. (Which is a lot)
One thing I’ve noticed is that if I am slightly embarrassed about something sort of small like forgetting my point in a conversation or just anything really, I find that although I recover well in the moment and laugh it off, there is a deep sense of “Whew! That was a close one” Like, I was slightly exposed and they saw behind the curtain a little. It’s a trigger for a lasting sense of doom and shame that is sort of cloud-like in nature. I don’t even think it’s really conscious on some level it feels so “normal” to me.
Peace ya’ll, have a good weekend.
m
Faith, thanks for the clarity of what you wrote about shame. I felt an inner sigh of being understood and a measure of enlightenment too.
And everyone else too…this conversation has been immensely helpful to me. Have had a trigger-filled week (which was rare for a while, but now I seem to have hit a pocket of unheaval) and yesterday had a horrible downward cascade. I always forget that the shame is theirs not mine. It was always my job to carry it. I forget I can put it down because it doesn’t belong to me.
Anyway, thank you all,
ruby
Ruby,
I hope you have a relaxing weekend.
mia
I am in the middle of trying to work through the shame right now. I thought that I had mostly dealt with it some time ago but recently discovered an unknown part of myself that had not processed the shame.
This is one of the troubles with DID….when we think we’ve finally gotten through a small part of our healing WHAM another layer jumps up at us and we must process some of the same things again but with a different part of ourselves. Sometimes it seems endless….I’m trying hard not to equate my feeling of endlessness with hopelessness 😦
Hey again Barbi,
I have some success with when we do process something we celebrate that. We go with the feeling that we are done, we just don’t think that.
We had a problem where some would do real hard work and so we thought we were done and we would make plans that did not include more work. That did not work so well.
When a new layer or part comes out we go with the feeling of endlessness and do not blame them or us. It seems to quickly turn into sadness that they ever had to be.
[…] Allen talks about overcoming the feelings of shame associated with sexual abuse. “I have been in that terrible place, and it is truly miserable. The shame is one thing that drove […]
<= Just wanted to share this video with Faith and all of you.
The lyrics include the lines "…You were fragile and afraid…walking a tightrope, trying not to sway…you were fragile and ashamed…but you're not the one who is to blame…but it's not your fault…You're carried this weight for far too long…I'll write it down, say it aloud…it's not your fault…" etc.
Thanks, Lilo.
That made me cry. Seeing that little girl drives home just how helpless we were as children.
– Faith
Thanks Lilo, it made me cry too. Faith’s right seeing that little girl really impacts me, how small I was, how helpless, how hopeless. And how terrifying it was. It feels like a miracle that we lived through our childhoods.
Yes, it was a miracle.
The video touched me too…
i feel weird about talking to myself, inner child, or whatever and saying things i don’t believe in. but what helped me was telling my story to another person. it was hard and scary and the shame was intense, but the reaction – compassion instead of disgust – totally blew my mind. i couldn’t really believe it either but just hearing it from a person i respect made a big difference. shame is still there, but it becomes easier to deal with.
@ tentmaker-I too felt very weird at first writing to my “child-self”, but those conversations revealed so much truth about how I really felt. I never said things that I did not believe. I just kept the conversation open and honest. I struggled with loving myself as a child for a very long time. But slowly and surely as I worked through different areas, I saw a shift going on inside. And you know what? It was through telling a respected, trusted friend- that I share all my private blog with, and like you said, realizing they were not looking at me and thinking “gross”, that I was able to break through. And too, talking to my T, who understands and explains the “normalcy” of how we feel. But every one is different and what has worked for me, does not necessarily work for someone else. Keep at it though, until all the shame is gone! Until you can turn the shame mirror completely around to face your perpetrator/s!
Every victims out there now read my words carefully. “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”. Don’t feel the shame about what some sick bastard did to you. He/she has to feelt he shame NOT you. Just hold on to your life like you never did. I know these words are cliche but it is the truth. Share your story with who you trust. Just don’t try to carry this pain all by yourself. I know maybe this will not help some people but try to learn a religion. Knowing that those abusers will be punished afterlife can keep your sanity and morale up. Just pray to a higher power and try to get your strength from it. This is the easiest way to deal with that kind of situation i guess.
Sorry for my English btw. It is not my native language.
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