If in childhood we were constantly devalued, growing up, we consider ourselves “bad”, “worthy of punishment”, “poor quality”. Even an escape from the parental family cannot relieve a person from such experiences at one moment. How to believe that we are important?
Victims of toxic parents often feel intense shame about themselves and their past. The reasons for this feeling are obvious: the closest people systematically devalued, ridiculed them. Because of this, the child develops an attitude towards himself as a “second-class” person. And a person lives with a stable sense of shame for himself and for everything connected with the circumstances of his personal life and childhood. This shame pervades all areas of life.
«DISAPPEARING» PEOPLE
What is shame? This is an internal conflict between the desire to be recognized and the fear of being put on display, to show oneself. This fear is based on early experience of prolonged depreciation.
We have a persistent fantasy: «I’m worthless.» As an adult, it makes us feel that we are not worthy of praise, good pay for our work, love and sex, family and children, and so on. This seemingly unsolvable trap causes us to «disappear». That is, to develop a lifestyle in which we are seen as little as possible.
Such people strive to be inconspicuous, try not to speak in front of everyone, wear inconspicuous clothes, work in places where contact with people is minimized, they are often clamped and almost do not express their feelings.
VARIETY OF SHAME
Self-shame comes in many forms, such as:
- shame on your body we worry that we are “too small” or “too big”, too sparse hair, big ears, wide hips, “irregular shapes” of body parts, including intimate areas of the chest, genitals. By the way, it is this shame that is exploited in the promotion of cosmetic surgery products;
- ashamed of one’s actionsKey words: humor, spontaneity, natural behavior, speaking an opinion. Talents cause not pride, but reverse experiences;
- shame on your parents. Each person has episodes of the past that he would not want to show anyone, and this is normal. But for children of toxic parents, this often becomes a cause of great anxiety. As if if we show the parental family, we will be poorly perceived, they will not love and respect.
Manifestations of this feeling may indicate that an adult is still in the process of separation from his parents and perceives them as a significant part of himself, and their attitudes as true. But where is the line of sufficient separation, passing which we cease to be ashamed of our past?
She is in an inner sense of independence: “Yes, these are my parents with their own internal problems. I was not lucky with them, but now they have their own life, and I have mine.
A toxic childhood is just a part of who we are. In addition to her, there are other parts of her that want a healthy relationship. Healthy parts are able to gain strength, develop and build their lives. Our partners love them.
THREE STEPS TO STOP SHAME
In order to work with shame on our own, we need to trace how and when this feeling was instilled in us. And if you manage to understand this, then the process of gradual separation of shame from yourself starts.
Step 1. We look at how this experience was imposed on us in childhood. To do this, we recall the humiliating situations, episodes, words, looks, and the accompanying burning shame that enveloped us.
For example: “Draw a car, mediocrity? It doesn’t look like it’s a daub, don’t translate felt-tip pens ”; “Fool, well, show off in new shoes?”; «Put your mother’s earrings in place, nothing will help your face.» Remembering this, we see how our healthy impulses for creativity, pleasure in activities, sexuality, and the desire to please were confronted with aggression, ridicule, devaluation, and contempt.
This is an unpleasant process. At such moments, in addition to shame, people often experience anger, guilt, and other feelings. But you need to be patient a little, it’s worth it.
Step 2. We share ourselves and the imposed shame. We try to see: «I am normal (normal), I have a normal body, face, behavior, speech.» A variety of shame has been introduced by toxic parents through their inappropriate reactions. In other words, exaggerated self-shame is an externally imposed feeling. It did not belong to us from birth, it was sown in us like a virus.
Step 3. We change our attitude to the past and to ourselves: “I was not lucky with my parents — this is part of my past, and I cannot change it. But I can change my attitude towards the past. Work on it to stop being a disturbing mental experience that poisons life.”
To work through is to take the first two steps, over and over again, calling a spade a spade: “I am normal”, “I am worthy / worthy of good treatment”, and “I was instilled with a sense of shame for myself.”
RESULT
What can be achieved as a result of such work? What was lived in childhood gradually becomes the past — at the level of memory and at the level of bodily experience. It will be remembered, but will not overshadow all subsequent days. It will periodically return, but it will no longer “cover” and cause burning shame with redness, trembling, a change in voice, a frightened look, self-criticism on the verge of despair.
The experience of constant shame will become just a “scar” in memory. Sometimes it will remind of itself, but in general it will become weaker, moreover, we will be able to control this feeling. As a result, we will have the feeling that we have strengths and virtues: abilities, skills, education (whatever it is, it does not matter). All this belongs to us.
This is how a sense of the value of one’s image, appearance, body, thinking, humor, voice, the results of one’s work and much more is born.
Previous installments in the Toxic Parents series:
- How to get rid of separation anxiety?
- «How To Children Of Toxic Parents Get Rid Of Guilt»