Need some tips for reducing shame? One of the hardest areas of healing work in trauma disorders is dealingĀ with shame.Ā
For many survivors of sexual abuse, healing work involves learning about a lot of intense memories that leave them feeling a great deal of shame, humiliation, and embarrassment.Ā These are difficult emotions to process, and the memory material is typically very overwhelming.
Some survivors feel immersed in shame from the very beginning of their abuse.Ā They are appalled at what is happening for them and hate every minute of it, even if they can’t get away from the predators. With every incident that happens, they feel worse, and worse, and worse.Ā The more degraded the survivors are during the abuse, the greater shame they feel.
Shame can become all consuming.Ā
It drowns any feelings of self worth and erodes at self-esteem.Ā
It leads to self-injury, increased dissociation, suicidal thoughts, suicidal behavior, depression, PTSD, anxiety, addictions, etc.Ā
Shame, at its most intense, can destroy lives.
Survivors will internalize the harsh destructive words of their abusers, and if they hear those messages with enough repetition and intensity, they will believe the negativity as truth.
For the host alters of the dissociative systems, there could be nothing further from the truth than hearing what the other alters in the system are saying about abuse.Ā The fronting, daily-life dealing alters are typically not at all aware of the depths of the abuse, and the horrors expressed by the parts much further behind them does not feel real.
However, the alter parts hidden deeper in the dissociative system often have a very different experience than the front alters.Ā Dissociative walls and consistent amnesia keep their two worlds apart from each other. Ā
Sometimes the abuse-laden parts have become so entrenched in their abusive worlds and so blocked from any kind of participation in the outside world that they do not understand the extremity of the worlds they know.Ā Ā For dissociative survivors who have been sold into sex slavery or prostitution or pornography, this dynamic can be all too true.
System parts that are taught by their perpetrators to feel pride in being used as sex slaves know that to be their world, their truth, their reality.Ā They own that pride, and do not think twice about it being a difficult or questionable lifestyle.Ā They have been encouraged to handle the pain, they learn to believe they like the pain, pain becomes associated with pleasure, and they have a sense of accomplishment for completing various sexual tasks, no matter how extreme.
These alters strive to make accomplishments in that world.Ā They may feel quite successful at their “jobs” and have few feelings of shame.
Reclaiming those parts from their abusive worlds means that these parts will eventually connect with the horror and shame that they pushed away years ago.Ā The parts that have been sexually passed around from person to person to person will start realizing how much that trauma actually affected them. What once gave them pride, will lead to painful agony, shame, and distress.Ā They will realize how much they have been hurt.
However, once they realize they are being abused (or have been abused), they can make decisions to stop the abuse.
They can work with their therapists and the host parts of their system to get away from the abusers, inside and out.Ā This is done through internal system work, freeing each part from the ways they have been trapped in their memories. (Remember, people with DID tend to keep internalized realities, dynamic re-enactments of the abuse with introjects of abusers in what feels like the current day timeframe.) This work can also happen in freeing the dissociative person from a real-life, current day abuser.
Once survivors feel more distance between themselves and the abuse, they can begin to heal from the barrage of shame-inducing, horrific traumas that happened.Ā They can gradually begin to understand what things belong to the perpetrators vs. which things are truly about them.Ā They can begin to develop a separation between themselves and the world of sexual abuse.
Healing from that internalized sense of badness is a big part of the therapy work.Ā As survivors learn they are truly victims of crimes, and that they are not to blame, they can begin to let go of the sense of shame that has surrounded their lives for years.
As survivors remove the overwhelming trauma from their lives, they can then, in turn, fill their lives with positive activities from their own unique preferences.Ā Ā They can begin to feel better about their lives.Ā They can feel healthy pride in what they are doing, and feel pleased in their accomplishments.Ā They can replace the feelings of deep dark shame with a sense of happiness and self-worth.
Overcoming shame is not easy.Ā It is hard, grueling, intense emotional work.
The intensity of the shame felt by a trauma survivor can be a type of emotional barometer for the amount of healing work that needs to happen.Ā The more that shame overwhelms the survivor, the more healing work is still needed.Ā As the depth of this shame lightens, the more the survivors have progressed in their healing journey.
1. As a trauma survivor, know and understand that you are not a bad person.
2. Come to terms with how the abuse was not your fault.
3. Be brave enough to look honestly at the trauma that happened in your life.
4. Find the strength you need to get away from your abusers.
5. Work hard to be safe and to end any and all abusive relationships in the current day.
6. Realize that you will be able to build a happy life that you are proud to have.
7. Believe that you don’t have to let your shame destroy you.
8. Recognize the perpetrators for what they are – nasty violent sex offender criminals.
9. Let the perpetrators keep the responsibility for their own behavior.Ā Don’t take on what belongs to them.
10. Do your healing work – process your trauma, grieve the way it has affected your life.
11. As you heal, be willing to let the resolved issues settle into the past.
12. Fill your life with activities and people that you genuinely like.
Ā
Please let that shame drift far far away……Ā don’t hold on to it.Ā It wasn’t your bad.
I wish you the best in your healing journey.
Warmly,
KathyĀ
Copyright Ā© 2008-2020 Kathy Broady MSW and Discussing Dissociation
Ā
I think the more we discover about all within. The deeper the shame is. I believe also some of the surface shame is not there anymore. I think Shame comes in waves depending on what’s being worked on.
I find shame the most toxic substance ever known. Worse than nuclear waste. It wants to be passed on, too, and fuels future traumas/abuse and self-punishing flashbacks.
The antidote is self-compassion, which is self-understanding, self-acceptance, and self-encouragement.
Itās a practice, like all coping skills.
Others passed shame to you. Return it mentally to them with compassion and focus on ending the cycle.
It makes sense you feel shame for what they did to you. Maybe, like me, your body responded to its biological imperative to enjoy certain sensations. That is understandable.
I accept my childhood body responded as a mammal is expected.
I want to keep noticing my shame and responding with self-compassion. 9/26/18
T. Clark, I applaud your writing! Good job!
Naturluvr 10/1/18
Naturluvr, thank you! Your words made me feel seen. What a gift! 10/2/18
Wow T. Clark,
You certainly hit the nail on the head for me personally. Very insightful and helpful; I’ve never heard it put quite like that before with how to handle shame. Self-compassion and understanding…hmm I definitely need to work on that. How do you even do that!?
Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
MultipleMe
10/3/18
MultipleMe, I read books about it and practice. Iām not very successful yet. Fake it till you make it, is me.
2 titles: _It Wasnāt Your Fault_ by Beverly Engel and _the mindful path to self-compassion_ by Christopher Germer (which Iām reading now).
So hard to change! And yet if we donāt practice, we never will change. If we do practice, we will change. We werenāt born knowing how to do adult stuff.
Iām 46 and have been in therapy for only a few years. I know change takes time and I set the intention to accept me at every stage! 10/4/18
Thanks T. Clark,
I’m going to check those books out. You’re the best! And yes, it’s hard to change. Especially when you don’t recognize you even need to change.
MultipleMe
10/4/18
I’m dealing with a lot of shame. I have insiders that beat the head and it’s embarrassing. I found out in t what a monster we are, yet it’s not supposed to be our fault??? We could have chosen differently than to do the bad stuff. We could choose today but we don’t. So it’s our fault. The shame is our reward for choosing the bad stuff. Shame is our only friend at times, even though it makes us want to throw up.
Dear MultipleMe,
I am so sad to hear you struggling so. You have been such a warm and insightful contributor to our community. I hear such strength and wisdom in your words and value everything that you write here. I sometimes forget about the fragile MultipleMe struggling on her own path to healing. I so wish I could reach out and give you a big hug and tell you that it is not your fault.
ā¦ well ā¦ here it goes virtually ā¦ š¤š¤š¤š¤š¤ āit is not your faultā!
This life that you are struggling with is NOT YOUR FAULT in any way. It never was your fault. It is not now your fault no matter what struggles you are dealing with. The fault is solely on the perpetrators of evil in our lives. It is theirs alone. You DO NOT own any part of the evil done to you.
Those demons of destruction stole our innocence and sense of wholeness, safety, ownership of our bodies/our selves, our trust ā¦ well ā¦ everything even our minds. They left us a confused chaos of conflicting feelings and ways of being. Shame is the colour that they painted us when we were striped naked to life. And, we carry that with us like this indelible coating on our bodies, hearts, minds and souls.
But, shame does not belong to us. It is not our true colour. Our true colour is a rainbow of life, joy, compassion and ā¦most importantly ā¦ self love. I so wish that I could paint everyone here with your true colours but you have to do that for yourselves. I can help hold the paint can, but we each have to do our own work in finding our true colours. And we can do it because we are not alone anymore. We are heard here; seen here; understood here; believed here; supported here; and sincerely thought of with respect and affection here.
I am here holding positive, compassionate space for you dear friend. Keep getting your stuff out here if that helps.
šā¤ļøš«
ME+WE
09/23/18
Thanks ME+WE,
Different parts of us write here at the DD blog, but we don’t change the name we write with because it describes all of us perfectly. So there are a couple of us that write here and one of us struggles immensely with shame, but to be honest we all do. Shame is one of those things that’s hard to get rid of.
It’s hard to hear the muck and gunk come out, whether in flashbacks, dreams or in therapy. It’s there behind the scenes and no matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to get away from it. I’m ashamed that this body did those things, no matter how much we were forced to.
Hi MultipleMe,
I do the same sometimes ā¦ different parts posting but just under my banner. It is all me so I do not distinguish unless an insider wishes to sign as themselves. I am always inspired by them even when I am writing.
Shame is the horrible legacy of abuse. We were tattooed with it it seems by the horrid acts of evil perpetrated on us by others. I so wish that I could rid myself of it as well. Then I feel shame that I have let the littles deal with the trauma while me, the adult, has lived trauma free. We were so damaged that we even take on our abuserās shame as our own. What we were forced to do was not of our making yet we blame ourselves for it. Quite the mind fuck eh?!
ME+WE
09/24/18
ME+WE,
Yes, absolutely. I couldn’t have said it better myself. What I don’t get is why is there so MUCH shame? It’s like the depths of it go on forever and ever and it’s never ending. Accepting that it wasn’t our fault is so hard. I don’t know why. You would think it would be freeing to be rid of the blame. I don’t know. It’s a mystery to me.
My t tells me over and over that it’s not our fault because we didn’t have a good choice. I have a DID friend who says that children don’t have the capacity to not choose life, so it’s not like they could have chosen death over the trauma. Again, I don’t know. It would be interesting to read up on children’s ability (or lack thereof) to process trauma. Not sure it would help or hurt the situation, but anyway, I guess it’s just slowly working through the shame as it comes up. Maybe one day it will take, or maybe it won’t.
MultipleMe
9/25/18
I get it. Sometimes it feels like I am literally drowning in shame.
All of us have it, but some of us are so crushed by it that we canāt breathe.
I wish I had something supportive and kind to say… I think sometimes Iām a person who can say things like that but Iām more on the broken end of things at the moment. But know that I wish I could help.
HazelE,
Just the fact that you said SOMETHING is helpful and supportive.
I hate shame. It isn’t our fault. But I wish there was a magic wand that could wipe it all away or make us believe that it isn’t our fault.
Holy moly I wish that was the case.
Hoping you are not drowning in shame today. You deserve better.
MultipleMe
9/26/18
Hi MultipleMe,
I heard a lecture a few years ago on the development of the human brain. Actually, it was a psychology professor at the university where I taught explaining to us about our studentās brains as young adults ā basically, what we can and cannot expect from our students given their stage of brain development.
Anyway, just think about it. We are not born with a fully-developed adult thinking, reasoning, analytical and rational brain. That takes time, repetitive doing, challenging, school learning and living to do. The neural pathways of the brain take time to develop.
Now, what he said was that the human brain is not fully developed until the age of about 25 ā sometimes younger for girls. That is, until the mid-20s the human brain thinks only in black and white terms ā no grey areas. He also said that there is no sense of consequence. You know ā¦ the idea that young people feel that they are invincible. That is because they do not see consequences. They cannot connect the dots of actions and potential consequences. All they know is that they want to take a certain action not what that might lead to. For example, they might think — I want to go to the pub. A fully developed adult brain would then say ā but I will not have time to get my assignment done ā I will get a zero on the assignment ā I will fail the course ā I canāt go to the pub or I can go for only an hour. But, their brains do not think that way yet. All their brain processes is ā I want to go to the pub.
Now, take this back even farther to the childās brain. We know that in the first five years of life the human brain has to do a remarkable amount of learning including understanding self, oneās place in the world separate from mother, relational concepts, body concepts, boundaries, etc. And, as my T keeps telling me, children think that the world revolves around them and that everything that happens is a direct consequence of them. So, even bad things that happen to the child, they will think that they are somehow responsible for what happened. So, if bad things are happening to them, it must be something that they did ā they are responsible (even though our rational, adult brains understand differently ā but the rational adult thinking brain is way off in the future at this point).
This is a long and head-space way of trying to say that our brains when the abuse was happening to us (and all of the various fall-outs from that abuse) were not capable of distinguishing the bad things as something separate from us. We could not see actions and consequences. We could not distinguish us from them in what was happening. Of course, we were also able to split to survive.
So, here we are with our rational, analytical adult brains and we are thinking āwhy do I feel this way? I know that it was not my fault.ā But, we share these minds and bodies with others many of whom are little and their brain does not function this way ā cannot function that way. So, we need to find a way to help them understand that what happened was not their fault, that we love them and that bad people did bad things to them but never, ever, ever were they bad or deserving or responsible for what happened. We have to draw them into our adult thinking.
This is a tricky task trying to work with a childās brain to find some peace for us all but it is possible. I see glimmerings of understanding with my little ones. The dissociate walls are coming down and some of my rational, adult thinking is creeping in. My T challenges their thinking and opens the door for me to help them see another way. Since we do share my brain, some of my adult thinking capabilities is seeping into their existence I find.
I hope that this helps and not confuse!
ME+WE
09/25/18
ME+WE,
Wow that doesn’t confuse at all. I mean from what I can understand you saying is that a child does not have the capacity to think “Hey! This is not my fault! I did nothing wrong!” They do not have the ability to think in any way else other than black or white thinking. I find it fascinating but sad too. Poor things had no choice. Ok, I’m sort of beginning to see a glimmer of it. Maybe that will grow soon.
MultipleMe
9/26/18
Hi MultipleMe,
My apologies for my late reply here. Yes you have it right as I understand it. A child cannot see that what is happening is not their fault. They will think that it has something to do with them because they are āme-centricā at this point in their brain development. Things happening to them, even bad things, are a consequence of them. They will not look for a why. It just is.
This information works for understanding our teenager alters as well (maybe our outside teenagers too!). They are locked into black and white thinking. Trying to talk to them in āgreyā terms is like speaking a foreign language to them. They just will not get it. So, somehow you have to learn to speak in their terms to help them understand.
Of course, if you are brought up in a loving and supportive environment, you can pass through these stages of the brainās development successfully without residual negatives. But, that was not our situation. So, while our brains may be dominantly āadultā in thinking-mode, we have to work with the parts of our brain (our insiders) who are not.
I hope that this makes sense.
ME+WE
09/29/18
Take your right hand and put it on your left shoulder. Leve it there now take your left hand and put it on your right should. Give it a gentle squeeze
Me+We
What it be nice if it was that easy to say abracadabra, Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo youāre healed you have no more shame.
Sometimes Baby and I pretend that we are normal and we have good parents brothers uncles and friends of the family Then when weāre done playing we hug each other and say. if we were normal we wouldnāt have each other or Sissy Or Mr D or Lori MeanMan LORI2 ( and yes Darcy) even Missy
Hi All,
Okay I am tired — spent from a long week and some big breakthroughs in therapy that I welcome even though they leave me feeling gutted. I have read your responses here Neo (so glad to hear your voice), KenKen (your list was devastating), Dr. D. (so glad that you are feeling comfortable talking with us), and MultipleMe (you have been offering such insight and inspiration on the DD website) and I am in tears (which is a rare commodity for me). I just love you all so much as friends, fellow survivors and companions on the path to healing that it breaks my heart to hear the depth of shame that each of you carries with you every second of your lives. Probably because shame is tattooed on my heart, mind and soul as well. Certainly it has been woven into the body memories and image that I struggle with each and every day.
I so wish that I could take an eraser and wipe the slate clean for each one of us. But, even if I could, the shadow would persist I am afraid. You are all so undeserving of the shame that was put on you. You have NOTHING to feel shame about. I have NOTHING to feel shame about. Oh how I wish that that message could seep into the pours of our being and cleanse our hearts of this most insidious legacy of our abuse.
ME+WE
09/08/18
Hi Neo,
I hear you. Shame is everywhere when it comes to DID. Not only did bad things happen to us, we also now have to endure the shame surrounding everything. It’s exhausting. Shame is a huge part of our lives too, but I’m hoping it won’t be like that forever. I can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror when and if I brush my teeth. I think shame is super sticky and hard to get off. But it can happen when there is acceptance of the body and the parts and the roles that were forced on us.
DID can be very isolating IRL, because who can we really trust to tell all the junk too? Who will believe us and who will run away? But there always seems to be at least one person around who will listen, right? If not, there is journaling, online friends, and so forth. I feel shame about having a DID friend that I talk to practically every day. It’s embarrassing, but it’s nice to have someone to talk to about stuff that only DID people will understand.
I just wanted to write you and let you know that you’re not alone because I feel a lot of shame too. I even feel ashamed for feeling shame! It’s so frustrating.
Wishing freedom from the burden,
MultipleMe
9/7/18
Just wondering if others experience shame as a result of being DID. For example, the shame I feel when I come back to a conversation and hear laughter that is coming from me, but doesn’t sound like me and I have no clue if the laughter is even appropriate for the conversation because I haven’t been present.
Or wearing a dress and having boy parts triggered and hearing horrible things said inside, a level of venomous self hatred that is hard to deal with being overwhelmed with shame.
Or shame felt because I can’t share my internal experiences with others because they are so different and people don’t understand parts or being dissociative and immediately think I am crazy.
Or shame at not having a loving family when so many people talk about their wonderful relationships with their families or spend so much time with their loving family.
I guess being dissociative feels so very isolating and that adds to the shame.
I don’t feel overwhelming shame about what happened to me, but I have a lot of shame around who I am as a result of what happened to me.
Oh man!
Shame for the feelings I have, don’t know if they are appropriate in context.
Shame of my body. What we have done to it. Never look at it. Self-inflicted scars everywhere.
Shame of the poverty we live in. Never could hold a job and we live the effects of it in every aspect of our life.
Shame of being isolated.
Shame of not being “normal”
Shame at the constant hospitalizations and instability.
Shame of being uneducated.
Shame of our survival.
Shame of not being tough enough.
Shame that we were homeless a few times.
Shame of our out of control behavior.
Shame of the depression and hopelessness.
Shame that we never had money to see a dentist so now we have no back teeth.
Shame of what goes on in our internal worlds. Cant talk about it cuz no one would understand.
Shame of needing each other and our internal world just to stay sane. Otherwise the isolation would kill us.
Shame of not being good enough for family. Or friends.
Shame of social anxieties, and agoraphobia.
Shame of our mental illness. We also dont talk to outside people because we get written off as schizophrenic and that seems to make outsiders just overlook us in every way. Look right through us, ignore what we say, etc.
The one that you wrote that made me cry was the shame at not having a loving family. People say family is everything, you’re nothing without family. Soo, in that judgement, we are nothing. Never have been anything. It’s the most painful feeling, not being wanted by our family. Even though our entire family is batshit crazy, being rejected by them is a soul deep pain. And shame.
Not an exhaustive list cuz shame is the thing that makes me feel the worst, absolutely hopeless.
Neo and KenKen,
You have written down so much honesty, some shame you have, I share, then I have my own shame as well.
Shame the may Name is Mr D Is short for Devil
Shame because I am male in a female body
Shame that when Iām with a women she thinks Iām another women because that what she sees.
Shame that Iām tricking these women into believing that I am women .
Same that when I am out and need to pee, Iām in a female bathroom.
Shame that all this make me feel like a predator when Iām not.
shame is all i have.
i am the ugly, fat, teenager with braces that everyone makes fun of.
my dad calls me Shamu.
my whole family makes fun of me.
i wish i was pretty.
Hi Jesla,
Well, I am a 63-year-old woman āof physical substanceā (I do not like or identify with the words fat or obese). I once was a little girl and then teenager āof physical substanceā who was ridiculed, shunned, made fun of, did not feel pretty, was berated by my father (who drew a hideous cartoon of naked, fat me that he posted on the fridge door with a diet chart when I was 8 years old), and screamed at by my mother who once told me at aged 16 that, āno man will ever sacrifice himself to you looking the way that you doā.
I was shamed.
Still feel shame.
Am still trying to overcome the shame.
Trying to love my body for what it is and how it has helped me to survive.
Oh yes and, while surviving with a body that others thought was fat and ugly and worthy of shaming, I went to university (including graduate school); have had a successful career; found friends some of whom are also women āof physical substanceā, some not; made a difference where I could; and found a man who was very willing to āsacrificeā himself to me for 39 years.
Bottom line Jesla ā¦ you are so much more than what others see. You are unique, beautiful, worthy and cared for here (whether you are a front or insider).
With sincere regard,
ME+WE
07/03/18
thanks. but i really am not. no one knows me. i cant think of the last time i talked to an outside person. so nobody cares about me and iām definitly not worthy, and my family hates teenagers. i dont have any outside friends anymore. shame and secrets is all i have. i hate my body, and especially my face.
sorry dumb response probably.
someone said its ok to write here but theyre not someone i trust and i dont know them personaly so i dont know if theyre even telling the truth or not.
sometimes the shame i wear feels like it suffocates me.
i cant get out from under it because its from so many things and so many people.
13 years ago this month i checked into a hospital. it was for people with DID.
i am still so ashamed.
especially because one of the therapists there was especially good at being mean and worked hard at getting people to feel ashamed. and bad. and guilty. for everything under the sun. none of us ever had the guts to stand up to her because she was so scary. And our own therapist at home at the time was often like that too. she liked to get us to feel bad. i guess she thouht that was helpful.
but being at that hospital made the shame lots worse.
caden has been trying to convince me that it was a long time ago, and we are not that person any more. she says we should let it go.
but i cannot let it go. it feels like that hospital stay still hange over my head like a sign that says i am stupid, a loser, a bad person. i feel like i should stay ashamed. i want to believe caden but i dont know if its ok to.
Keith Smith; kudos to you. I wish you the best.
Pilgrim; learn to care about. Yourself as you are worth it.
Shame is hard to deal with; it kills us each day and is useless
Ike guilt and self damaging to our psyche.
I’m still learning how to deal with mine.
But what if you do relly be a bad person
What if it relly do be you fallt
What if relly you do diserf it
How you supost to not be shamd if you relly got to be?
We cant get awaey from shame because shame just IS us and we is it.
We diserve to be shamed
Espeshally lately
We wish you could too. This is an very hard topic for us and one we run away from. Don’t really know how to “do” those types of feelings yet. That is a very deep bottomless well……..
Reblogged this on Discussing Dissociation and commented:
Trauma survivors often carry so much shame….. I wish I could lift that right off your shoulders and toss it away, far far away.
Maybe some of the ideas in this article will help.
I wish you the best in your healing journey.
Warmly,
Kathy
it feels like shame just sits on top of me like a giant
black cement block. i feel so trapped.
i feel so stupid and embrassed and ashamed all the time.
i’m embarassed to even be writing this here
i know how bad i am and how many things i do wrong.
i’m so ashamed of
the things my eyes have seen and the things my ears have heard
and the things i had to do and the things that happened that
i can’t even stand myself š theres too much shame on me that
i dont even feel like a person anymore
i wish i could disappear…it feels like shame just swallows me up
jodie
i wish i could stop feeling so ashamed. but i don’t know if i’m allowed to or if i have a right to. so much of what happened was all my fault.
i’m not brave. i can’t get the words out.
but i still live in, right in the middle of it all, what happened. i can still see it around me all the time. i don’t know how to get out of it. i do want out of it, i hate it, but i don’t know how… i feel trapped.
WOW, Keith.
My name is Keith Smith. I was abducted, beaten and raped by a stranger. It wasn’t a neighbor, a coach, a relative, a family friend or teacher. It was a recidivist pedophile predator who spent time in prison for previous sex crimes; an animal hunting for victims in the quiet suburbs of Lincoln, Rhode Island.
I was able to identify the guy and the car he was driving. He was arrested and indicted but never went to trial. His trial never took place because he was brutally beaten to death in Providence before his court date. 34 years later, no one has ever been charged with the crime.
In the time between the night of my assault and the night he was murdered, I lived in fear. I was afraid he was still around town. Afraid he was looking for me. Afraid he would track me down and kill me. The fear didnāt go away when he was murdered. Although he was no longer a threat, the simple life and innocence of a 14-year-old boy was gone forever. Carefree childhood thoughts replaced with the unrelenting realization that my world wasnāt a safe place. My peace shattered by a horrific criminal act of sexual violence.
Over the past 34 years, Iāve been haunted by horrible, recurring memories of what he did to me. He visits me in my sleep. There have been dreamsānightmares actuallyādozens of them, sweat inducing, yelling-in-my-sleep nightmares filled with images and emotions as real as they were when it actually happened. It doesnāt get easier over time. Long dead, he still visits me, silently sneaking up from out of nowhere when I least expect it. From the grave, he sits by my side on the couch every time the evening news reports a child abduction or sex crime. I donāt watch Americaās Most Wanted or Law and Order SVU, because the stories are a catalyst, triggering long suppressed emotions, feelings, memories, fear and horror. Real life horror stories rip painful suppressed memories out from where they hide, from that recessed place in my brain that stores dark, dangerous, horrible memories. It happened when William Bonin confessed to abducting, raping and murdering 14 boys in California; when Jesse Timmendequas raped and murdered Megan Kanka in New Jersey; when Ben Ownby, missing for four days, and Shawn Hornbeck, missing for four years, were recovered in Missouri.
Despite what happened that night and the constant reminders that continue to haunt me years later, I wouldnāt change what happened. The animal that attacked me was a serial predator, a violent pedophile trolling my neighborhood in Lincoln, Rhode Island looking for young boys. He beat me, raped me, and I stayed alive. I lived to see him arrested, indicted and murdered. It might not have turned out this way if he had grabbed one of my friends or another kid from my neighborhood. Perhaps heād still be alive. Perhaps there would be dozens of more victims and perhaps he would have progressed to the point of silencing his victims by murdering them.
Out of fear, shame and guilt, Iāve been silent for over three decades, not sharing with anyone the story of what happened to me. No more. The silence has to end. What happened to me wasn’t my fault. The fear, the shame, the guilt have to go. Itās time to stop keeping this secret from the people closest to me, people I care about, people I love, my long-time friends and my family. Itās time to speak out to raise public awareness of male sexual assault, to let other survivors know that theyāre not alone and to help survivors of rape and violent crime understand that the emotion, fear and memories that may still haunt them are not uncommon to those of us who have shared a similar experience.
My novel, Men in My Town, was inspired by these actual events. Men in My Town is available now at http://www.Amazon.com
For those who suffer in silence, I hope my story brings some comfort, strength, peace and hope.
For additional information, please visit the Men in My Town blog at http://www.meninmytown.wordpress.com
wow. what a great article.
i sometimes think our shame is painted all over us, something neon and sparkling that can be seen from space. i don’t always know how people can see us through it.
i’m going to have to read that article several hundred more times.
thanks.
Hi outsiderinside,
Thanks for your comment. I’m glad you found this article to be helpful for you. For me, this article is one of those articles that could be stretched out another 3 or 4 pages. SOOO much to say… but maybe more in time.
One of the biggest clues is to not blame yourself (thus feeling shame about yourself) for the bad stuff that your abusers did. Give all that responsibility back to them and remember they committed heinous crimes when they were abusing you. The shame belongs to their behavior — not to you.
Good luck in your healing journey, and keep working at it — you’ll get thru’ it….
Kathy
Hi outsiderinside,
Thanks for your comment. I’m glad you found this article to be helpful for you. For me, this article is one of those articles that could be stretched out another 3 or 4 pages. SOOO much to say… but maybe I’ll say more in time.
One of the biggest clues is to not blame yourself (thus feeling shame about yourself) for the bad stuff that your abusers did. Give all that responsibility back to them and remember they committed heinous crimes when they were abusing you. The shame belongs to their behavior — not to you. Doing things to “please” the abusers was a survival tactic, and still – the shame goes back to the abusers for demanding that you do such things in the first place.
So work hard at keep it straight for what belongs to them from what actually belongs to you.
Good luck in your healing journey, and keep working at it — you’ll get thru’ it….
Kathy
Yes, adults knew, and tried to do something about it, but were unable to change the situation.
I don’t think I deserved to have my life threatened, and yes, I do think the other kids probably knew that was wrong. But as far as the continual social ostracism and bullying … I could have changed that, I think, and didn’t; I was too stubborn. It was a choice I made, and to some extent, I think I bear the responsibility for that.
Unfortunately, being yourself does come with consequences, regardless of how old a person is. Either it’s worth the cost, or it’s not, you know?
David you were being true to yourself, why should you change who you are to fit in etc, I tell my kids to be true to themselves, and if that means you are not a sheep so be it. But I also tell them being different does not deserve being bullied or threatened etc.
Although yes kids dont necessarily know better about many things, they know threatening someones life is wrong dont they ???
What about adults that knew this was happening to you and did nothing and I am asking this not knowing if adult knew or not ???
I dont think it was your fault at all.
Hmmm. This is a topic I can’t ever really get my head around. I wasn’t sexually abused, but I was targeted in other ways. If I’d been a different kid, I wouldn’t have attracted negative attention. I don’t think I’d go so far as to say I deserved it, but certainly the fact of how I was in the world was what attracted the abuse. So I do think it was my fault. I was primarily abused by other children, so I can’t say I was preyed upon by adults who should have known better.
Looking back at myself as a kid, I can see pretty clearly why I was persecuted. I also think I had a choice about whether to modify my behavior to fit in better than I did, and I consistently chose not to. I didn’t deserve to have my life repeatedly threatened in school, but … I do think I was partly responsible for what happened.
I don’t think this is true of children who are sexually victimized by or physically/emotionally abused by adults, however.
Shame is so huge for me. I feel dirty and disgusting and evil. The W word comes to mind. The M word too. (I try not to say or type them as it sets people off in here).
I can get that it wasn’t my fault. But for some reason that just doesn’t seem to negate the fact that we did it. We did those horrible disgusting evil things.
Makes me feel borken and unfixable and unloveable.
Gonna stop now before I start crying
I agree with a lot of the above comments.
You can know something logically but not emotionally. You can look at a young child and see that the blame wouldnt belong to them, if they were hurt.
But applying that to yourself, can be close to impossible.
It is like changing the very core of you. Rewiring all those early brain connections.
Can be done, I guess but I think it would take constant work.
Maybe one day I can at least learn not to listen to them so much.
Thanks for the great post
KB
Thanks again. The post is jammed packed with good info and makes one think deeper, always a good one for folks on the D-train. We can get stuck in avoidance pretty darn hard.
Shame is is used to own folks, it’s one of the best ways to tie a person up in knots that can take years and years of talk-doccing before it even gets broken and then there’s all the untangling. It’s like a huge ball of rubberbands or twine. When you first look all you see is the brown ball, then you realize there’s separate pieces, you pick at it and then realize some are different colors, then you start removing and untangling.
The untangling is daunting.
Shame is brutal. Just down right brutal. It’s a long rode back from the twisted logic and emotional torture used to create this ball of shame. It’s heart breaking to SEE what our inside children suffer, but we must bare witness just the same as our talk-doc, without our “seeing” what was done in our own country (body) we let the abusers rule our earth. That’s unacceptable.
Truth…. It’s not easy.
Ravin
Oh, thanks rdrunner. I think I have a quite similar problem. In my head I know that I’m not guilty. They have forced us with most crude violence and torture to do what they want. We had no possibility to defend ourselves or to say no. We certainly wouldn’t live any more.
The problem are the feelings. Feelings which come probably from others parts of my internal system. I often cannot recognise reliable, where some feelings come from, from which parts. This is still very difficult for me, because I haven’t recognize all parts of my internal system. I must try to give these thoughts and knowledge inside to all. Hope this helps (and the self injuries are somewhat less)
Thanks Kathy for the answer and especially the answer to rdrunner. It has helped me too š
Thank you for this post. It’s great. It’s so important to learn how to handle with such strong and overpowering feelings.
(and for me the feeling of guilt is actually still much more difficult to endure as shame). Sometimes I can’t handle it and then I still punish me for what happened š
Hi Lostshadowchild —
Thanks for your comment —
Why do you punish yourself for what happened?
How is it your fault?
If you weren’t “too blame” for the abuse, who’s fault would it be?
If you weren’t guilty for the abuse, who would be the guilty person?
Maybe… just maybe, it’s not actually your fault.
Kathy
Wow….Truly an important post to read, contemplate, reread, print out – and stick to ones forehead…………well, maybe not the forehead as the whole point of the post does explain why in fact continuing to try to avoid this stuff, is ironically precisely what is keeping it going inside.
So actually the post is about why one needs to face this in order to be capable of moving on, actually even beginning to have a future sense…
Quite an important post to contemplate. Thank you Kathy.
Thanks Dollswise –
Glad you are finding meaning and importance in this post.
You’ve caught an important point of healing — the more people avoid their feelings, or avoid the reality of what happened, or avoid knowing how they were hurt or who they were hurt by, the more the stuff stays stuck inside.
By having the courage to face the reality about WHO the perpetrators are and what they did — the survivor can find their freedom and move on. Children naturally blame themselves and internalize the negatives said to them by the abusers. But as an adult survivor – it really is ok to look honestly at what happened. Have the courage to really see what happened…
And – it’s ok to not protect the perpetrator anymore… Survivors don’t have to take on the blame for themselves that actually belongs to the abusers….
Keep contemplating — and tape things to your forehead if you really need to. š
Kathy
“…and they have a sense of accomplishment for completing various sexual tasks, no matter how extreme…”
This is VERY difficult for us to accept. We can remember wanting our abuser to be happy with us for pleasing him, wanting their approval, really.
The very thought that we behaved in such a way is confusing and very troubling.
It creates a core of shame.
What if you know the difference between then and now, know what they did was wrong in the rational sense but you still don’t feel that ?. I tell myself that it was not my fault etc everyday with the hope that one day I will finally believe it. For me the rational thoughts and feelings do not match up what so ever and this makes me feel like even a bigger failure in that no matter what I do I cant make myself not feel the shame. We have no abusers in our life , we are considered high functioning although only at the beginning of finally having the right dx. T says I am a trauma part that has become a helper..but I cant even help myself in regards to the feelings never mind any of the others.
On second thoughts maybe I am not letting myself feel anything which is why I can’t let them go. My emotional IQ must be like 10.:)
rdrunner —
Here are my thoughts — look deeper inside your system. It sounds to me like you are hitting the stuff on an intellectual level – because in your head you know things were not your fault. But, look deeper in your system and find the ones that hold more of the feelings — the feelings that things were their fault.
Chances are — this will be a younger part (or parts) — or at least be sure to look at your younger ones — the ones that truly “FEEL like” the abuse was their fault. Find the ones that were told that directly by the abusers and believed it (in my experience, abusers will be sure to drill it into their victim’s head that it is their fault for the abuse). Look to see if there is someone who has very specific memory material were they were blamed by the abusers.
Talk to those parts – examine their situation very closely. Explore their memory with them. Do you believe that it was their fault? Do you think they did something to “cause” or “create” or “deserve” the abuse? Be very honest with yourself. If you can find a time or a place where you do blame yourself, or if any of your internal system parts blame themselves, then work more at those points right there.
I’m guessing that your “block” is not on the surface layers. Look deeper inside your system, and you’ll find something. And then… explore how you “agree” with it, even if you hadn’t realized you did.
Hope that helps –
Kathy
This is a truly excellent, excellent post.
Just the word “shame” is so strong, so deep.
The words escape me.
Very Powerful. Should be required reading
for everybody that has had these types of
experiences.