Exploring Shame

[dollyvee]

Chart, I like the idea of coming back to your eternal spark. An eternal spark doesn't seem as daunting as the idea of the Self in IFS. I don't know why? Maybe because Self has so many connotations when you're growing up in a narcissistic family (which is probably good and bad for healing).

Continuing on in the Bradshaw book about shame and internal self-talk, he talks about the kind of distorted thinking that happens in shame-based people.

"Our shame-based identity is predicated on the belief that we are flawed and defective persons. Such a belief is the foundation for shame-based thinking, which is a kind of egocentric tunnel vision, composed of the following types of distortion."

Catastrophizing:
A headache signals an impending brain tumor. A memo to see the boss means you're going to get fired. Catastrophizing results from having no boundaries or sense of worth. There are no limits to the "what if s" that can occur.

Mind-reading:
"She thinks I'm immature or she wouldn't ask me these questions." These assumptions are usually born of intuition, hunches, vague misgivings or one or two past experiences. Mind-reading depends on projection. You imagine that people feel as bad about you as you do about yourself. As a shame-based person, you are critical and judgmental of yourself. You assume others feel the same way about you.

Personalization:
Shame based people are ego-centric. If your self is ruptured, and it is painful to experience your self, you become self-centered.

Shame-based people relate everything to themselves. A recently manied woman thinks that every time her husband talks about being tired, he is tired of her. A man whose wife complains about the accelerating price of food, hears this as an attack on his ability to be a breadwinner.

Personalization involves the habit of continually comparing yourself to other people. This is a consequence of the perfectionistic system that fosters shame. A perfectionistic system demands comparison. "He's a much better organizer that I am." "She knows herself a lot better than I do." "He feels things so deeply. I'm really shallow." The list of comparisons never end. The underlying assumption is that your worth is questionable.

Overgeneralization:
This distortion results from toxic shame's grandiosity. One slipped stitch means, "I'll never learn how to sew." A turn-down for a date means "Nobody will ever want to go out with me." In this thinking distortion, you make a broad, generalized conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence.

Overgeneralizations lead to universal qualifiers like, "Nobody loves me . . . I'll never get a better job . . . I will always have to struggle . . . Why can't I ever get it right?... No one would love me if they really knew me . . . " Other cue words are all, every and everybody.

Overgeneralizations contribute to a greater and greater restricted lifestyle. They present a grandiose absolutizing, which implies that some immutable law governs your chances of happiness. This form of distorted thinking intensifies one's shame.

Either/Or Thinking:
The chief mark of this thought distortion is an insistence on dichotomous choices: You perceive everything in extremes. There is no middle ground. People and things are either good or bad, wonderful or terrible. The most destructive aspect of this thought distortion is its impact on how you judge yourself. If you're not brilliant or error-free, then you must be a failure. There is no room for mistakes.

Being Right:
As a shame-based person, you must continually prove that your viewpoint and actions are correct. You live in a completely defensive posture. Since you cannot make a mistake, you aren't interested in the truth of other opinions, only in defending your own.

You get no new data that would help you change your belief system about yourself.

"Should" Thinking:
Should thinking is a direct result of perfectionism. In this thought distortion you operate from a list of inflexible rules about how you and other people should act. The niles are right and indisputable.

The most common cue words for this thought distortion are should, ought and must. A shame-based person with this thought distortion makes both himself and others miserable.

Control Thinking Fallacy:
Control is a major cover-up for toxic shame. Control is a product of grandiosity and distorts thinking in two ways. You see yourself as helpless and externally controlled or as omnipotent and responsible for everyone around you. You don't believe that you have any real control over the outcome of your life. This keeps you stuck and in your shame cycle.

The opposite fallacy is the fallacy of omnipotent control. You feel responsible for everything and everybody. You carry the world on your shoulders and feel guilty when it doesn't work out.

Cognitive Deficiency or Filtering:
In this thinking distortion you pick out one element of a situation to the exclusion of everything else. The detail you pick out supports your belief about your personal defectiveness.

Filtering is a way to magnify and "awfulize" your thoughts. This triggers powerful shame spirals.

Blaming and Global Labeling:
Blaming is a cover-up for shame and a way to pass it on to others. Blaming lends itself to global labeling. Your grocery store has rotten food. The prices a"re a rip-off.

Blaming and Global Labeling are ways to distract from your own pain and responsibility. They are thought disorders and keep you from honestly looking at yourself and feeling your own pain.

I thought these were quite eye-opening and I see myself and my distorted thinking in quite a few of them. I guess one of the ways they're helpful is to begin making the unconscious, conscious and looking at the ways shame, and I am perpetuating the shame, in my life.

[Chart]

DV, thanks for all that. I knew it, briefly, but it really helps to go over it again. I see myself in almost all those patterns.

Thanks for the support of the "Center" idea, Cascade and Dolly. I'm hard at work on this idea.

One thing that attracts me to this "spark" or Center idea is that it seems to be closer to the "source" of my root trauma. I'm still working this through, actually creating a guided tutorial with my therapist around this idea. I'll try and update the Neurofeedback thread soon with more info.
 

[Blueberry]

So, I'll write now about what I've learned about the concept of shame, and begin to explore my own shame.


TW
Shame is so insidious that exploring it can bring up more shame.  I believe a tremendous support system, whatever that might be for each of us, is necessary to do this.  I am doing this with my trauma-informed therapist.  I feel safe with her and I wouldn't be ready to do this without her. 

First, she shared a video file (mp4) of a John Bradshaw seminar about shame.  ...  If I was able to, my homework was to watch the video and journal about it.  So I did.  Some of my notes, in different font, are below.


Two Types of Shame

• Healthy Shame:  humility, permission to be human, lets us know we have limits (so be careful), gives us emotional power.
• Toxic Shame:  state of being such as "I am a mistake," (Note: Blame is about doing), submit to control, perfectionism, criticism, abandonment, neglect.

Cycle of Shame

	Shame-Based Identity	→	Distorted Thinking
	↑		↓
	Life-Damaging Consequences	←	Acting Out Cycle

Healing Shame Through Externalization

Shame hates exposure.  It keeps ourself from other people and from ourself.

The Externalization Process

• Surrender:  Release and give up control.
• Socialization:  Participate in a group.
• Self-disclosure:  Uncover yourself; become vulnerable.
• Sensitive to the system you came from:  Awareness of roles.
• Self-talk:  Use affirmations; stop negative thoughts.
• Self-love:  Choose to ask for what we want.
• Spirituality:  Reach the silence; sense inner life.

Everyone please feel free to comment and/or extend any of this.
  -Cascade
[/quote]

Thank you for these notes Cascade. I'm considering doing a weekend of trauma-informed group therapy, somewhere I've been before. I see that the Externalisation Process you listed takes place in these types of weekends, it (or most of it) just happens in that particular setting.

I didn't realise there are two types of shame. For me, shame is Type 2.

I note I've written on this thread before, but I have absolutely no memory of having done so, not even when I read my own post. iirc I tend to blank on topics that are really difficult for me or blank about having written particular posts. 'Shame' is a big topic for me, and I suppose one that needs a lot of work, with help, so not to do on my own. atm I'm ashamed of not working, not earning my own money and of my therapy taking so long. There will be more beneath that though. I realised today when listening to bits of 2 trauma conferences that shame is the big problem for me atm and is where I need help, i.e. therapy.

[dollyvee]

Hi Blueberry,

Good for you. Dealing with shame is really tough IMO and it often hides and makes us unaware I think of the things we're doing.

I hope your group work goes well.

dolly

[Blueberry]

Thanks Dolly,

The group is actually full, so I won't be going. But that's OK. Now that I've decided to stay with my current trauma T anyway. There are obviously a lot of things I could be working on on my own as well as with both my therapists (trauma and occupational).

[dollyvee]

Hi Blueberry,

I'm sorry that didn't work out. I've been sort of half looking at groups (ie Adult Children of Alcoholics for example), and am finding that facilitated group meetings are tough to come by in the UK it seems, even in London. Though did see a weekly group for £40 a pop (yikes!). After hearing Patrick Teahan (and I believe Kizzie has mentioned it too) talk about progress in relational group therapy, it's been something I've wanted to try. I have attended one group before about seven years ago and even though it was facilitated, it seemed quite aimless with a lot of trauma dumping. I guess, like finding a good t, these things take time. I might try looking for Zoom groups where I'm from as well.

Sending you support,
dolly

[dollyvee]

Blueberry - I think your post has disappeared, but I'm glad you found something that worked for you and what you need.

Chart - those are just my needs for a group. I find it to be overwhelming at times if there's a lot of emotional dumping with no direction/constructive reflection, which sort of feels like being responsible for someone else's emotions and that's something I had to do a lot of growing up. On another forum, I saw others mention something like a strolling group for cptsd survivors, which seems like an informal way to connect with other survivors without necessarily having to share/be the recipient of sharing. Again, just my two cents

[Chart]

Definitely posts ghosting!
Can't remember what I wrote exactly... But having a response to something I don't remember exactly what I wrote is interesting. It actually gives me all sorts of different reflections... But I'm gonna maybe write them in my journal as apposed to here... question of pertinence to the subject here...