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
Thoughts from a DID Systems Specialist
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
One of the hardest areas of healing work in trauma disorders is dealing with shame.…
Something to think about. You might assume you know all the basics for successful DID…
This is incredible painting about Dissociative Identity Disorders shows very much about how it feels…
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Good article.
If there was no such thing as shame, there would be no such thing as me.
It fills me up. Its all i am.
Jodie
Pilgrim, please don’t give up on you. There is no other you; you’re the only one we have. Please send the shame back onto the head of the one who hurt you…..
It’s not your fault. The crazy people hurt you; not the other way around. Hold your head up high and be proud of yourself for surviving.
Yeah shame is HUGE…I’m just realizing how Big. What I went into therapy about 49 years ago, I still can’t talk about now! I’ve been diagnosed with DID for 30 years. As I went on a quest last week to try to figure this out… I realized it was all about SHAME..I’ve been increasingly suicidal the last 2 years. I did not know why.. why did I shut down, why did I give up my will to live, why am I stuck? That’s when I realized, the stuff I went into Therapy about 49 years ago, I still can’t talk about today!!! As I studied and researched shame, it brought me to my first abuse memory, one I’m not so connected to, but as I took a deeper look at who I’ve been calling “little little baby linda” my 4 yr old me, I’ve seen the beginning of shame and how we became shame, then the timeline of how with every other trauma the shame grew and grew. This has been a gut wrenching horrific painful experience… But maybe just maybe it can be opening the door a crack to start healing. It’s been almost 50 years and took me almost to death to get here. I can only believe It’s in God’s time and maybe it’s not too late for me. Maybe it’s also because I have built in place a Therapist, Trauma Therapist And Psychiatrist, a great team I finally feel safe with. As I realized it’s about the shame, I’ve finally been able to write some about it and even share some with my team. They gave me praise love compassion and support, acknowledging the great courage it took to be so afraid yet trust them. Neither of them thought I was bad or disgusting to tell them stuff but said they want to be a safe place for me to share my pain and thanked me for trusting them.
I Love this Discussing Dissociation site, a place to learn and share and fit in. Huge Thank You to Kathy and her staff. And an extra Special Public thanks to Alex who I’ve had several email conservations with lately, I So appreciate your kindness and support for me during this incredibly painful time…hopefully at some time I’ll be able to say this time of growth. I so needed your support, compassion and encouragement… I’m sure others with a lifetime of abuse bad enough to cause DID will understand as I have and how Kathy wrote here…
SHAME is huge I’m now working to be a “SHAMEBUSTER”
Nope, Linda! We don’t think it is too late for you! It is VERY important to have around you people you can trust – so you can be REALLY real….We have watched our T again and again for any signs of shock or disgust with anything we have told her….also whether or not she thinks we are from Pluto and making it all up….the fact that she is still there and STILL hearing us is HUGE and gives us the courage to keep stepping forward a fraction of an inch at at time into our healing……
We haven’t connected with shame so much yet…it is still mostly confusion and fear…we still struggle with denial…..you give us hope that we will get to where we need to be……Glad you have such an awesome team…..
And glad this site is here, too…..the only place outside of my T once a week (and some conversations with my sister who struggles as well) that I can feel “real”……everywhere else in my life it is still a struggle to “hide” stuff and look “normal”……..
MissyMing
02/18/20
Such an important topic and so incredible what you have written here Linda and MissyMing. I am a bit blown away that I should be discovering this conversation today because I just had a session with my Somatic Coach and the topic of shame came up. I said that shame was painted on to me by my abusers and that I cannot seem to wash it off. The thing is it is their shame that got painted on to me NOT my shame. Yet I am the one who carries the mark and tries to hide it for fear that the people in my life will see it and shun me because of it.
I am working hard to see that the shame does not belong to me. The more that I talk about my truth, the more the shame starts to diminish. It is not gone but it is not as vibrant on my life as it used to be. I personally feel that breaking the silence is what brings in the light in to fade the shame into just a faint shadow of what was.
03/04/20
Yup…breaking the silence is powerful. We are still in the process of learning to recognize triggers that can happen when we “talk”….parts who panic, run, and hide…waves of confusion and an “unknown” fear that slams us…..emotional exhaustion that wipes out our body and we “pass out” in the truck after a session – unable to leave our T’s parking lot for 45 minutes….things we are learning to recognize as “belonging” to a “part”….NOT just Outside us in the present…..
Our “head” knows that the “parts” are part of US….we are still working on making the connection that THEIR story is actually OURS as well…..it just takes time and patience to get those walls to start cracking….indeed – “denial” is the very foundation of our struggle……
This journey is so uniquely “weird”….we initially feel the impacts of triggerings that totally impact our Outside lives – thinking there is something “wrong” with us….then we have to start seeing that those triggerings are carried by “parts” and we have to start listening to and looking at their story….and then we have to come back full circle seeing that those “parts” are part of US….their story is actually OUR story…..a very interesting journey indeed!……
Anyway…that’s how it seems to me….maybe it’s just how my journey goes because there are more flashes than “brain memory”…….
MissyMing
03/05/20
What you have written here really resonates with me MissyMing. I am going to bring the discussion to Our Normal Complicated Selves because I think that there is an important topic regarding acceptance in what you have written here. BTW — I usually collapse after my sessions and have a big sleep. It is like my brain needs down time to process all that has been awakened.
Aww I just wrote out a whole big message and it accidentally got erased…bummer
So I’ll just say now thanks for your comments I’ll write again..,
Linda
Oooooo….been THERE…done THAT, Linda….NOT fun!!!
MissyMing
03/08/20