The Family We Had

The Sources Of Toxic Shame: The Family 
If you made it through up to this point there is a break here.  The next section dealing with family requires a support system to really make an impact.  It is very hard to look honestly at your family "data" and not experience intense feelings and judgements.  For many, it is here we run because facing the reality of our family can cause intense pain and trigger powerful memories, which then trigger powerful negative feelings leaving us in deep waters without a life preserver.  No wonder most turn at this point, unless they must move forward because life has stopped for them and a deep sense of desperation lives within. We need to receive grace at this point to look at what might be very painful.

If you do not value someone, it's hard to imagine 
being shamed by what he/she says or does.
 
Toxic shame is primarily fostered in significant relationships, and for most that is our parents. The possibility of toxic shame begins with our primary caregivers who are shame-based who pass their toxic shame onto us. There is no way to teach self-value if one does not value oneself. It is important here to practice forgiveness. We are not here to demonize our parents, but to be free of toxic shame and understand the "why" of what we have experienced for so long and what has caused us so much difficulty.

Toxic Shame is Multi-generational
It is passed from one generation to the next. Shame-based people find other shame-based people and get married. As a couple, each carries the shame from his or her own family system into their marriage and children. Their marriage will be grounded in their shame-core. The major outcome of this will be a lack of intimacy. It's difficult to let someone get close to you if you feel defective and flawed as a human being. Shame-based couples maintain non-intimacy through poor communication, nonproductive circular fighting, games, manipulation, vying for control, withdrawal, blaming and confluence. Confluence is the agreement never to disagree. Confluence creates pseudo-intimacy. In fact, if we examine this type of marriage their will many forms of pseudo-intimacy, some obvious (addictions), but most simply connect through experience (favorite movie, TV show, sports, _____). The point here is remove those sources, and there are two people disconnected. They are dependent on the sources to feel their primary intimacy. The intense connection in the beginning (we understand each other) loses its energy over time unless each person can grow, especially those with toxic shame.

When a child is born to these shame-based parents, the deck is stacked from the beginning. The job of parents is to model. Modeling includes how to be a man or woman; how to relate intimately to another person; how to
acknowledge and express emotions; how to fight fairly; how to have physical, emotional and intellectual boundaries; how to communicate; how to cope and survive life's unending problems; how to be self-disciplined; how to love oneself and another. Shame-based parents cannot do any of these well. They simply don't know how.

Children need their parents' time and attention. Giving one's time is part of the work of love. It means being there for the child, attending to the child's needs rather than the parent's needs. Part of the work of love is listening. Children are clear about what they need and will tell us in no uncertain terms. We need to listen to them. This requires a fair amount of emotional maturity. To listen well, one must have one's own needs met. If one is needy, it's hard to listen. Our neediness is like a toothache. When we are shame-based, we can only focus on our own ache.

Needy, shame-based parents cannot possibly take care of their children's needs. The child is shamed whenever he or she is needy because the child's needs clash with the parents' needs. The child grows up and becomes an adult. But underneath the mask of adult behavior there is a child who was neglected. This needy child is insatiable. What that means is that when the child becomes an adult, there is a "hole in his soul". He can never get enough as an adult. Adults go after what they think they need and work harder to get more the next time. An adult child can't get enough because it's really a child's needs that are in question.

Here's an example of how unhealthy shame shows itself. When dating a woman, a man goes too far and wanted too much. If he met a girl and hit it off, he immediately began talking about her in terms of marriage, even after one date! Once she was in love with him, he expected her to take care of him like a mother. Needy children need parents. So adult children turn lovers into parents, someone to take care of their needs. Most often, the man is totally unaware of this drive. He just is drawn towards this inner need and at first, there is an intense connection he thinks is love and a gift from God, but time shows a different ending both never anticipated.

The bottom line is that shame-based needy marriages create shame-based needy families. The children grow up in the soil of shame rather than the nurturing arms of love. Shame-based families operate according to the laws of social systems. When a social system is dysfunctional, it is rigid and closed. All the individuals in that family are enmeshed into a kind of trance-like frozenness. They take care of the system's need for balance.
Children then go to school, to church or synagogue and grow up to live in society. Each of these social systems adds its own unique contribution to the toxic shame induction process.

Marriage and thus family are where we live out our most intimate and powerful human experiences. The family is the unit in which we belong, from which we can expect protection from uncontrollable fate, in which we create infinity through our children and in which we find a haven. The stuff that family is made of is bloodier and more passionate than the stuff of friendship, and the costs are greater, too. Our families are where we first learn about ourselves. Our core identity comes first from the mirroring eyes of our primary caretakers. Our destiny depended to a large extent on the health of our caretakers.

We are "WE" before we are "I" 
Families are social systems which follow organismic laws. The first law of social organisms is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A family is defined by the interaction and inter-relationships of its parts, rather than the sum of its parts. In a family, the whole family as an organism is greater than any individual in the family. The family is defined by the relationship between the parts, rather than the sum of the parts. As social systems families have components, rules, roles and needs that define the system. The chief component in the family as a system is the marriage. If the marriage is healthy and functional, the family will be healthy and functional. If the marriage is dysfunctional, then the family is dysfunctional.

When the system is out of balance, another law comes into play, the law of dynamic homeostasis. This is the law of balance. Dynamic homeostasis means that whenever a part of the system is out of balance, the rest of the members of the system will try to bring it back into balance.

The children in a dysfunctional family take on rigid roles necessitated by the family's need for balance. For example, if a child is not wanted, he or she will try to balance the family by not being any trouble, by being helpful, perfect, super-responsible or invisible. This is the Lost Child role. When the fear, hurt and loneliness of the shame in a dysfunctional family reaches high levels of intensity, one person, often the most sensitive, becomes the family Scapegoat. The function of this role is to lessen the pain all the members are in.

Look to your own family established roles.  It might be easier to look at another family, maybe your cousin or neighbor you grew up with or even the friend in junior high school you hung out with and visited often.  Who was the lost child?  Who was the one that tried to bring the family back in balance?  The one that would pick up the trash to make peace?  This is the child who tried to get the family back in balance so they can feel secure.  Usually, it is the most sensitive child, the one who hates disharmony and does what it takes to make the primary caregiver be at peace.  I find when people seem to be unaware of shame in their lives, they usually have suppressed the "death by a 1000 paper cuts" of imbalance they experienced in their family.

This usually means that person believes the family behavior was normal, and is guaranteed to repeat the cycle of shame.  If the shame-based behavior is accepted, the child does not have to experience the pain.  They usually side with one parent, the one with the power, and demean the other.  They are seeking safety and security in the opposite direction.  Again, it is the sensitive child who internalized all of this and is destined for neurotic disorders later in life.  The other sibling will have character disorders, usually resulting is control and power issues, blame, and insensitivity.  When these people are in positions of power (manager, school principal, governing board member) they rule without awareness.  One of the easiest ways to measure this is when a person has a position of power.  It can be very subtle.  How we handle power reflects our internal identity.  Ever know someone who seems likeable, then treats the waiter at the restaurant by humiliating them when the order is slightly off?  They are in a position of power and the waiter is subservient to them.  This is a person who is highly critical and insensitive.  Shame rears its ugly head in daily life when we understand what to look for.

Shame Based Families and Multi-Generational Illness 
As noted, shame is multi-generational! The secret and hidden aspects of toxic shame are the wellsprings of its multi-generational life and unresolved family secrets. Since it is kept hidden, it cannot be worked out. Families are as sick as their secrets. The secrets are what they are ashamed of. Family secrets can go back for generations. They can be about suicides, homicides, incest, abortions, addictions, public loss of face, financial disaster, etc. All the secrets get acted out. This is the power of toxic shame.  Again, the story of Max illustrates this "acting out" and the cycle of sickness all too well!

The pain and suffering of shame generate automatic and unconscious defenses— denial, idealization of parents, repression of emotions and dissociation from emotions. What is important to note is that we can't know what we don't know. Denial, idealization, repression, dissociation once formed are unconscious survival mechanisms. Because they are unconscious, we lose touch with the shame, hurt and pain they cover up. We cannot heal what we cannot feel. So without recovery, our toxic shame gets carried for generations.

For those who have a strong spiritual background, the illusion is that "correct doctrines" can somehow remove the reality of your multi-generational past. These groups or organizations have a schizm. They have what they believe is correct thinking about life and refuse to look inward at the reality of their family origin. The only way to maintain a sense of group harmony is to create a silent law system of what correct behavior is. This creates an exterior personality and interior personality. In public (at church or school) we try to act one way, but at home we act another way.  I once knew a man in public office.  At a theater, he held his wife's hand when he was introduced to make "the appearance" of intimacy. As soon as the lights were off him, he pushed her hand aside.  It was disgusting.  But their marriage was as well.  He would humiliate her at every gathering we attended.  Verbally criticizing her, demeaning her, and she would smile, "Oh, Stan..."  He had no awareness of how foolish he looked.  This is the hypocrisy of adults.  If their child acted like this in any way, there would be correction and punishment.  Again, shame causes a sick cycle to continue.

Families are created by the shame-based people who find and marry each other. Each looks to and expects the other to take care of and parent the child within him or her. Each is incomplete and insatiable. The insatiability is rooted in each person's unmet childhood needs. When two adult children meet and fall in love, the child in each looks to the other to fill his or her needs. Since "in-love" is a natural state of fusion, the incomplete children fuse together as they had done in the symbiotic stage of infancy. Each feels a sense of oneness and completeness. Since "in-love" is always erotic, each feels "oceanic" in the sexual embrace. "Oceanic" love is without boundaries. Being in love is as powerful as any narcotic. One feels whole and ecstatic.

Unfortunately this state cannot last. The ecstatic consciousness is highly selective. Lovers focus on sameness and are intrigued by the newness of each other. Soon, however, real differences in socialization begin to emerge. The two families of origin rear their shame-based heads. Now the battle begins! Who will take care of whom? Whose family rules will win out? The more shame-based each person is, the more the differences carried within will be intolerable. "If you loved me, you'd do it my way!" and the break of intimacy grows out of control leaving the relationship fractured and damaged.

Shame Based Family Rules
Each family system has several categories of rules. There are rules about celebrating and socializing; rules about touching and sexuality; rules about sickness and proper health care; rules about vacations and vocations; rules about household maintenance and the spending of money. Perhaps the most important rules are about feelings, interpersonal communication and parenting.

Toxic shame is consciously transferred by means of shaming rules. In shame-based families, the rules consciously shame all the members. Generally however, the children receive the major brunt of the shame. Power is a cover-up for shame. Power is frequently hierarchical. Dad can yell at anyone. Mom can yell at anyone but Dad. The oldest can yell at anyone but Mom and Dad, etc. The youngest tortures the cat.

The Dysfunctional Family Rules
It is useful here to underscore what your family rules were and add to the following:
1. Control — One must be in control of all interactions, feelings and personal behavior at all times . . . control is the major defense strategy for shame.

2. Perfectionism — Always be right in everything you do. The perfectionist rule always involves a measurement that is being imposed. The fear and avoidance of the negative is the organizing principle of life. The members live according to an externalized image. No one ever measures up.

3. Blame — Whenever things don't turn out as planned, blame yourself or others. Blame is another defensive cover-up for shame . . . Blame maintains the balance in a dysfunctional system when control has broken down.

4. Denial Of The Five Freedoms — Each freedom has to do with a basic human power . . . the power to perceive; to think and interpret; to feel; to want and choose; and the power to imagine. In shame-based families, the perfectionist rule prohibits the full expression of these powers. It says you shouldn't perceive, think, feel, desire or imagine the way you do. You should do these the way the perfectionistic ideal demands.

5. The No-Talk Rule — This rule prohibits the full expression of any feeling, need or want. In shame-based families, the members want to hide their true feelings, needs or wants. Therefore, no one speaks of his loneliness and sense of self-rupture.

6. Don't Make Mistakes — Mistakes reveal the flawed vulnerable self. To acknowledge a mistake is to open oneself to scrutiny. Cover up your own mistakes and if someone else makes a mistake, shame him.

7. Unreliability — Don't expect reliability in relationships. Don't trust anyone and you will never be disappointed. The parents didn't get their developmental dependency needs met and will not be there for their children to depend on. The distrust cycle goes on.

These rules are not written on the refrigerator door. However, they are the operative principles that govern shame-based families in their interpersonal relationships. They continue the cycle of shame for generations.
The parenting rules used in most western world families create massive shame. Add alcoholism, incest, physical abuse to these systems, and you get major dysfunctionality.  
These rules state:
1. Adults are the masters of the dependent child.
2. They determine in godlike fashion what is right and what is wrong.
3. The child is held responsible for the parents' anger.
4. The parents must always be shielded.
5. The child's life-affirming feelings pose a threat to the autocratic adult.
6. The child's will must be "broken" as soon as possible.
7. All this must happen at a very early age so that the child "won't notice" and will therefore not be able to expose the adult.