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Does anyone have insight into how/why we feel shame both for what we do (Bigger pissing on the couch) and what is done to us (things like SA of a child)? It seems like a curiosity to me that we feel this same emotion for such different things, and then it creates these impossibly complex cascades.

While we might be able to construct complicated definitions that separate shame, guilt, and other pains, the brain is more or less only able to reinforce good and avoid bad. So if you are in a situation that elicits bad, your brain will do what it can to avoid that. If it elicits good your brain will do what it can to continue or repeat that. In reflecting on the bad behaviors and ruminations, you'll sort of repeat and encourage your brain to say "that was bad/dumb, I shouldn't do that again".

Also because we are very little more complicated than other animals (despite our best efforts) if we get rewarded immediately for a behavior, that is much more powerful to our brain than a later punishment (which is now simply associated with the "getting caught" bit).

Probably with a lot of therapy and more thought, I'm sure we can untangle these issues and not be so reductive.

But in terms of "why do I fell bad about stuff I fucked up almost the same as stuff that fucked me up?" It's because both were bad and your brain is throwing "inhibit/avoid that" signals to your body.

I'll throw a couple of cents at this... it's a subject I'm wading through right now.

Here's what I think: If a child develops relatively normally (normal in this scenario is that by and large they had 'good enough' caregivers and no major unprocessed trauma) shame shows up when they do something that's really out of integrity. That child feels bad about themselves. They have enough of a foundation of worth AND they've developed a sense of agency so that they can see what they've done, feel how it's off or 'wrong' for them, and take action to feel good again.

When a child isn't given what they need to feel a sense of worth as well as agency, anything that happens to them, as well as what they do, causes shame. The feeling that they are inherently not ok, and can't do anything about that.

This starts the lifelong hunger for someone else to make them feel good, worthy, valued -- they don't have it within themselves.

Taking on the shame of what someone else does to a child is a normal response to the existential terror that the grownups aren't ok.

It's too scary for most little ones to wrap their minds around their caretakers being so unsafe, so they take on the shame and blame of what's been done to them. Then there is at least a shred of control. - And hope!

If I'm good enough. They won't hurt me.

An especial mindfuck is with sexual abuse, especially when it starts early. It may feel bad or uncomfortable, but the desire to avoid being abused is often depressed by the desire/need for attention and affection. Some littles don't know that they should feel bad about it until the first time they're shamed or punished for naming it. When they find out in a scary, punitive or deliberately shaming way, it compounds the trauma already in existence in their little bodies. (Add in a little body actually being aroused and feeling pleasure intertwined with all of the discomfort and suppressed desire to avoid, and you've got a doozy of a toxic shame stockpile)

That went far further than my 2cents. I hope it was helpful and not too much.

Not trying to make anyone feel oogy.

Ink- my best try to answer why do we feel shame when things are done to us and we feel shame when we do things.

The shame when we do things is caused by our moral compass. When I cheated, I surprised even myself because I could never imagine doing it. I loved my husband, and even under all the garbage, I know he saved me in so many ways. And yes, I know someone saving another person and marrying them is somewhat fucked up sounding but he did make me want to be a better woman, and because I viewed him the way I did, I felt he elevated me by his example. So, for me, the shame of the affair simply comes from that’s not really who I wanted to be and I knew he didn’t deserve it. It went against my moral compass. And that part is healthy.

But it blew up the shame that had always been there and it felt debilitating for some period of time. I didn’t deserve him then. And that had been the one thing I had been proud of.

As far as having it done to you- abusers make you feel complicit. It’s like what cheetah said, there was still attention. There was grooming so there wasn’t resistance, just compliance and loyalty. Some of it can even feel good which makes it even more confusing. I went to a guidance counselor at school and she told me basically that I wanted it. Um, no ma’am, this person taught me to count so that I would know how long to do things. I don’t think I was capable of deciding what she was declaring. I could tell it was secretive behavior then, and part of you feels like alarms are going off. That you are doing something bad.

And as an adult, I couldn’t even put together that still bothered me, because in that case it was an older person but that person was still a minor and I had heard he had things done to him too. I thought I had forgiven it. It takes more than that. I had shame he was a family member, as if I had decided all of it.

And I think when you are cheated on, part of you feels like you weren’t enough. Some of it is societal programming- before people get cheated on there are all these shows and antidotal information you accumulated. Like "well she must not have been taking care of her man" sort of thing. And some of our flaws being exaggerated to this marital interloper is just more than one can even bear.

But any time we feel shame I think often there is some past shame mixed in. It just depends on how much is mixed in that makes it debilitating. It becomes hard to face yourself.

And debate away. I don’t think my theories are always right. I think our experiences shape us and we can remain narrow minded in what we see and witness. I have read a lot here and have formed some of my larger hypothesis on that, but there are always outliers and things I couldn’t begin to consider that would throw a wrench in all that I said really quickly.

But I think shame and guilt are healthy as are all of our emotions. They are telling us things, we must stop and listen. I read we don’t heal so we don’t feel pain, we heal so we can feel a wider variety of things and be able to accept those feelings and hear from them. We often heal so we can feel happiness and joy again. I no longer feel shame for my loss of early innocence or some of the chaotic things that went on. But feeling shameful of having an affair, I don’t find that to be toxic. I can also feel happy about healing and learning and striving. The thing about toxic shame is there is no balancing it.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:35 AM, Wednesday, June 19th]

Oh hiking out

But any time we feel shame I think often there is some past shame mixed in. It just depends on how much is mixed in that makes it debilitating. It becomes hard to face yourself

This is so freaking true.

EMDR has taught me this. So perfectly said.

I really wasn’t expecting this thread to veer into shame. I say we blame WBFA. Mods!!

Rose, it’s been a long time, I was really glad to see your name pop up. I hope you are well.

Those responses helped me. I feel like I need to go back now and re-read Brené Brown with these thoughts in mind.

If I was going to summarize what I just took away:

- shame in a measured amount is an appropriate and helpful response in a healthy person to actions (and probably even thoughts) that violate that person’s standards.

- victims of abuse are made to feel complicit in their own abuse, hence activating very complicated shame for things that were done to them. This is even further complicated in children as they tend to put blame on themselves rather than adults in an effort to keep the world from becoming dystopian with evil adults.

- victims of betrayal often feel responsible for their betrayal due to believing that lacking in themselves was even part of why their partner cheated.

This is all really helpful. It occurs to me that when shame is healthy, we have obvious avenues to resolve it. Bigger can clean the couch and apologize and change his drinking habits. But once we’ve accepted responsibility and felt shame for things that have been done to us, things we have no true accountability for, there is nothing to do to resolve the shame. The pick me dance would be our attempt in the case of infidelity. But it never works, and so that shame just festers. The only way to get rid of that would be to reject the accountability, go back to the root. Hence EMDR.

I feel fortunate, I never felt shame over getting cheated on. Not really sure why, but I didn’t. I knew it was on her. I wanted people to know for my sake, and there was hardly a hint of blame or shame that came my way from my friends and family. For the betrayed out there feeling that shame and hiding, please reject that lie. You did nothing to deserve being cheated on. Nothing. And you need support. Bring it to the light, reject the lies, get your healing on.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 2:13 PM, Wednesday, June 19th]

A thought just hit me: humans have an intense desire to resolve cognitive dissonance when it arises. Shame is an incredibly intense form of cognitive dissonance.

I’ve learned in behavioral economics that humans will act in strange and irrational ways in order to resolve even mild manifestations of cognitive dissonance. I’m just connecting these ideas in my head in real time. What we would do, how we would contort our minds to resolve the dissonance of shame, I’m honestly in tears just thinking about that. And now I’m imaging little children being immersed in that with no healthy way of resolving it and I want to punch a wall.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 2:54 PM, Wednesday, June 19th]

A thought just hit me: humans have an intense desire to resolve cognitive dissonance when it arises. Shame is an incredibly intense form of cognitive dissonance.

Absolutely. And the problem with toxic shame it seems (obviously I don't purport to have any expertise), is that after a certain amount, it stops being specific and targeted on the behaviour or issue at question. With some people once shame is experienced, it is like every amount of shame that exists in that person's body/brain/history that has never been dealt with and has never been addressed is all of a sudden activated and present and that feeling is so overwhelming and uncomfortable that the person experiencing it not only can't focus on or address the behaviour that led to the current feeling, they are motivated to do use whatever kneejerk maladaptive coping skills they've been using for all of their life to avoid those feelings (which means the behaviour and feeling doesn't get addressed and dealt with but the stuffed down shame balloons) and so on and so forth the shame-avoidance spiral cycle continues.

[This message edited by emergent8 at 6:28 PM, Wednesday, June 19th]

@InkHulk post #55

You know, I never actually hear from the Mods, so maybe you could just try that? :look :shocked :laugh

I got a better idea man, next time I do hear from Moderation I'll just tell them you say hi

There is no doubt--I'm no psychologist or anything--shame that has to do with what happened to us and WHO WE ARE. Maybe we are deeply angry at ourselves for letting that thing happen to us, maybe we feel on some deep level that this awful thing happened to us because we deserve it i.e., who we are.

I wasn't using the word "shame" in such a deep level though, in referring to our friend InkHulk's post. By shame, I meant hating whatever it is what we did because of what it says about ourselves (especially when a light is shown by our actions) and that is not what we want to believe about ourselves. It can be a useful emotion to get us on the right track. It can't stay as 'shame' though, there has to be an understanding that at least a big problem with our actions is the pain we caused OTHER people, not just our own self-image and how others see ourselves.

I was astounded that @InkHulk's STBX-WW hardly even seems to feel bad when a light was shined upon her actions. That's next-level stuff. It is like all her work was about making it OK in her mind for following her impulses damn her family. Yeah, if I were in your shoes I'd be both dumbfounded and infuriated too.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 7:01 PM, Wednesday, June 19th]

I was astounded that @InkHulk's STBX-WW hardly even seems to feel bad when a light was shined upon her actions. It is like all her work was about making it OK in her mind for following her impulses damn her family. Yeah, if I were in your shoes I'd be both dumbfounded and infuriated too.

I have to agree at least in the surface.

I will change this for my own theory. I think perhaps mrs ink is more the type that can only think selfishly. I think the work she has done in IC may have addressed people pleasing but that likely she has used things from her marriage to show her state of victimhood. Therefore the work hasn’t been about dealing with shame at all.

I think in the light of recent events I am inclined to believe that her obstacle is being self absorbed moreso than debilitated by shame.

I was debilitated by shame and there would have been no way I would have gone near the behaviors that could lead to another affair. It’s like ink is saying, the cognitive dissonance was painful for me after dday, the shame I was carrying had to be resolved. I tend to think that she doesn’t have the emotional range to think outside of her experience. What causes that I don’t know, but it’s reminiscent of captain Roger’s wife for those who remember that situation. I don’t think she felt shame either, moreso, she just could not believe in the trauma and deep pain her husband was in.

Ink- what you wrote is a good synopsis. I don’t feel angry or sad anymore about all that. I appreciate the empathy. I have gotten to a stage in life I believe we are given all sorts of obstacles towards love and our purpose and there are lessons we are all meant to learn. I think the earth is kind of like a soul school and we are given different things to work though to evolve in that mission. I have truly forgiven so much of it now, and have processed the feelings I suppressed.

It takes upkeep. Being vigilant and mindful so as our natural patterns want to emerge that we are able to see it early and be thoughtful and mindful about using techniques that have now been learned. The more things are practiced the more naturally they are utilized. There are many things that now are natural and many things that I still have to get still, surrender them, challenge them, or be intentional about moving through. My biggest challenge still remains with my mother. Boundaries with her have been hard to form, they are in place now, but they can still be hard to keep in place. She is very good at guilt trips, and requiring everyone heed to her petulant demands. I remind myself in those moments giving in does her no favors either. Because she too was sent to evolve and learn lessons and it’s okay if she struggles with me telling her how I feel. She doesn’t see herself as a negative person ruled by fear, and I can’t make her see that, but I don’t have to participate.

I think in the light of recent events I am inclined to believe that her obstacle is being self absorbed moreso than debilitated by shame.

Agree. My comments re: guilt/shame are definitely not directed towards her specifically - I don't actually think I see a lot of shame from her. You had told us that was what was going on InkHulk (I think maybe that's what you wanted to see for a while back when you were trying to make sense of the nonsensical) and I took your word for it to some extent, but more recent revelations suggest that she does not seem motivated to/capable of viewing herself as the wrongdoer in anyone else's life experience. In fact, I'm not sure I've seen her able to put herself in anyone else's shoes.

I tend to think that she doesn’t have the emotional range to think outside of her experience.

Precisely.

her obstacle is being self absorbed moreso than debilitated by shame.

Did anyone just hear that? That was me, shouting "YES!!"upon reading this comment.

Finally.

I know some are saying they're shocked she continued speaking to car guy. However, some of us are over here nodding our heads, because we are absolutely not at all surprised.

Never once has anything IH posted ever sounded like a former ws, mired in shame. I know IH, that you really wanted to believe she felt shame. We watched you twisting her actions,and words, around, trying to make them fit into the shame category (a common BS mental gymnastic..I've done it as well). I've watched wonderful FORMER ws talk about how they felt shame, and saying that may be what she was feeling. It just never rang true for me. So, I stopped posting on your threads, IH. I saw everyone trying to turn what she was doing into a positive, and I'm just negative Nancy, shaking my head.

She was regretful. She was compliant. I never had the feeling she was remorseful. I hope this is eye opening for new bs. Compliance isn't remorse. Regret isn't remorse. Trying to R with anything other than a truly remorseful ws, who is doing the work, open, communicating etc, never ends well.

If she had been remorseful and actually ashamed, she never would have contacted car guy. And she sure as Hell wouldn't have stayed in contact, knowing how her husband felt about it.

You did all you could, IH. You gave her several shots at true R. She is the one who failed you, and the kids.

[This message edited by HellFire at 8:24 PM, Wednesday, June 19th]

If you’re gonna try to unravel the Gordian knot of shame then it’s best done by looking at fear.

But if that’s being done in the context of figuring out other people’s behavior, you have to recognize that some people have shorted the fear effect by learning how to override the shame pointer.

IMO, that’s where shame can be helpful…and also why some people never feel it (and subsequently can do what they do). You can’t uncover and heal the fear without it.

Alright, so put out in plain language what the implications are if she isn’t shame motivated (and for some reason here I am again trying to analyze her, a zen duck I am no more). Straight up narc?

It just doesn’t fit my mental model as it currently stands.

Would a merely selfish person react with shame shit storms? I would think they would just let criticism roll off their back because they don’t give a fuck, as opposed to someone who breaks down because they are completely overloaded.

I’ve talked about her Inner Critic. Her mantra is "I’m not enough".

She’s been abused.

I’m just not seeing something you guys are. And in the end, what does it matter?

So, I stopped posting on your threads, IH. I saw everyone trying to turn what she was doing into a positive, and I'm just negative Nancy, shaking my head.

Show me a thread you haven’t posted on

I’ll give you it’s less and I miss you.

If she had been remorseful and actually ashamed, she never would have contacted car guy. And she sure as Hell wouldn't have stayed in contact, knowing how her husband felt about it.

Yeah, it’s so flabbergasting, I just can’t put myself in a mind frame that I could ever imagine doing this. Fuck, even if she wasn’t ashamed, if she actually loved me should just that be enough to consider my feelings?

She wrote me a message today, talking about she didn’t want D but maybe it’s just necessary, that maybe we could both heal and come back together some day. All we and us language, absolutely zero sniff of her taking accountability or leadership in a proposed restoration process. And for some reason this one got to me emotionally today. My heart rate has been elevated all day since I got it. Plus I have a two minute voice mail from my mother in law today that I REALLY don’t want to check. I’m kicking a little less ass today, but still ok. Prayers appreciated.

I just dropped a reference to "mental model", and that has been on my mind a lot lately after a post I wrote on a different thread. I’m going to copy part of that post here so people here can have continuity with my thought process on this:

——————-

I believe that when we are in relationship people, we don’t truly and fully see the other person. We have a mental model of that person stored in our brain, and what we mostly experience is an overlay of that model with the real person. And once we know someone well, have observed them for a long time, our model fits and even predicts the other person quite well. When the person does something that surprises us, we update our model (ie get to know them better), and the cycle continues.

Enter a betrayal into this. For me, the incongruence between my model of my wife and the objective reality of my wife completely fractured. My model, my inner understanding of her, could never have predicted what she did. I believe this is a huge source of the mental anguish that betrayed spouses undergo. It’s like a bomb went off in their brain. Now the most important model, the one of their beloved, is obviously wrong, the new information proves that, but we don’t know where to go next. We’re shocked and paralyzed. I just could not take the new information about the affair and use it to update my model about my wife. I wrote endless pages about believing she must have been tricked. Honestly it’s embarrassing to look back at how hard I argued with these good people to try to convince myself that there must have been some circumstances that excused her. And what I was doing was trying to preserve the mental model of the woman I loved and the woman that all my dreams of the future were tied up with.

So then all I could do was watch her. And she absolutely fucking sucked at reconciliation. For all the reasons I’ve listed. And each time she played the victim and lied and failed to have basic human empathy in the face of the pain she caused me, she forced me to keep nudging my mental model in a worse and worse direction. And now after two years of abysmal behavior, I know think very very poorly of her. And from that vantage point, I am now reinterpreting our life together. I think she has always been mostly like this. She might have taken a turn for the worse after a traumatic event, but it wasn’t a day and night shift.

((((IH)))) - For realz, man…this part of the story sucks the most. It’s a strange mix of horror and relief. 😕

I don’t know that all of us go through this after infidelity - some WSs are genuinely remorseful. But for those of us that don’t have that, it’s an epic marathon length mindfuck.

If you’re gonna try to unravel the Gordian knot of shame then it’s best done by looking at fear.

But if that’s being done in the context of figuring out other people’s behavior, you have to recognize that some people have shorted the fear effect by learning how to override the shame pointer.

IMO, that’s where shame can be helpful…and also why some people never feel it (and subsequently can do what they do). You can’t uncover and heal the fear without it.

This sounds really interesting, and I don’t understand it at all. Care to rephrase?

I don’t know that all of us go through this after infidelity - some WSs are genuinely remorseful. But for those of us that don’t have that, it’s an epic marathon length mindfuck.

It truly brings my opinion down of humanity that people can be unremorseful in these circumstances. I’m sorry we are in an extra shitty part of the club together.

This sounds really interesting, and I don’t understand it at all. Care to rephrase?

At the root of shame is usually fear - usually the primordial fear of isolation/being kicked out of the pack. It’s literally the reptilian part of the brain, geared for basic survival. Being ostracized equals death. That operates beyond the consciousness.

Many people find shame specifically hard to deal with/address because of the fear. We have either defiled or been defiled - and are in threat of being ostracized.

You can try to unwind all the shame - not a useless but certainly daunting task.

Or you can just step right up and face the fear head-on. I personally have even found comfort in just recognizing the times it’s primordial - which then brings the shame down to being more manageable. I don’t get to by-pass it…but I’ve calmed the reptilian brain so that the logical brain can do quicker, better work.

But if I can’t face my fears (not uncommon) and I can’t deal with shame (past unresolved cause, cumulative effect) then I’m left with just short-cutting the whole circuit. Basically, disassociate. If feelings were nerve endings it would be like cauterizing them. Deep enough into that and the only thing that remains is essentially the reptilian/survival instinct…so my behavior and persona are constructed of what equals survival *at that moment* - and nothing more.

It truly brings my opinion down of humanity that people can be unremorseful in these circumstances.

Yeah, I get that as a response. I use to feel the same way. But you have to also recognize that what I’m describing above in the disordered is NOT humanity - quite the opposite actually.

[This message edited by truthsetmefree at 4:25 AM, Thursday, June 20th]

I don’t think she is a narcissist, I do not know her to even put a label like that on her. I don’t really think that’s probably even partially true.

As I have stated I think that unworthiness and lack of self love manifest in different ways. Some people are overly unselfish, some are overly selfish, all I have done is decide from what has happened recently that she falls in the overly selfish.

Some people can only see what is happening to them, what their experience is because thier focus on lack makes them monitor the lack, see the slights, etc. and they can’t take that. They can’t rise above it and say you know what, I really hurt you and I am going to make amends for that. You do not owe me anything for doing that, it’s what I know must be done/

I think she believes your pain to be an overreaction because she feels that you have done things to her that also require forgiveness that she probably perceives she was willing to do. It’s a classic "we have both hurt each other, let’s declare a truce and move on.

And I am not saying she doesn’t have shame from her past that comes into play into her decision making. But with this recent development, if she felt remorse or big shame over her affair, the mechanic thing would have never happened. That’s just evidence that she still feels entitled to do things that comfort her despite what that comfort might add to your pain. That spells out holding onto resentment that she is only willing to put down if you’ve put down yours.

I am not saying she is incapable of shame. Or that she doesn’t carry any toxic shame from her past. There would be no way for me to know that. I am saying she isn’t debilitated by the shame of the affair because I think part of her still feels that justification of "he did these things, and I felt unloved” and so in her mind there is some wire crossed that makes this reasoning become an excuse. Because if she felt it was inexcusable, then she would not have reached out to the mechanic and then have the audacity to keep talking to him when doing it the first time put her in a separation with her husband.

She may regret having the affair. In fact I would venture to guess she probably does. She may feel unworthy, that tracks so I don’t disagree. But if there was true shame for hurting you, she would have stopped doing it. She would have said "you know what I am gonna keep working on myself because I can’t live like this a minute longer.”

And maybe she has continued in IC, reading, prayer, whatever but really, she has gone and found someone else to be inappropriate with to keep the escapism going. That just doesn’t jive with shame over the affair. That jives with only being consumed with how she feels and what she needs.

Overly selfless and overly selfish don’t have to be mutually exclusive either because as I have stated, same root causes. She may be overly selfless in some ways and then not others. It feels to me like she got stuck somewhere along in her processes, and likely it’s by looking at what she has experienced, what she has been slighted, what she perceives you refuse to do or see.

I wouldn’t have said any of this until the ongoing communication with the mechanic. I even gave her the benefit of the doubt with the mechanic thing at first. I had hoped there would be some satisfactory reason she reached out about the car.

I am still convinced it’s all the same problems we have been talking about all along, but the clear lack of remorse tells me that in this way she is being overly selfish. I would even place a bet some of it was out of you mentioning dating sites here, as if that’s even remotely the same thing. That’s where my money actually is.

So I should have clarified, I don’t know about her shame quotient in all aspects of her life or how this colors her decisions. I am only saying it’s not there enough about the affair to precipitate change on her own and all I am doing to gather that is look at results.

Someone so ashamed of what that have done wouldn't just go out and repeat the pattern. I wasn’t many months out and I would have told you I would rather stick a fork in my eye than have another affair. And I was a really fucked up and confused ws, I had simply hit rock bottom, knew I had myself to blame. I think that is all kicked off by feeling shame as the overwhelming initial response.

I think by what I have read from you, you know all this. If it sounded different than the other hundreds of times we have tried to hash through this, it’s only because this new situation is very telling.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:41 AM, Thursday, June 20th]

And to further emphasis that the label is irrelevant…using satire…

HO gave you a great description of a narc. 😂

The label (primarily for education purposes) only helped me when I was struggling with that understanding humanity part.

We’re talking degrees here…where you hit the limit with the behavior is all that really matters.

[This message edited by truthsetmefree at 4:45 AM, Thursday, June 20th]