Shame

[hummm_mabbe]

i once had unconditional love and acceptance with bill but that feels like a lifetime ago and left when he died as if it never existed i have shame to my core and the shame of who i am drives me to run grom m feelings and to drink and want to self destuct and kill myself i dont know that i can ever get over this and it scares me i dont know that i deserve to and i believe that i think secretly i wish to die just not were ill get blamed for doing it on purpose and its all tied to my shame

Huggles. I am going to do a thing now. K here we go.

It is absolutely right that you would feel this way right now, after all this is how life has always been. Right now you are having to take a leap of faith and just belive what other people are telling you about what the way out is. It doesnt matter how much you trust the other person, if your heart has not felt what they are talking about, your heart will not yet trust what they are saying, and it will still feel afraid. This can only change with experience and time, and so healing. However, right now I can see good things which even though I know they cant take away all the fear and hurt, may at some level bring a little sparkle:

1) You have felt unconditional love - with Bill. That proves you can feel it, it proves that its out there.

2) You can see that shame makes you run from your feelings. This should give you a good idea of what way you might go to get better.

3) Your ability to gain insight is extremely good, which bodes well for getting better. You are willing to look there, even though it hurts. You are insightful AND courageous, and that is a great combination.

[jades]

thanks rossie i just read the article too its becoming clearer and it blows my mind i think i can make it in time yes i think i can but it will require baby steps looking in the mirror is still hard but it does get a little easier each day i get sober just wish i had a majic mirror that took off 40 lbs :lol:

[hummm_mabbe]

thanks rossie i just read the article too its becoming clearer and it blows my mind i think i can make it in time yes i think i can but it will require baby steps looking in the mirror is still hard but it does get a little easier each day i get sober just wish i had a majic mirror that took off 40 lbs

I wanna lose weight too, so lemme borrow the mirror after pls

Ok thanks :)

[hummm_mabbe]

Well, now you got me thinking about this, and so I found this:

http://www.columbiapsych.com/shame_miller.html

and thought it was quite interesting. Hope you already hadn't posted this link.

What was it that you found interesting, Jenga?

Ross

[jades]

ok maybe i should start a business then we can admire ourselves all day long :wub:

[jades]

ps shame on u for trying to tak my majic mirror i saw that lol :lol:

[hummm_mabbe]

ps shame on u for trying to tak my majic mirror i saw that lol

Lol wheeee

[jades]

u better run lol im gonna get u come back here u :lol:

[jades]

hug bandit xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xx

[Roses]

I always feel I have to be pretty to be accepted (going back in conversation to Rossy-bunny saying he has to be clever and put on clever face). I always feel I have to be attractive, slim and sexy to be accepted. One of my BIG fears is that as I get older I will get uglier and fatter and that my hubbie will not love me anymore.

[walker]

well i feel shame

my head screams it

and i see it in the mirror

gave up bothering

stuff my facee with food full of hate

have tried sometimes

thought i looked good

lostweight

was pretty once

but i know even when i was thin and pretty i still felt bad so whts the point

[hummm_mabbe]

I always feel I have to be pretty to be accepted (going back in conversation to Rossy-bunny saying he has to be clever and put on clever face). I always feel I have to be attractive, slim and sexy to be accepted. One of my BIG fears is that as I get older I will get uglier and fatter and that my hubbie will not love me anymore.

Aww thank u for replying to that bit, I felt a bit silly ....

But yeh, its such a double edged sword. I mean, at school, I was praised by teachers and kind of came up to mums expectations, but because my teachers always held me up as an example, well thats a great way to make friends, isnt it? So I became isolated, and in my area they hate the 11 plus, which I was the only boy in my area to pass. After that, I had peoples parents abusing me in the street, and one kid even threw a brick at me.

I have alwsys felt such acute shame over it, yet at the same time its the only thing Ive always had - my intelligence. Its my cover for shame, but at the same time makes me be shamed. Sometimes my shame makes me act arrogant, even though i dont realiee I am doing it, it just feels like I 'have to' or something.

Even writing this thread, I started to get nervous because it was getting 'too many' responses and I thought it would make someone angry and attack me. I went to Sainsburys feeling nervous because I thought I woud come back and find a reply telling me I was stuck up or something, I suppose when i cant 'see' the audience, like here online, I project all that self shame out there and so expect everyone to feel that way about me.

Its horrible, but so automatic. Thats why I need to tell my T and have her accept me, and show me that its ok. I know its just a reaction to shame, and that eventually when I feel close to people and part of humanity again, then I wont feel so wedded to my intellect as being 'my worth'. Thats the hard thing - when you tell people that, they say "oh well you dont need to feel ashamed", or "well sometimes other people cant help it if they see you as arrogant, so maybe you can change your behaviour". Ive heard that before - its not the behaviour that needs to change, its the chronic sense of shame and worthlessness - once that changes, the automatic behaviour isnt needed anymore, just like what happened back in 2003 in therapy

Like in the article, to be told "you dont need to be ashamed" however well meaning, feels like more shame - like its saying "you have no reason to have that emotional response, so therefore you should stop". Its invalidation, because clearly I CANT stop despite many years of trying

Its like with any compulsive behaviour, like drugs, booze, etc - its the one thing a person knows that will soothe them, or the one thing that they know gives them value, and so its like opening yourself up to the vacuum of space to give it up, if you havent found something healthy to replace it. It really is the vicious cirlce of shame that keep me stuck in the same self-damaging cycles.

And 'being clever' is only one of those cycles. The rest are all to do with shame, but a bit different.

Poo

[jades]

roses i think ur husband will have no problem he loves the u inside i once was a stripper and at one point with bill im embarrased to say i got up to 300 lbs and he looked right passed it hugs

[Roses]

My Mum had the 11+ thing as she went to grammar school and got dumped by all her friends on the estate cos they had a problem with it. I got IQ 138 so know how it feels to be the freaky intelligent one. A lot of expectations were put on me and when I failed to meet them the shame was like ice crystals being nailed into my chest because I knew I was capable of much more but the comment that will haunt me to my grave was "is that all you got"? when I told them my results.

[Roses]

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

For thou are more fair and more temperate.

Rought winds doth shake the darling buds of May,

and summer's lease hath far too short a stay.

- William Shakespeare

[hummm_mabbe]

My Mum had the 11+ thing as she went to grammar school and got dumped by all her friends on the estate cos they had a problem with it. I got IQ 138 so know how it feels to be the freaky intelligent one. A lot of expectations were put on me and when I failed to meet them the shame was like ice crystals being nailed into my chest because I knew I was capable of much more but the comment that will haunt me to my grave was "is that all you got"? when I told them my results.

Ohhh myyyy god

I am havin a funnie moment

Youa re prolly the only person, ever, who I feel knows what that was like. People tend to just think "oh well you were clever and got the good school, so what do you have to complain about?", but miss the fact that it cut me off from a community - thats what happened, overnight I was hated not just by kids but by adults too.

I have always felt utterly alone with it, and yes I basiclly lived near an estate, which was next to the shcool and so most of the kids were from there. It was like there was always a current of it, and one day everything totally changed. I think it was the day that things finally started to die inside, like everything else had just reached such a point.

[hummm_mabbe]

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

For thou are more fair and more temperate.

Rought winds doth shake the darling buds of May,

and summer's lease hath far too short a stay.

- William Shakespeare

Lol Im gonna pretend that was for me ... :)

[jades]

i have high iq too and ive always been ashamed of it and tried to hide it u think that could be a link to why we were smart enough to realize so young we werent getting what we needed?

[hummm_mabbe]

My Mum had the 11+ thing as she went to grammar school and got dumped by all her friends on the estate cos they had a problem with it. I got IQ 138 so know how it feels to be the freaky intelligent one. A lot of expectations were put on me and when I failed to meet them the shame was like ice crystals being nailed into my chest because I knew I was capable of much more but the comment that will haunt me to my grave was "is that all you got"? when I told them my results.

And yes the same thing with results. I got a B in my geography exam, and was taken into an office and told that it wasnt good enough, that I was doing the schools reputation damage by not working hard enough.

I was being bullied the whole time I was there, and my mum wouldnt listen or help, said I was being too sensitive. Was getting beaten up, had awful stomach aches and headaches, and she accused me of taking drugs. When my mock results came in, she told me I was wasting my 'gift' and didnt have to work as hard as my sister, and it wasnt fair she had to work so hard and I was bad for not 'trying' hard enough.

She sent me for a drugs test, even though I told ger again and again I was being bullied, and she didnt listen - just "you must be on drugs because you seem lethargic and angry". The results came back clear, and mum realised what a stupid bitch she had been, then promptly did next to fuck all to help me. Bullying finally ended in my last year at the school, by which time all the personality disrder things were already there, makes me so angry.

[hummm_mabbe]

i have high iq too and ive always been ashamed of it and tried to hide it u think that could be a link to why we were smart enough to realize so young we werent getting what we needed?

Its like when you go blind - your hearing gets better. If you lose the function of one part of the body, another gets stronger to compensate.

Ears cant make you REALLY see though

If you know what I mean

[Roses]

Who says it wasn't for you?

Love is not love which alters when alteration finds,

or bends with the remover to remove.

Oh no, it is an ever fixed mark.

[Roses]

I'm sorry you were bullied at school and at home too. I am glad that my revealing some stuff has helped you feel less alone but I am sorry you had to go through that. xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[hummm_mabbe]

Who says it wasn't for you?

Love is not love which alters when alteration finds,

or bends with the remover to remove.

Oh no, it is an ever fixed mark.

English literature was a subject I performed 'as expected' in, but I still get confused by poetry

Mabbe becuz I am emotionally dumb ... i am soo literal, engineer brain, cant figure out poet-ty stuffz.

Thought I was autistic once, but am not. S ok.

<_<

[hummm_mabbe]

I'm sorry you were bullied at school and at home too. I am glad that my revealing some stuff has helped you feel less alone but I am sorry you had to go through that. xxxxxxxxxxxxx

I suppose it feels like something that 'just was' - I think I am still detached from it. I know it hurt, very much so, but when I talk about it its like it happened to someone else, and I know that means I am shutting out the emotions of it.

Its like "well really you got what you deserved, what was coming to you", or mums favourite line "you are suffering for your gift". She was always the martyr type, and it was like suffering was a badge of honour. Must be why she was always telling us how bad her life was every 5 minutes.

[Roses]

I know someone like that. If you've got a headache she's got a bloody brain tumor! Jesus, why do they do it? Like they feel so inadequate they want to share some of it with us by totally invalidating the fact that we are feeling how we are.

With regards to poetry and engineering - I don't get engineering at all. Physics, forget it! I can change a lightbulb and make a basic circuit but apart from that count me OUT. Gives me the brain-acheys ouch. Am not a logical type. You can be Yin and I'll be Yang. Together we can rule the world - haha!!!!