Traumatic Shame: How To Heal This Hidden Affliction
We all have shame. It’s part of the human condition. Some of us are more shackled by it than others.
We can consider shame to be traumatic when it has an ongoing impact on how we feel about ourselves and function in the world.
Shame works silently within. Its corrosiveness diminishes our self-esteem and confidence. It is the primary source of performance anxiety. It is responsible for the insecurity that can sabotage our relationships. Shame can trigger self-doubt when someone – anyone – disconnects from us or walks away (Is something wrong with me, something I’m lacking, something I did wrong?). Most of us can identify with these and other issues on the shame continuum.
We don’t feel the shame as shame; we feel the anxiety, the rush, the rage, the urge to do well, the relief if we are succeeding, the distress if we are not.
Self is the main tool for negotiating our way through life. Traumatic shame bruises that Self.
Shame is trauma because it triggers the fight or flight response (primal abandonment fear) and causes us to fall back on our old automatic, over-learned defense mechanisms which tend to be self-defeating and cause us to keep repeating the shame trauma. These “repetition compulsions” as they are called in the field of trauma, interfere in our ability to reach our potential (another trigger for feeling shame).
Clinically speaking, shame is dissociated, detached from consciousness. We react to shame triggers without consciously feeling their origins. For instance, shame dissociation is occurring at the very moment it is arousing performance anxiety. We don’t feel the shame as shame; we feel the anxiety, the rush, the rage, the urge to do well, the relief if we are succeeding, the distress if we are not. But the primitive logic of the shame itself – the negative message that we’d incorporated into our sense of Self (I’m no good, I’m unworthy) – that part remains detached from consciousness where we can’t get to it. That’s why the rational mind is not able to resolve shame so easily.
In the course of any normal day, on a subliminal level, the human nerve of shame can twinge when we feel even slightly dissed, overlooked, criticized, excluded, ignored, misunderstood, invisible, rated, judged, ‘diagnosed’, condescended to, unappreciated, taken for granted, not chosen, not reciprocated with, or given unsolicited advice. These and many other seemingly minor triggers can affect our mood, level of confidence, even our posture and bearing without our being aware of it.
We’ve been developing personality defenses since childhood to cope with and assuage shame. Personality itself can be seen as a defense against shame. On one hand, we have the people-pleasers, perfectionists, co-dependents, people who keep a low profile, those who wear masks and guises to cover up who they are and what they’re feeling. On the other, we have the attention-seekers, extraverts, the overtly confident, people who enjoy the spotlight and thrive on performing. Being the class clown may be a diversionary tactic to camouflage shame.
The spectrum also includes those who boldly display shamelessness, examples of which are prominently on display in our political arena. Keeping your dukes up and showing audacity in the face of criticism can be a well-fortified defense against traumatic shame. Many shy, unassuming, easily shamed types might secretly idolize and wish they could be just like the brazen, unflappable shameless.
We developed our defenses earlier on as automatic knee-jerk, habituated reactions to shame, but they tend to become maladaptive in adulthood. For example, “avoiding” helped us survive an emotionally turbulent childhood, but doesn’t serve us well when we have a term paper due. “Overeating” helped compensate for not feeling good about ourselves in childhood, but doesn’t help us now when we try to stay fit and trim. Yet even when we are fully aware of how destructive our patterns are, they are very hard to break because the trauma of shame has set the defenses into the deep structure of the brain.
Why does shame hide behind a wall of secrecy?
We’ve learned to become ashamed of our shame. We don’t want it to show lest it red flag us (blushing be damned!). If people can see our shame they will know that we are (or a significant part of us is) inherently unworthy, not enough, not special, inadequate, incapable, insignificant, puny, ineffectual, helpless, dependent, pathetic, inferior, not up to par, different, weak and powerless, damaged, dysfunctional, a failure, disgusting, repulsive, ugly, and more. These are feelings, and fleeting at that, but to the rigid closed brain system of the unconscious, they are facts.
What do we do with traumatic shame?
Thanks to the pioneering work of Brene Brown and other clinicians, shame is becoming more conscious, less taboo. We are beginning to recognize the shame within us and own up to it as part of being human. In fact, they emphasize that talking about our shame, bringing it out into the light, is good for us.
The theoretical consensus in the past was that therapists ought to not use the word ‘shame’ with their clients, presuming it to be too emotionally charged with taboo, too toxic an image to invoke in the mind. In other words, too shaming. Sigmund Freud had mostly avoided addressing shame directly. The current shame literature discusses how little had been written about the subject.
Clinicians have since uncovered many of its hidden facets and developed techniques for treating the trauma of shame. It is a beginning. An important area that needs to be added to the body of work is in connecting shame to its primary source in primal fear. If primal fear is the fear of losing the connection, primal shame is feeling unworthy of the connection. They are joined and reciprocal (I’m ‘not enough’ to compel my loved one to stay with me forever – I will be abandoned).
Shame-reduction involves healing the primal wound of abandonment and shame. Shame’s outer layers and manifestations are numerous and deceptive in that they guide us away from this primal source. People have been left trying to heal themselves with easier-said-than-done platitudes, self-help prescriptions, or endless hours in an uninformed therapist’s office.
There is a more direct and effective route. It is safe and instantly rewarding and works directly with the originating source of shame and abandonment fear. It involves a three-pronged approach:
Targeted Sharing
Creating a Profound New Relationship to Self through Separation Therapy
Active Use of Imagination to Create Positive Images for the Brain
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Shame-reduction heals and empowers the Self to work through the emotional stumbling blocks and help achieve our goals and dreams.
For more help on healing the primal wound, read my books or attend one of my workshops. You may also send me a message.
PS: I have created a series of videos that take you step-by-step through the 5 Akēru exercises and other life-changing insights of the Abandonment Recovery Program.
Whether you’re experiencing a recent break-up, a lingering wound from childhood, or struggling to form a lasting relationship, the program will enlighten you, restore your sense of self, and increase your capacity for love and connection.