Toxic Shame and EF's

[flyingfree]

I got hit with a whopper of an EF yesterday due to a work situation. It fired up that old 'failure' schema, and threw me back in time to when I was around 16 years old and feeling totally hopeless and useless, emotionally neglected and abandoned by my parents, and completely overwhelmed by trying to cope with everything on my own.

Some of the thoughts that came up were

'You're a failure.'
'You're useless.'
'You're weak.'
'You will never find anyone to love you.'

I think the strongest feeling though, was what Pete Walker describes as 'Toxic Shame'. I felt like I was revolting, disgusting, worthless, a nothing, and I had this urge to isolate myself and just curl into a ball and cry. Before that, I didn't know what to 'name' that emotion. Now I know what it is.

It's quite frightening, to feel so out of control. I think the worst thing is, I knew it was a flashback, but the emotions were still all there, trying to rule me. It was quite hard to fight that, to ignore my vicious inner critic which was telling me all of those things above and more.

Just thought I'd share....

[Indigochild]

Hey Coralreef

Im sorry you felt so awful about yourself.
Abandonment does that to us. Gives us shame, which isn't ours to have.
It sucks because, trying to cope on your own, whilst it definatley should not happen to any child or person, the fact that you were trying to cope is something to be proud of. Coping for you would be very difficult, as your were trying to be a parent to yourself when you were not one- which leads to feeling shame, as you didnt know how to parent yourself.

I completley understand feeling shame. I felt it a lot in childhood.
Like you, i never knew it was *shame* i was feeling.
I wondered if i actually felt it, as my emotions are pretty much turned off these days, and were back then too, but i feel shame.
I guess i disassociated a lot I'm learning- so i forgot about the shame- forgot about a lot of it really.

Its ok that you knew it was a flashback, but that the emotions ruled you. Thats what flashbacks do most of the time. I think the point of having flashbacks, is to release emotions stored in the body and in the subcontious, and you need to feel these awful things as your body and mind wants to express these feelings and get rid of them, as well as understand them.

But I'm time, i think you have to talk to the inner critic. There is no rush though.

I am glad you shared. Its good to get things out and Im sure a lot can relate.