Toxic Shame: The Fuel for All Disorders pt II

Shame As Self-Alienation And Isolation
When one suffers from alienation, it means that one experiences parts of one's self as alien to one's self.
For example, if you were never allowed to express anger in your family, your anger becomes an alienated part of yourself. You experience toxic shame when you feel angry. This part of you must be disowned or severed. There is no way to get rid of your emotional power of anger. Anger is the self preserving and self-protecting energy. Without this energy you become a doormat and a people-pleaser. As your feelings, needs and drives are bound by toxic shame, more and more of you is alienated.

Finally, when shame has been completely internalized, nothing about you is okay. You feel flawed and inferior; you have the sense of being a failure. There is no way you can share your inner self because you are an object of contempt to yourself. When you are contemptible to yourself, you are no longer in you. To feel shame is to feel seen in an exposed and diminished way When you're an object to yourself, you turn your eyes inward, watching and scrutinizing every minute detail of behavior. This internal critical observation is excruciating. It generates a tormenting self-consciousness described as, "creating a binding and paralyzing effect upon the self." This paralyzing internal monitoring causes withdrawal, passivity and inaction. In the "anonymous" groups this is called the hamster wheel or monkey mind. It requires so much energy just to survive and for many they cannot turn it off. Toxic shame is fueling this like gas fuels a fire!

The severed parts of self are projected in relationships. They are often the basis of hatred and prejudice. The severed parts of the self may be experienced as a split personality or even multiple personalities. This happens often with victims who have been through physical and sexual violation.

To be severed and alienated within oneself also creates a sense of unreality. One may have an all-pervasive sense of never quite belonging, of being on the outside looking in. The condition of inner alienation and
isolation is also pervaded by a low grade chronic depression. This has to do with the sadness of losing one's authentic self. Perhaps the deepest and most devastating aspect of neurotic shame is the rejection of the self by the self.

For me personally, this describes a huge component of my existence. Feeling "lost" and "disconnected" looking at life "through a lens." When I was in college I wanted to be a cinematographer and was drawn to photography. This is how deep shame can embed itself, even being the motivation for a career. 

Shame As False Self
Because the exposure of self to self lies at the heart of neurotic shame, escape from the self is necessary. The escape from self is accomplished by creating a false self. The false self is always more or less than human. The false self may be a perfectionist or a slob, a family Hero or a family Scapegoat. As the false self is formed, the authentic self goes into hiding. Years later the layers of defense and pretense are so intense that one loses all awareness of who one really is. Again, this is the "logic behind the insanity" of addiction. When the addict is in obsession, awareness of the internal drives are not present. There is just the intense need to feel better. The life style insanity then becomes an extension of this internal insanity. All the snowball effect that ensues after creates more insanity and tremendous energy to get back in balance--DUI's, relationship problems, children out of wedlock, accidents, fights, and the list is exhaustive! This is why shame is the root of all disorders and the power emotion that drives all else. As the chaos grows we lose sight of the root cause focusing just on recovery and survival.

It is crucial to see that the false self may be as polar opposite as a overachieving perfectionist or an addict in an alley. Both are driven to cover up their deep sense of self-rupture, the hole in their soul. They may cover up in ways that look polar opposite, but each is still driven by neurotic shame. In fact, the most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the overachieved and the underachieved, the Star and the Scapegoat, the "Righteous" and the "Wretched", the powerful and the pathetic. 

Imagine how many families divide over the "troubled child" and the weight that sibling carries when the truth is the over-achieving sibling is as much impacted by shame. They just moved in opposite directions. Remember, shame is multi-genrational. It is NOT just one sibling's weight to carry just like it is not solely the child's condition in school for being ADD or whatnot, it is a family based issue. All of us labeled or carrying the weight of the "scapegoat" in the family can be released of this burden as we recovery from toxic shame. This is where understanding the difference between guilt and shame  is crucial.

Shame As Co-Dependency
Much has been written about co-dependency. All agree that it is about the loss of selfhood. Co-dependency is a condition wherein one has no inner life. Happiness is on the outside. Good feelings and self-validation lie on the outside. They can never be generated from within. Co-dependency is "a state of disease whereby the authentic self is unknown or kept hidden, so that a sense of self... of mattering ... of esteem and connectedness to others is distorted, creating pain and distorted relationships." There is no significant difference in that definition and the description of internalized shame. Internalized shame is the essence of co-dependency.

Shame As The Core And Fuel Of All Addiction
Neurotic shame is the root and fuel of all compulsive/addictive behaviors. A general working definition of compulsive/addictive behavior is "a pathological relationship to any mood-altering experience that has life-damaging consequences".

The drivenness in any addiction is about the ruptured self, the belief that one is flawed as a person. The content of the addiction, whether it be an ingestive addiction or an activity addiction (like work, buying or gambling) is an attempt at an intimate relationship. The workaholic with his work, or the alcoholic with his booze, are having a love affair. Each one mood alters to avoid the feeling of loneliness and hurt in the underbelly of shame. Each addictive acting out creates life-damaging consequences which create more shame. The new shame fuels the cycle of addiction. Addicts call this cycle the squirrel cage.

What follows is the feeling of shame over one's behavior, and the life-damaging consequences — the hangover, the infidelity, the demeaning sex, the empty pocketbook. The meta-shame is a displacement of affect, a transforming of the shame about self into the shame about "acting out" and experiencing life-damaging consequences. This meta-shame intensifies the shame-based identity. "I'm no good; there's something wrong with me," plays like a broken record. The more it plays, the more one solidifies one's false belief system. The toxic shame fuels the addiction and regenerates itself.

Why the "Anonymous" Groups Work
The restoration of the "interpersonal bridge" is the sine quo non in treating shame-based people. This may be the key. What heals in any model of therapy is the "I and Thou" relationship. Once the interpersonal bridge is established, the client will accept the therapist's non-judging acceptance. It is recommend that toxically shamed people be directed into groups as soon as possible. The group is crucial, no matter what the specific syndrome of shame happens to be. The group seems to provide a sense of mattering and of being important in a way that a one-to-one alliance cannot provide.

The group provides "a setting in which the issues of co-dependency emerge spontaneously." People will behave in the group much as they do in real life. They will be distrustful, controlling, people-pleasing, critical, etc. As they come to understand that those behaviors reflect unconscious patterns of defense against toxic shame, the group can become a laboratory for alternative behaviors. People with shame based identities must work on changing both the collages of visual shame memories and the auditory imprints that store the internal voices which triggered shame spirals. This is why the "share" in these groups must allow for vulnerability! If the "shares" just focus on the addicts "career"--the story and details of the specific addiction--this can help, but the addict must also unpack their emotions in a safe place, whatever they are carrying on the inside in the here and now to grow. The 1:1 relationship with a mentor or sponsor is important, but this is not the group. People with addictions must risk vulnerability in a group setting, which is a substitute for a safe family. As they unpack their shame and experience acceptance, the power of shame is slowly removed over time and they can then practice this in public. They are reversing the shame effect!

Toxic shame is spiritual bankruptcy.  It keeps those from receiving love. If something is flawed within me I am therefore not lovable. A huge breakthrough for the person with toxic shame is to believe they are loveable! Healing this shame requires spiritual awakening. Shame is about being flawed as a human being. Repair seems foreclosed since no change is really possible. In its ultimate essence, toxic shame has the sense of hopelessness. Combine this type of toxic shame with other addictions and it becomes clear why some feel a sense of hopelessness so deeply that suicide seems their best option. Many an addict died of their addiction, but it really was toxic shame.

A note on receiving love.  It is my conviction that whatever "Higher Power" one embraces this must allow for unconditional love. This is a separate discussion and very personal. I do not want to cloud the topic of shame with specific spiritual guidance, but they go hand-in-hand.