THE SHAME THAT COMES WITH ABUSE

       Shame is the most destructive of all human emotions and has been recognized as promoting aggression, a range of mental health issues, and is a cornerstone of addictions, in its victims.  It is a source of much violence, hate, and cruelty. And unfortunately, shame is an inevitable byproduct of any form of abuse and tends to piggyback on trauma. Abusive acts are dehumanizing and humiliating by nature, and that produces shame in itself.  The powerlessness a victim feels during the abuse also creates shame and humiliation. In the case of domestic abuse or intimate partner violence, it can also be a big reason why victims don’t leave their abuser. It keeps many victims from coming forward and seeking help. It lives and thrives in secrecy. Shame is a very quiet emotion, when compared to say, anger or excitement, and can silence and stifle it’s victims like few other things can.  It’s difficult to see and hard to detect, it is the “cat” that has our tongue. It keeps it’s victims in the shadows and has the capability to cause mental anguish and real physiological problems, especially “toxic shame”, which is a debilitating, pervasive and damaging form of shame that is usually, but not always, internalized within the child during childhood, by their abuser.  It causes the child to think they are bad, defective or unworthy, just as it does with victims of domestic abuse.

          According to Dr. Bene’ Brown, an expert on “shame” and “guilt”, defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging-something we’ve experienced, done or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.”  It can also be the source of self loathing, perfectionism, self criticism/blame, self harm, people pleasing, self sabotaging/destrcutive and reckless behaviors, intense rage, anti-social behavior, repeating the abuse cycle and suicide attempts. 

          In her book, “It Wasn’t Your Fault”, licenced Marriage and Family Therapist, Beverly Engel, states that, “Former victims of childhood abuse tend to feel a great deal of shame for things they did as children as a result of the abuse.  For example, perhaps unable to express their anger at an abuser, they may have taken their hurt and anger on those who were smaller or weaker than themselves, such as younger siblings. They may have become bullies at school, been belligerent toward authority figures, or started stealing , taking drugs, or otherwise acting out against society. “

          “Adults who were abused as children may push away those who try to be good to them; become emotionally or physically abusive to their partners or continue a pattern of being abused, subjecting their own children to witnessing abuse or, worse, being abused themselves.  Former abuse victims may repeat the cycle of abuse by emotionally, physically, or sexually abusing their own children, or may abandon their children because they can’t take care of them.” She also says that “the truth is that for most victims of abuse, (domestic and child) shame is likely one of the worst effects of the abuse or neglect, possibly the very worst. Unless they are able to heal this debilitating shame, they will likely continue to suffer many problems in life.  It can cause a victim to remain fixed at the age he was at the time of his victimization and to repeat the abuse over and over in his lifetime.”(known as Sigmund Freud’s “compulsion to repeat”)

Beverly also points out in her book that “shame is at the core of addictions, every symptom a victim experiences, and of every form of abuse; it deeply informs the behavior of both abusers and victims. Shame drives the cycle of abuse in several ways:

• Shame can keep former victims from believing they deserve to be treated with love, kindness, and respect’ one result is that they may stay in abusive relationships.
• Shame can cause former victims to believe they deserve to be treated with disrespect and disdain.
• Shame can cause a person to humiliate and degrade his partner or children.
• Those who abuse others are often trying to rid themselves of their own shame. (through “projection”)
• Shame can cause emotional outbursts fueling the rage that triggers “abusiveness.”

*One of the reasons shame is so pervasive and difficult to heal is because there are different layers of shame. In Beverly’s book, she directly states them as being;

• The shame and humiliation that comes from the violation itself and from feeling so helpless and powerless.
• The shame felt when a child feels she is a disappointment to her parent or other authority figure. (In the case of domestic abuse, the victim feels they’ve disappointed the abusive spouse.)
• The shame we take on when the abuser “projects” his shame onto us.
• The shame that can come from having the abuse exposed.
• The shame that comes from our attempts to cope with our burden of shame, whether through addiction, self-harm, abusing others, or other destructive means.

Shame can also be damaging to the body because interestingly, shame, like fear, tiggers the “fear response” in the brain. This means that it triggers the Sympathetic Nervous System to send us into “fight/flight or freeze, which includes the release of stress hormones. Under normal circumstances, you get a little squirt of adrenaline, courtesy of your HPA axis, to help ready yourself for danger, etc and when the danger passes, cortisol is secreted so your body’s systems all return to normal but in chronic situations and if the shame has been so pervasive that the victim has internalized it, shame keeps them in perpetual ‘fight/flight” setting, which sets off a cascading effect on other biological systems which reset them to a faulty “ramped up” setting such as the vagus nerve, which tells the immune system to start producing pro-inflammatory cytokines to attack healthy tissue and organs in chronic cases of stress hormone release. This not only kick starts many inflammatory conditions, including auto-immune disease, but also many “pre-autoimmune disease” illnesses such as, PTSD, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, gluten sensitivity/tolerance, anxiety disorders, thyroid issues, digestive problems, IBS, and more. It also feeds addictions, behavioral problems, adjustment issues, depression, and so much more.

  As you can see, shame is a very poisonous emotion but just like poison, it too has an antidote…….COMPASSION. Compassion heals shame! Although victims of abuse need to heal in the context of a loving and supportive family and friends (any support system) Compassion for the self is the real remedy.  Beverly states in her book, “Self compassion helps victims connect with their suffering much more deeply. It allows them to connect with the memories of their abuse, but at a distance-not actually re-experiencing the abuse but remembering it as if they have become their own “compassionate witness”.  “Due to our brains; capacity to grow new neurons and new synaptic connections, we can proactively repair and (re-repair) old shame memories with new experiences of self-empathy and self-compassion.”

I myself have been struggling with some elements of shame regarding my abusive marriage and I can tell you that learning about the specific healing techniques for shame has made a big difference in my healing process and state of mind! I’ll be writing  more on the subject of “shame”, namely the difference between it and “guilt” and the “Compassion Cure Program” that author Beverly Engel uses to help her clients rid themselves of their shame from abuse. Thank you!

“SHAME CANNOT EXIST IN THE SAME PLACE AS COMPASSION”