Shame and Abuse

All forms of child abuse are forms of abandonment. When parents abuse children, the abuse is about the parents' own issues not the child's. This is why it is abuse. Abuse is abandonment because when children are abused, no one is there for them. What's happening is purportedly for the child's own good. But it isn't about the child at all, it's about the parent. Such transactions are crazymaking and induce shame. In each act of abuse the child is shamed. Young children, because of their egocentricism, make themselves responsible for the abuse.
"My caretakers couldn't be crazy or emotionally ill; it must be me," the child says to himself.

A child must maintain this idealization. Children's minds are magical, egocentric and nonlogical. They are completely dependent upon their parents for survival. The idealization ensures survival. If my parents are sick and crazy, how could I survive? It must be me. I am crazy. There's something wrong with me or they wouldn't treat me this way. The child doesn't have a chance. All abuse contributes to the internalization of shame. Some kinds of abuse are more intensely shaming than others.

Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse is the most shaming of all abuse. It takes less sexual abuse than any other form of abuse to induce shame. Sexual abuse is widespread. It is estimated that there are cunently some 60 million victims of sexual violence. Our awareness of this problem has grown tremendously over the past 30 years.
In the past our understanding was limited to a kind of "honor story" incest victim. Such stories involved physical hands-on sexual abuse. Today we've greatly expanded our understanding of such abuse. 

Sexual abuse involves whole families. It can be divided as follows:
1. Physical Sexual Abuse — This involves hands on touching in a sexual way. The range of abusive behaviors that are sexual include sexualized hugging or kissing; any kind of sexual touching or fondling; oral and anal sex; masturbation of the victim or forcing the victim to masturbate the offender; sexual intercourse.

2. Overt Sexual Abuse — This involves voyeurism, exhibitionism. This can be outside or inside the home. Parents often sexually abuse children through voyeurism and exhibitionism. The criteria for in-home voyeurism or exhibitionism is whether the parent is being sexually stimulated. Sometimes the parent may be so out of touch with their own sexuality that they are not aware of how sexual they are being. The child almost always has a kind of icky feeling about it.

Children can feel sexual around parents. This is not sexual abuse unless the parent originated it. It all depends upon the parents. Here I'm not talking about a parent having a passing sexual thought or feeling. It's about a parent using a child for his own conscious or unconscious sexual stimulation.

3. Covert Sexual Abuse
(a) Verbal — This involves inappropriate sexual talking: Dad or any significant male calling women "whores" or "cunts" or objectified sexual names; or Mom or any significant female depreciating men in a sexual way. It also involves parents or caretakers having to know about every detail of one's private sexual life, asking questions about a child's sexual physiology or questioning for minute details about dates. Covert sexual abuse involves not receiving adequate sexual information.

An overt kind of sexual abuse occurs when Dad or Mom talk about sex in front of the children when the age level of the children is inappropriate. It also occurs when Mom or Dad make sexual remarks about the sexual parts of the children's bodies. I've worked with two male clients who were traumatized by their mother's jokes about the size of their penises, also female clients whose fathers and stepfathers teased about the size of their breasts or buttocks.

(b) Boundary Violation — This involves children witnessing parents in sexual behavior. They may walk in on it frequently because parents don't provide closed or locked doors. It also involves the children being allowed no privacy. They are walked in on in the bathroom. They are not taught to lock their doors or given permission to lock their doors. Parents need to model appropriate nudity, i.e., need to be clothed appropriately after a certain age. Children are sexually curious. Beginning at around age three or between ages three to six, children start noticing parents' bodies. They are often obsessed with nudity. Mom and Dad need to be careful walking around nude with young children. If Mom is not being stimulated sexually, the nudity is not sexual abuse. She simply is acting in a dysfunctional way. She is not setting sexual boundaries.

The use of enemas at an early age can also be abusive in a way that leads to sexual dysfunction. The enemas can be a body boundary violation. 4. Emotional Sexual Abuse — Emotional sexual abuse results from cross-generational bonding. I've spoken of enmeshment as a way that children take on the covert needs of a family system. It is very common for one or both parents in a dysfunctional marriage to bond inappropriately with one of their children. The parents in effect use the child to meet their emotional needs. This relationship can easily become sexualized and romanticized. The daughter may become Daddy's Little Princess, or the son may become Mom's Little Man. In both cases the child is being abandoned. The parents are getting their needs met at the expense of the child's needs. The child needs a parent not a spouse.

Pia Mellody gives the following definition of emotional sexual abuse. She says that hen "one parent has a relationship with the child that is more important than the relationship they have with their spouse, there is emotional sexual abuse." This issue of parental imbalance causes much identity confusion with the child.

Sometimes both parents emotionally bond with a child. The child tries to take care of both parents' feelings. I once worked with a female client whose father would come and get her in the middle of the night and put her in bed with him in the guest bedroom. He would do this mainly to punish his wife for sexually refusing him. The daughter has suffered greatly with confused sexual identity.

Cross-generational bonding can occur with a parent and a child of the same sex. A most common form of this in our culture is mother and daughter. Mother often has sexualized rage, i.e., she fears and hates men. She uses her daughter for her emotional needs and also contaminates her daughter's feelings about men.
 
This issue is whether the parent is there for the child's needs, rather than the child being there for the parent's needs. And while children have the capacity to be sexual in a way appropriate to their developmental level, whenever an adult is being sexual with a child, sexual abuse is going on.

Some sexual abuse comes from older siblings. Generally sexual behavior by same-age children is not sexually abusive. The rule of thumb is that when a child is experiencing sexual "acting out" at the hands of a child three or four years older, it is sexually abusive.

Physical Abuse
Spare the rod and you spoil the child has been quoted forever as a Biblical justification or injunction for corporal punishment. Physical violence against children (and women) is part of an ancient and pervasive tradition.
Physical violence is second only to sexual violence in the toxic shame it creates. Furthermore, physical violence is highly addictive. I've already shown it to be a form of the character disordered syndrome of shame. Offenders are literally addicted to the violence and fueled by the toxic shame they feel in performing physical violence. Violent offenders are shame-based.

The profile of physically abusing parents includes the following: isolated; poor self-image; lack of sensitivity to others' feelings; usually physically abused themselves; deprived of basic mothering; unmet needs for love and comfort; in denial of problems and the impact of the problems; feel there is no one to turn to for advice; totally unrealistic expectations of children; expect the children to meet their needs for comfort and nurturing; when children fail to meet their needs, they interpret this as rejection and respond with anger and frustration; deal with the children as if they were much older than they are.

The ownership of children by parents, and the belief that children are willful and need their wills broken accounts for the rationale of spanking children. The victim of the physical violence is also bonded to the violence out of shame. In the beginning the victims bond out of sheer terror. But as the abuse continues, their self-worth is diminished. As the self-worth is diminished, the victims lose the ability to choose. They become like starving children looking for morsels and crumbs of love.

Because violence is irrational and impulsive, it is often random and unpredictable. The random quality of the violence sets up what has been called "learned helplessness". Learned helplessness is a kind of mental confusion. The people can no longer think or plan. They become passively accepting of their abuse. I can't imagine a more soul-murdering destruction of human life.

Physical violence is common in family life because the tenets of the poisonous pedagogy promote and support corporal punishment. It's still endorsed as a way to teach children about life. Our common nursery rhyme about the old woman who lived in a shoe attests to the common acceptance of physical punishment.

Physical violence is the norm in many dysfunctional families. This includes actual physical spankings; having to go get your own weapons of torture (belts, switches, etc.); being punched, slapped, slapped in the face, pulled on, yanked on, choked, shook kicked, pinched, tortured with tickling; being threatened with violence of abandonment; being threatened with being put in jail or having the police come; witnessing violence done to a parent or sibling.

This last is a major issue in homes where wives are battered. A child witnessing his mother being battered is equivalent to the child being battered. A witness to violence is a victim of violence.

EMOTIONAL ABUSE
Emotional abuse is universal. I believe that everyone has been shamed by emotional abuse. The poisonous pedagogy is quite clear about the fact that emotions are weak. We are to be rational and logical and not allow ourselves to be maned by emotions. All emotions must be controlled, but anger and sexual feelings are especially to be repressed. I can't imagine many people in modem American life who were affirmed and nurtured in expressing their sexual and/or angry feelings.

EMOTIONAL SHAME BINDS
Our emotions are part of our basic power. They serve two major functions in our psychic life. They monitor our basic needs, telling us of a need, a loss or a satiation. Without our emotional energy, we would not be aware of our most fundamental needs.

Emotions also give us the fuel or energy to act. I like to hyphenate the word "Emotion". An Emotion is an energy in motion. This energy moves us to get what we need. When our basic needs are being violated, our anger moves us to fight or run. Our anger is the energy that gives us strength and power and the energy and power to take care of others.

Our sadness is an energy we discharge in order to heal. As we discharge the energy over the losses relating to our basic needs, we can integrate the shock of those losses and adapt to reality. Sadness is painful. We try to avoid it. Actually discharging sadness releases the energy involved in our emotional pain. To hold it in is to freeze the pain within us. The therapeutic slogan is that grieving is the "healing feeling".
 
Fear releases an energy which warns us of danger to our basic needs. Fear is an energy leading to our discernment and wisdom. Guilt is our conscience former. It tells us we have transgressed our values. It moves us to take action and change.

Shame warns us not to try to be more or less than human. Shame signals our essential limitations. Joy is the exhilarating energy that emerges when all our needs are being ' met. We want to sing, run and jump with joy. The energy of joy signals that all is well.

When our Emotions are not minored and named, we lose contact with one of our vital human powers. Parents who are out of touch with their own emotions cannot model those emotions for their children. They are out of touch and shut down. They are psychically numb. They are not even aware of what they are feeling. Hence they stop their children's emotions. This is actually sanctified by our most sacred traditions of parenting rules. These rules especially shame children by denying emotions. Emotions are considered weak.

Religion endorses the poisonous pedagogy. Anger is especially considered bad. Anger is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. These sins send you to hell. In its most accurate teaching, the deadly sin is not really the E-motion of anger, but the behaviors resulting from the judgment often occasioned by anger. Behaviors often linked to anger are screaming, cursing, hitting, publicly criticizing or condemning someone and physical violence. These behaviors are certainly prohibitive. They are behaviors based on judgment, rather than Emotions. Many children are shamed for their anger. Children often see parents angry and full of rage. The message is all too often that it's okay for parents to be angry, but it's not okay for children.

Shame and Anger
As anger is shamed, two things happen. First the anger is shame-bound. Every time the person feels angry, he feels shame. Second, as anger is shamed, it is repressed. Repression is a primary ego defense. Once it is set in motion, it operates automatically and unconsciously. As the anger energy goes unconscious, it clamors to be expressed. As more and more anger is repressed, it grows more and more.

Virginia Satir once compared this to keeping hungry dogs in the basement. The hungrier they get, the more they try to get out. The more they try to escape, the more we must guard them. The repressed energy grows and grows and finally it has a life of its own. One day there is just no more room to stuff the energy. One day the anger energy erupts. The person who has been repressing it, finds herself "out of control". After the stormy outburst is over, she says, "I don't know what came over me today. Boy, I really lost it."
Repressed, unresolved shame-bound anger energy turns into rage. Rage is the outcome of shame-bound anger.

When sorrow is shamed, it builds its energy into inconsolable grief and despair. Sometimes it is the basis of feeling suicidal. In our culture, children are shamed for crying. If not shamed, the crying discharge is stopped with bribes and rewards. Sometimes there is a magic timetable so that after crying for a designated number of minutes, one is told, "Okay, that's it, you've cried long enough." Often children are condemned and ridiculed for crying. Sometimes they are hit or spanked for crying as in, "I'll give you something to cry about!"

Likewise with fear — children are shamed for being afraid. Shamed and denied, fear splits off and grows into full-fledged terror or paranoia. The permission to have sadness and fear is often connected with gender and sex roles. Little boys are supposed to be strong and not cry or be afraid. Little girls are given more permission for sorrow and fear. However, I don't like to take this too far as I believe all feelings are shamed in our present cultural parenting forms.

Even joy is shamed. When we are happy, excited and rambunctious, we are curtailed. We are told things like, "Don't get too puffed up; pride comes before a fall." Or "Just remember — there are starving children in Latin America." This comes out later in the experience of feeling shame every time you feel really happy, or in feeling shame when you're very successful.

Sex Drive 
Perhaps no aspect of human activity has been as dysfunctionally shamed as much as our sexuality. Sexuality is the core of human self-hood. Our sex is not something we have or do, it is who we are. It's the first thing we notice about each other. Sexuality is a basic fact in all created things. Our sexual energy (libido) is our own unique incarnation of the life force itself. To have our sex drive shamed is to be shamed to the core.

All children naturally have sexual curiosity. I can remember vividly when my next-door neighbor told me that the man's penis went into the woman's vagina. I was awestruck. It seemed unbelievable! Sexuality is somewhat awesome and confusing to a child. And children naturally explore their genitals, and at certain ages, engage in childhood sex play.

I have often outlined the following scenario to illustrate how our sexuality is shamed. One day little three-year-old Farquahr, while exploring his body, names his nose. He points to it and names it. Mom is exhilarated and calls Grandma to report Farquahr's brilliant achievement. Grandma comes over and asks Farquahr to perform his new found ability; which he does with grandiose pride. On each occasion when he names his nose, he receives great praise. Later on he finds other parts of his body, ears, eyes, elbows, navel . . . And then one day, one Sunday with all the family in the living room (receiving the preacher), Little Farquahr finds his penis!!! He's pretty excited. He thinks, if the nose got them, this will really get them. So he wanders into the living room and proudly displays his penis!

. . . Never has little Farquahr seen such action! Mom has him by the ear and he's moving faster than he's ever moved before. Her face is contorted. She is visibly shaken and tells him in no uncertain terms never to show himself off again. He's told that what he did was bad! Children internalize their parents at their worst. The more out of control the parent is, the more the child's security is threatened.

Variations of this scenario happen in the best of families. Parents who have had their own sexuality shamed cannot handle their children's natural sexuality. When their child explores his sexuality, the parent reacts with disapproval or worse, disgust. Global comments such as "That's bad" or "Don't ever touch yourself there", "Go get decent — put on your clothes" or "Cover your privates" link sexuality to something bad, dirty and disgusting. This part of us must be disowned. The shame becomes linked to sexuality.

A child growing up in such a family (probably most of us) comes to believe and feel that sexuality is shameful.
Generally speaking, most of our vital spontaneous instinctual life gets shamed. Children are shamed for being too rambunctious, for wanting things and for laughing too loud. Much dysfunctional shame occurs at the dinner table. Children are forced to eat when they are not hungry. Sometimes children are forced to eat what they do not find appetizing. Being exiled at the dinner table until the plate is cleaned is not unusual in modern family life. The public humiliation of sitting at the dinner table all alone, often with siblings jeering, is a painful kind of exposure.

When our instinctual life is shamed, the natural core of our life is bound up. It's like an acorn going through excruciating agony for becoming an oak, or a flower feeling ashamed for blossoming. What happens is that because our instincts are part of our natural endowment, they cannot be repressed. Once our instincts are shame-bound, they become like the hungry dogs which must be watched.