http://sethadamsmith.com/2015/03/21/monica-lewinsky-ted
Shame shame go away
https://inbadcompanyinc.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/self-worth-part-3/
Two links I researched this week. I sat down with my counselor today and discussed my progress on researching shame. The biggest difficulty is recognizing distortions or unhealthy information. I am continuing my quest for understanding. Shame and guilt....some people interchange them, others define them separately. I heard several different descriptions. This subject is a long time frustration for me. KavinCoach gave me a book on the subject....unfortunately the author used the same word for both healthy and unhealthy guilt. I believe shame, guilt, love, intimacy suffer similar fates, people bring their own definition expecting everyone else to mean the same thing.
Why bother researching guilt and shame?
Shame and guilt are hallmark symptoms of PTSD.
Shame that I stood aside and did nothing.
Survivors Guilt - nasty kind of guilt that I survived and others died.
Guilt about things I did and were done to me.
Shame of what I became.
Horrible feelings all mixed together.
After chatting with counselor I have a frame work for studying the topic.
Reminder....this is my opinion blended by years of pondering the subject and just muddling through this whole emotions thing:
Healthy guilt motivates me to correct poor behavior and nudges me to repent with an emphasis on feeling guilty until I make restitution when possible. Unhealthy guilt is everything else. I described it like putting rocks in my backpack for everything I did wrong. Hauling the guilt around long after I repented of my actions. Christ paid the price but I am not giving Him the sins and hurt he paid for. I include hurt intentionally. One of my biggest struggles is feeling the shame transferred to me by my abusers. The blame the victim mantra chanted by predators ease their own minds by believing the victims got what they deserved. I think this transferred shame is very damaging because I really can do nothing about it. It is not mine to own. It is like the pedophile opened up my backpack and dumped his nasty heavy rocks into my backpack. Unpacking the rocks is a lifelong practice that I needed to learn. KavinCoach spent hours trying to teach me how to unpack my backpack of useless rocks. Here is the kicker...no one can unpack those rocks of guilt and shame except me. I need to relinquish them. In my understanding, Christ is the master healer. He knows how to blast those rocks to smithereens.
There will be further updates as I continue my research.
4 comments:
Guilt inflicted by others is just another form of abuse or to phrase it another way, undeserved feelings of guilt are a sure sign you're being manipulated.
Good point mulderfan, thanks for sharing.
Hi Ruth, Just wanted to share this wonderful poem by Edgar Allan Poe. He also had an unhappy childhood and never felt that he fitted in, which I feel you will understand as I do.
“Alone”
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
Colleen x
Wow. Thanks Colleen
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