Dear GoodTherapy.org,

I grew up in a fairly religious household where sex was rarely discussed (and when it was, it was talked about for the purposes of conception). Now, in my 30s, I have renounced many aspects of the religion I grew up with and come to realize some of the harm it caused in my life—including giving me a very problematic view of sex.

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I’m a virgin and have barely even been able to masturbate, let alone approach intimacy with a partner. I feel ashamed and guilty whenever I try, even though I tell myself over and over again that self-exploration is healthy and necessary. I desperately want a relationship, too, but can’t fathom the idea of overcoming my nervousness about sex and exposing my body (nudity was condemned in my family as well).

While I am still a child of God and am waiting for marriage to have sex, I would like to be more open to physical acts of love and more self-accepting when it comes to touching myself. Can you tell me why shame and embarrassment persist around the subject of sex, even after I have released so much other negativity that was ingrained in me through my childhood faith? How can I shake the bad emotions that arise instantly when I feel aroused or try to indulge my thoughts and fantasies about sex? —Shackled by Shame

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Dear Shackled,

First off, I want to say how much I respect and admire you. Clearly, you have worked hard to release the “negativity” that was part of your childhood. That is a huge undertaking, and you have accomplished a great deal. Nevertheless, you want to go further. You write that although you have achieved great self-understanding, there is an important aspect of your life that you would like to change—shame about sex.

You write that you feel ashamed and guilty about your sexuality. Shame and guilt are both powerful emotions, but very different from each other. Guilt has to do with feeling bad about something you have done. It’s hard to endure, but shame is worse. Shame is about who you are or, more accurately, who you think you are (based on the influences in your life)—no good, bad, worthless, and so on. If you feel guilty about something you have done, you can make retribution or decide to never repeat the action. But shame? Shame is about your core being, your whole self, body, and soul. I get the feeling from your words that shaming might have been part of your experiences growing up. Shame is used to belittle and control people; it is a tool of hate, not of love.

You describe sex as almost a great unmentionable in your childhood home, surrounded by prohibitions about nudity, masturbation, and adult relationships. Sexuality has something to do with love and loving, because sex is, finally, a loving physical and emotional expression of closeness with oneself and another. In fact, sexuality is an integral and intimate part of a person’s very being—and being in loving connection, the very opposite of shame.

You write that you are a “child of God.” I don’t know how you express your spirituality, but I wonder if you have come across this quotation from Ephesians 5:20: “For no one has ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, as the Messiah does the church.” In short, take care of yourself, body and soul, with complete love.

I recognize—and maybe you do, too—that this sounds easier said than done. For many people, the shame they experience surrounding sex stems from societal and religious taboos that have developed over many generations, making it a particularly difficult subject to reconcile new feelings around. I urge you to be compassionate with yourself as you work through your feelings, which clearly aren’t comfortable for you. It’s hard to overcome a lifetime of conditioning.

Many people experience negative feelings about the body. You wonder how you might overcome yours. I would start by working with a therapist around issues of loving yourself, emotionally as well as physically. Therapy can be very helpful as you gradually unlearn the negative feelings that are attached to your sexuality.

I find myself wondering how you care for yourself. Do you provide yourself with proper rest and physical care? Do you beautify yourself and your environment? Do things you like? Do you recognize and then give yourself what you need? Respecting, caring for, and loving oneself may gradually bring you closer to your body. Again, be kind to yourself.

Many people experience negative feelings about the body. You wonder how you might overcome yours. I would start by working with a therapist around issues of loving yourself, emotionally as well as physically. Therapy can be very helpful as you gradually unlearn the negative feelings that are attached to your sexuality. The experience of talking about your feelings with a compassionate other may itself be a way to lessen your feelings of shame as you bring them to light on your terms. This is a gradual process. There is no hurry.

You might also find physical outlets, such as sports or yoga or hiking, for example, that you enjoy. These are ways to perhaps feel more at home in your body.

As you gradually feel all of who you are, and the joy in and around you, you might also discover the joy of companionship with someone special. Often, people who are new to sex are worried about how they will do, as if sex were a test or performance to be graded. There is a simple remedy for such feelings. Rather than focusing on yourself and if you’re doing things right, you can focus on what your partner finds enjoyable as your partner finds ways to please you. As you treasure each other, your intimacy may deepen and grow.

Thank you very much for asking this delicate question. I hope my answers are helpful, and I wish you a blossoming of your full self.

Take care,

Lynn

Editor’s Note: This article contains description of childhood abuse, which may be triggering for some readers.

“I have an image in my mind I can’t seem to get rid of,” I tell Dr. Erickson. “A snapshot of a memory that’s always there, and I can’t stop looking at it.”

His office is dimly lit. On the wall facing me are two pictures of shamans, medicine men who heal spiritually. I had thought a psychiatrist might decorate with pictures from the masters—Van Gogh, Monet, or maybe a classical artist like Michelangelo. Below the shamans, on an end table, is a Kokopelli statue set in a dish of smooth stones. Next to that are two huge bookcases filled with copies of publications from the American Psychiatric Association. At least he seems well-read.

“Are you sure it’s a memory?” He sits near the opposite wall, filing my evaluation form into a folder. Today he’s wearing a shirt and tie. If it weren’t for his long hair and ponytail he would seem every bit a doctor.

“Yes. It’s something the attorneys brought up during the deposition. Something I haven’t thought about in a long time.”

He stares at me and says nothing. I realize he isn’t going to prod. It seems a strange way to communicate, not asking questions.

[fat_widget_right]“When I was nine I told kids at school that I’d seen my father’s penis,” I tell him, “that I’d touched it. Only I didn’t know to call it that. They stared at me in shock. That’s when I realized there was something wrong with what I was doing. You only know what you’re told when you’re a child. I didn’t know that other kids weren’t touching their fathers that way.” I pause. “They stopped playing with me after that.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “That’s the image in your mind?”

“Yes, swinging on the playground, laughing. I remember the looks on their faces when I admitted what I was doing. It was all so … innocent.”

“How does that make you feel?”

How does it make me feel? The memory is so old, almost thirty years have gone by, but it still seems like yesterday. It’s the kind of memory I store in one of those chests at the bottom of my mind, but now I can’t seem to put it back.

“Ashamed, sad, like I’ve done something wrong.”

“Do you feel that in your body?”

Another strange question. The memory is in my head. My emotions are in my head, glued to that image of swinging happily, chattering with my friends and having no idea of the impact of my words. My emotions are not imprinted in my body. But I think about the question anyway because I have so much anxiety these days, a tightness in my stomach that feels like a descending roller coaster. Even my nightly dose of Seroquel isn’t alleviating it.

“In my stomach,” I say.

“Images come forward in your mind to help you get what you want. Your subconscious wants to heal. This is its way of communicating that to you.”

“There’s something for me to learn from this memory?”

[EMDR] is very effective for trauma and posttraumatic stress. Once you process the memory, the picture goes away, along with the emotions associated with it.

He nods. “There’s something called EMDR—eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It’s a therapy like hypnosis that can help speed the processing of memories. It’s very effective for trauma and posttraumatic stress. Once you process the memory, the picture goes away, along with the emotions associated with it.”

I’d like to get rid of the snapshot memory, and the sadness and shame it brings with it. It was different before; it was a private memory I could easily tuck away. I could convince myself it was a single incident barely worth my energy to consider. But I had admitted it during the deposition; I had exposed my shame to a team of attorneys who simply stared at me, stoic and apathetic. I had mirrored their apathy, determined not to allow them to see my pain. I can still see their unimpressed expressions.

“How do I do that?” I ask Dr. Erickson.

“I move my hand in front of you and you follow it with your eyes as you think about the memory. Emotions will come to the surface. As you process the emotions, they will be released. The memory will lose its emotional charge.”

“Will the image go away then?”

“It should.”

Is that what the memory wants—to be felt? Have I tucked away so much of my life that it stubbornly refuses to be hidden any longer? Or is this just a byproduct of the deposition, the aftermath of stress?

What I know is that the memory bothers me. I don’t like looking at those faces of my schoolmates staring in shock, and the memory of realizing I did something wrong. I don’t like being made to feel bad when the onus should be on someone else. Maybe that’s been the problem; the guilt belongs to someone else and not me.

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay what?”

“Okay, I want to try that. I want the image to go away.”

He moves our chairs closer together, so his left arm will be next to my left arm. We’re sitting side by side, but facing in opposite directions. He lets me sit close to the door so I don’t feel boxed in. “An escape route,” he says. Then he stands back from the chairs like an artist appreciating his work.

I know his deliberate manner is meant to make me feel more comfortable, but his ceremonial style has the opposite effect. I hesitate and glance at the door. Am I going to need an escape route? Do his patients routinely flee the room and he’s learned to anticipate it? Or is this merely a psychological strategy?

I take my seat, knowing that I would rather feel part of the scene than an observer.

Nothing will happen with me standing in place, and if it’s all been set up by design then I’m failing and the image will remain. Unwilling to leave and uncertain of how to move forward, I take my seat, knowing that I would rather feel part of the scene than an observer.

He gives me a moment before taking the seat next to mine. We’re too close for my comfort. I have pretty strict boundaries; I’ve never been able to allow people to get very close to me physically. It always feels like they’re suffocating me with their proximity, as if they’ve wrapped their arms around me in a crushing embrace.

I can see the ring he wears and the tiny hairs on his arms, and it makes my body tense. He’s sitting only a few inches from me; I can feel his gaze studying me, and I become self-conscious and begin to fidget in the chair.

“Think about the image,” he instructs. “Think about being on the playground with your friends. Hear their laughter. Think about how you feel as you talk to them. You feel ashamed, sad.”

I hate this already. What kind of therapy begins like this?

He moves his left hand horizontally in front of me. I follow it with my eyes, but I don’t see his hand.

The playground is noisy. I’m swinging with my friends. It’s a Catholic school, and we’re all in uniforms: replicas of one another.

“I’ve never seen a boy’s wiener before,” Kathy says. Her voice is filled with laughter.

“I’ve seen my father’s,” I say. “It looks like a bratwurst.”

“You have not!”

“Yes. I touched it.”

“That’s right,” Dr. Erickson says in a soothing voice. He’s reading the emotions that play across my face. “Stay with it. Let the emotions build and then let them go.”

I don’t know how to let go. I don’t know what I’m supposed to learn from this. It’s all old news, pain long past. It doesn’t belong with me. I’m an adult now, a grown woman who’s made her own way in the world and crafted her own successes. I’m a million years from that little girl on the playground, but the pain is so fresh.

The transformation is rapid. The expressions on the girls’ faces morph from playful amusement to confusion, settling on prudence. They’re judging me. They know something I don’t know. For the first time in my memory, I feel like an outsider, a pariah.

Dr. Erickson stops EMDR. I can feel his eyes on me, but I don’t look at him. I stare, without seeing, at the carpet.

“I have a question,” he says gently. “Whose shame is it?” He moves his hand in front of me, and the image switches.

I’m touching one of my sisters, kissing her on the neck. On Wednesday nights we played a game my father made up, where we had to select small pieces of paper from a hat. On each piece of paper was written something we were supposed to do: kiss a butt, lick a breast, touch a crotch. Each of us would then choose one of our siblings and go into a room with them.

“Where are you?” Dr. Erickson asks. He’s stopped his hand movement and is studying me.

“With one of my sisters.”

“On the playground?”

“No.” Pause. “Every Wednesday my mother would go away and my father would have us sit in a circle, naked. He made up this game.” When I finished explaining the bizarre game, I said, “I’m with one of my sisters in a room … kissing her.”

“Go with that,” he instructs, and begins EMDR again.

It’s all giggles and little-girl fun. It doesn’t feel sexual, just playful. We’re both naked because that’s the way our father wanted it.

I don’t like touch. It’s a mantra I say to myself and it has defined my life. I don’t have relationships and I don’t let people near. But some part of my brain is wondering why I’m not afraid with my sister, why I don’t feel apprehension. I say as much to Dr. Erickson.

“You’re judging her as an adult with rights and wrongs. She’s feeling the comfort of her sister.”

“I liked when we were touching.” It’s the only time I can recall liking touch, when caressing was comforting and nurturing. What happened to that feeling? Darkness falls on me as tears well in my eyes. An enormous sadness overwhelms me.

“I like touching my sister, but I don’t like touching other people. Men. What kind of a person does that make me?”

“Human.”

What I hear is “different.”

The memories fade, but they don’t disappear.

I like the softness of my sister’s skin and the sense of freedom, and I like the closeness as if nothing were going to separate us. Sitting in a psychiatrist’s office, trying to come to terms with my life, liking to touch my sister seems wrong.

I’ve never had a sexual relationship with anyone, male or female. I stopped dating a decade ago; I long since gave up trying to let someone get close. And yet there I was at the tender age of nine, exploring my sister’s body. Was that what was wrong with me?

“I want you to think about the healing white light,” Dr. Erickson says softly. “It’s coming from high above and surrounding you. A brilliant white light taking away all the pain.”

The light bathes me with a warm glow. It calms my breathing, eases my tension and, like a drug, dulls the pain the memory created.

“Let those images go. You don’t need them anymore.”

The memories fade, but they don’t disappear. I like the light surrounding me. It takes me far away from my feelings of guilt and shame.

Laureen Peltier is the author of Hungry For Touch: A Journey from Fear to Desire. She focuses on educating others on the possibility of making a full recovery from PTSD, as well as the benefits of healing past trauma. A passionate speaker for RAINN and other organizations, Laureen is sought-after for medical and nursing schools, and has participated in several online and DVD documentaries focusing on PTSD recovery.

Shame has a bad reputation. Let’s face it: it doesn’t feel good. I mean, who really wants to feel shame? It’s uncomfortable, even downright painful at times.

Here is something to consider, though: shame (closely related to guilt and regret) is an essential part of our survival and functioning and, in fact, is a gift from Mother Nature.

Let’s back up here a bit and first talk about the functions of emotions generally. Emotions are hardwired into our brains and help to warn us, facilitate connections to other people, and work through challenges. “Positive” emotions such as joy, pride, and love tend to feel good, while “negative” emotions such as anger, shame, and sadness tend to cause discomfort. It is easy to want to push away and avoid the “negative” emotions, but it is important to note that both types of emotions are necessary in order to function in the healthiest way possible.

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Now let’s get back to our friend, shame. Shame’s function is pretty important. Basically, it helps to keep us in check. Shame is a signal that there has been some sort of action that could harm others or ourselves. This could be an action that hurts a relationship with a loved one, something that could get us in trouble somehow, or a behavior that would be dangerous or harmful to us.

When we utilize shame appropriately and feel the right amount all the way through, it can be corrective and preventative in that it helps us to not make the same mistakes again. Having shame also helps us to repair when an action has caused harm to relationships. It helps us to identify and take accountability for our actions, and when others see we are experiencing some degree of shame, defenses usually go down and healing conversations can take place. When we feel shame about something self-inflicted (drinking, drugs, putting ourselves in dangerous positions, etc.), we can assess the steps we need to take in order to prevent doing future harm to ourselves.

We all do things that warrant feelings of shame, guilt, and remorse. It is part of the human experience. Making mistakes is an important part of learning, and shame is an excellent teacher.

As great as shame can be, sometimes we can have too little or too much. In doses that are too small, we do not get the full opportunity to learn from the experience. Our system is not able to fully register that we have engaged in a behavior that warrants some degree of remorse. As a result, we may be more likely to engage in the damaging behavior again, possibly with negative life consequences.

Too much shame can overwhelm us and distort the experience. We may blame ourselves for things we should not take accountability for (like someone else’s actions) and end up in an impossible position where we are trying to learn someone else’s lesson. The system becomes confused when shame is distorted because we are not able to control or prevent future actions of others.

Finding the right dose of shame is key. When assessing whether you have too much or too little shame, ask yourself: Did I engage in a behavior (or behaviors) that caused harm? If the answer is no, it is important to assign correct responsibility and to check in with yourself to make sure you are not taking on another person’s lesson. If the answer is yes, ask yourself: How much harm was caused by the behavior and would it be harmful if repeated? It is often helpful to use objective others as sounding boards when assessing your level of shame so you can learn from the situation and move forward.

We all do things that warrant feelings of shame, guilt, and remorse. It is part of the human experience. Making mistakes is an important part of learning, and shame is an excellent teacher.

How can being in therapy improve your self-esteem? Once we understand both the roots of self-esteem and the essence of therapy, the answer becomes clear.

Self-esteem has been described in many ways, but it can be thought of—and experienced—most simply as the absence of needless shame. In a sense, high self-esteem is the opposite of chronic shame.

This has nothing to do with thinking everything you do is great or even okay; it’s not an evaluation of your behavior or how “great” you are. People with high self-esteem may criticize their own behavior at times. They can afford to be realistic about how they’re doing because their basic worth as human beings isn’t in question. People with low self-esteem (i.e., those who experience chronic, needless shame), on the other hand, may display a need to be right all the time, or may tend to see themselves as “better” than others. Such tendencies may help compensate for a fragile sense of worth.

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How Low Self-Esteem Typically Develops

Most of us learn in childhood we’re far from perfect, and that our words and actions sometimes make other people unhappy. Since kids typically have a hard time mentally separating themselves from their behavior, hundreds of behavior corrections over the course of childhood can lead to shame about the self: If Johnny does something wrong, Johnny feels he IS wrong—as a person.

One of the psychological products of childhood, then, is some level of subconscious shame. Many adults still tell themselves silently all the time, “There’s something wrong with me.” This is low self-esteem.

How Therapy Improves Self-Esteem

Once in therapy, people begin (usually cautiously) to share their inner thoughts and feelings with the therapist. If the therapist responds with acceptance and compassion rather than judgment or correction, the person in therapy generally relaxes into what can be an extremely productive therapeutic relationship.

With consistent acceptance, compassion, and understanding from the therapist, the person in therapy risks sharing even more “shameful” parts of themselves during sessions. When the therapist continues to respond with acceptance, a brand-new idea is born inside the person: “Maybe there’s nothing wrong with me after all.” This is how low self-esteem is often healed.

Therapy creates an experience of being basically acceptable instead of basically wrong, and this naturally improves self-esteem. By treating you as acceptable, the therapist models a different way for you to relate to yourself.

Just as needless shame is the product of a lack of acceptance through necessary social corrections (“Don’t pick your nose in public,” for example), its opposite, high self-esteem, blooms in an atmosphere of acceptance.

Your attitude toward yourself (“I’m okay” as opposed to “I’m not okay”) is not a fact, but a belief. Whatever you believe about yourself is based on experience. For example, if you received a lot of corrections in childhood, as most of us did, you may believe you’re essentially bad and need to be corrected.

To change unwanted beliefs about yourself, you need a different experience on which to base a new belief. This is what psychotherapy offers.

Therapy creates an experience of being basically acceptable instead of basically wrong, and this naturally improves self-esteem. By treating you as acceptable, the therapist models a different way for you to relate to yourself. Using that model, you can continue to improve your self-esteem between therapy sessions and long after therapy has ended.

It doesn’t matter what type or school of therapy you do—as long as you experience your therapist as accepting and affirming rather than judgmental or critical. If you feel as though you’re being judged or criticized, the first thing to do is talk with your therapist about it. If your therapist responds in any way other than with kindness, openness, and humility, it’s time to seek a different therapist. Your self-esteem is too important to place in the wrong hands.

You are feeling frightened and ashamed to talk to your counselor about your problems with self-injury and other “bad habits.” You might worry that your counselor will feel critical or think less of you, even though you know that it is an unlikely reaction to occur to a trained therapist. You know that you must discuss your worries and problems in order for the therapy to work. This is the hardest part of therapy—and the best part, too—because here is where you learn and develop yourself more than almost anywhere else. I have some thoughts and suggestions that might help you out.

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You write that you’ve been meeting with your counselor since September. The first part of therapy usually has to do with developing a relationship of deep trust, and that takes time, as it should. Even though you understand that your counselor is experienced and qualified, you are still getting acquainted and learning to have faith in yourselves and in each other, too. So your first step is to have patience and let the treatment develop.

It’s also important to understand what a good therapist does. A good therapist has compassion for the parts of you that are destructive, the parts you’re most ashamed of, and can help you see that those parts are protective and well-intentioned—even when it doesn’t feel like it, even when the strategies behind them produce unwanted behaviors and harm.

Sometimes, before we are able to talk about what we fear, we have to learn ways to handle feeling afraid. Your counselor might be able to help you become less blown about by the winds of your powerful emotions and more able to navigate your feelings and use that feeling energy for your well-being. Right now it sounds as if you are being controlled by gale-force winds of feelings—at their mercy, really, with little ability to grab the rudder and set out for a particular direction of your choice.

The first part of therapy usually has to do with developing a relationship of deep trust, and that takes time, as it should.

You write that you “can’t find the words to start the conversation.” I think that when you are ready for the discussion the words will come—it sounds to me like you have them already. In the meantime, maybe you don’t need words anyway.

“How can I not need words?” you might ask.

Maybe at this point in your treatment, words are less important than simply being comfortable with the person who will help you learn how to live with your strong feelings. Could you ask the counselor if he or she might know some methods for calming the self, centering the self, soothing the self? Breathwork, for example, is one way to calm down, but there are other ways that you might know of already, and with a little encouragement, you can use them.

These are important issues about caring for yourself. An important part of therapy is learning how to care for yourself. Maybe you could ask for help in self-care, then later get to know who you really are, deep down. Therapy is an exploration, done with a guide who will walk the deep walk with you and protect you in your journey. Feeling safe and good self-care come first.

Eventually you will feel safe enough to speak up and communicate your fears and needs more directly. Even now I think you are beginning. Soon you might tell your counselor that you are afraid, that you have a secret and you’re afraid to say what it is. That’s the truth, and the truth is a good place to start.

Sincerely,
Lynn

Thank you for your honest question. If anyone were to tell you that you’re “going straight to hell” for this, believe me, you’d have plenty of company on the way down—and an especially good chunk of the male population ages 15-25. My first thought was “he’s in high school or college,” when hormones have pretty much taken over, especially for men.

But the shame you refer to indicates that this is more of a psychological than physical issue; it’s as if you’re violating some strict “rule” by pleasuring yourself, which (again) is natural. It’s sad when I hear of people who can’t enjoy this; nature clearly intended this, or we wouldn’t be so powerfully stimulated by genital contact. I wonder what “commandment” or prohibition you are “breaking” by self-stimulating? Because of the intensity of the feelings here, you might want to seek out a therapist or counselor to sort out why you feel such strong self-loathing after masturbating. I would bet, in fact, that the intensity of the self-loathing creates a need for relief—and thus the compulsion to do it a second time, which then, of course, only stokes the angry “inner critic.”

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I would wonder, if you or someone else were to bring this issue to my office, if the voice of criticism might in fact exist before the act, and thus create a need to feel good in a way that is self-activated. Whose voice is this? A critical parent or caretaker? When did it start? What is the “crime” being committed here? Are you ignoring something else you “should” be doing instead? I would also be curious about the attitudes around sex in your family of origin. Was it seen as something “dirty” or wrong? Or maybe it wasn’t even talked about, creating a kind of unspoken shame around the topic; it could also be you are inheriting shame around sex and pleasure from implicit or explicit family beliefs.

Sometimes such intensely self-hating emotions come when there has been some kind of overt or covert abuse, physical or emotional. I am not suggesting this is the case here, only that sometimes in my clinical work, I find an association of good sexual feelings with shame over an earlier boundary violation, subtle or severe. Of course, any intensive criticism you might have received, about what you are doing in private with your own body, would constitute a boundary violation of its own.

The other thing I’d want to explore is the question of whether masturbation is the only way to bring some kind of embodied, out-of-your-head relief or pleasure to yourself. Sometimes folks with obsessive minds pursue repetitive means of relieving an overburdened or tired mind. If you feel you have no choice but to masturbate, or if it drains you of necessary energy to complete the tasks of living (work, play, socializing), then you might be caught in a compulsive activity which might necessitate a therapeutic intervention. (I could be wrong, but my sense is that yours is not a compulsive or addictive issue, since those with sexual compulsions usually reflect more ambivalence or torn feelings than your letter indicates.)

The danger isn’t so much the “wrongness” of the act itself, in my view; it’s the long-term effects of shame and self-loathing over bringing pleasure to yourself, and possibly sexual activity, which might inhibit intimacy and get in the way of developing satisfying romantic relationships—either concerning sex itself or shame over your habit. (I wonder if shame might also be felt in other areas where you seek personal satisfaction, like career, creativity, etc.) Shame about sex tends to create defenses that can keep others away, with heartbreaking results, when those we care about feel pushed away.

Good for you for having the courage to write in about such a sensitive issue; it’s not only a common pleasurable activity, it’s relatively common to question whether it’s OK to do. You needn’t feel shame about the need to get some guidance on this, especially if balanced, non-shaming guidance was missing in earlier years.

Kindest regards,
Darren

My family moved to England from the United States when I was very young. My first memories are British ones. I remember learning to tie my school tie, and being proud of the little sword and shield crest on my tiny blazer. When I was 7, we moved back to America.

Shortly after arriving back in the United States, my older brother began his sexual advances. I have never been able to find out what had happened to him before he began to repeat the behavior, or when and where it occurred, but I am sure he was abused at a point prior to moving back to America. The behaviors he adopted and the activities he was interested in experiencing were far too advanced for a boy of 10 years old to come up with on his own. I had tried to get these answers from time to time over the years, but my mother was far too delusional or ashamed to ever give any real information.

The first interval of sexual activity occurred over the first two years in the US, and escalated quickly until we were discovered. It wasn’t until about a year ago that I learned exactly how that happened. She must have stumbled on us during a “session” in his room, but didn’t react right away. My memory of this is mostly blocked out.

What I do remember happened later in the evening. She angrily grabbed my younger brother and me and shoved us into the van and drove like crazy to a park nearby. I assume she left my older brother at home out of shame, or merely because she didn’t know what to do. My father was out of the country for work, probably somewhere in Europe. It was in the winter time, that much I remember. The heater was cranked up to the max and we were in snowsuits. I wanted to get out of the van at the park, but she refused to let us out. We three sat there for hours in silence. I got more and more scared and confused. What had she been thinking?

Eventually, I worked up the courage to ask her if I was in trouble. She looked at me with wild black eyes and started to snap, then, as suddenly as she started yell, she stopped. I can’t recall hearing any actual words. I was petrified, and I didn’t even know why. I wanted out of that van immediately. My mind raced feverishly through ways to escape and protect my younger brother without arousing her anger. I came up dry, but luckily, she grew tired of the pointless sitting and drove us home without another word.

Lasting Aftershock
Two weeks went by with no mention of that night, and then my father returned home from his trip. Normally, we loved it when he came home; we typically got small presents, and we got to hear stories of the friends we had left behind in England. This was not to be such a day. I was summoned to the living room to sit on the couch next to my older brother and wait for mother to finish talking to father in their bedroom. They came in and sat across from us. I knew immediately that doom was imminent.

We were both then subjected to an intense and specific interrogation, so laced with shame and disgust that I had to bury my 9-year-old head in the couch cushions. I wept with total abandon. I have been trying to remember the specific details of this morning, but can’t seem to get there. A lot of my childhood has dark windows of redacted information — blank spots surrounded with shame and sorrow, but silhouetted by the clear details around them. I remember it ending at some point when I eventually stopped crying and sat up to see that I was alone in the living room. I ran to my room and hid under my bedclothes. Mother came to me later to tell me I was to stay away from my older brother and that he was clearly “sick” and something would have to be done with him. I look back now on that day and cry only for him. Whatever had happened to me could not have compared to what she had done to him.

Several decades later, I have drawn the conclusion that my mother suffered from borderline personality disorder. She is yet undiagnosed. I have become an apt student of everything related to those with borderline personality, and I try to share what I have learned where it is appropriate to do so. One of the defining characteristics she would manifest regularly was the projection of shame and revulsion regarding anything remotely sexual. I have pieced together a few loose theories on why this is, but not enough to really write about. As traumatic as the sexual abuse eventually became for me, it paled in comparison to what she did to both of us as a result of the discovery.

The “All-Good Child”
This event touched off a campaign of hers to emotionally destroy my older brother. He was painted black with an indelible ink that would never wash away. He was the “all-bad child” for the rest his childhood. I was elevated to the status of the all-good child. It was never that simple, and if we could have gotten together to figure it out, maybe we could have defeated her emotional polarization of our characters. But then again, we probably never stood a chance. A side effect of my mother’s “splitting” was that my brother started sneaking back into my room at nights to continue the sexual advances. This continued for two more years before I got strong enough to resist him and smart enough to keep a buck knife under my mattress. One night I put the blade to his face and made my unwillingness to participate clear. He never bothered me again.

When I turned 15, I met my first girlfriend. She was a visitor at my church, a guest of a single mother and her daughter. One Sunday after the church service had ended, my mother walked up to my girlfriend and me, grabbed us both by the shoulders, and pushed us roughly off to the side of the sanctuary and into an office cubicle. She brought in my girlfriend’s host mother and our pastor, and called her little meeting to order. She began by telling everyone there about my sexual abuse in graphic detail. I had never told a soul what had happened to me those years past, and she just trotted it out like a juicy rumor. When she had finished humiliating me, she moved on to my girlfriend, who had apparently been molested by one of her mother’s boyfriends a few years earlier. Until this point, my girlfriend knew nothing of my abuse, and I had known nothing of hers.

My mother’s apparent goal was to get it all out into the open as to prevent our involvement that she saw ending in debauchery, depravity, and most likely shameful pregnancy. My girlfriend broke up with me over the phone a week later. I couldn’t blame her. My mother in full witch mode was a soul-chilling experience.

Fear into Obedience
I spent the rest of my time before leaving for college trying to please my mother, mostly out of fear. It would take some time away and separation from her to be able to look back and think critically about the time before I realized the truth about her. She reacted to anything remotely sexual with hysteria every time. Even things that were barely risqué resulted in meltdowns for her. A movie with a sex scene (no matter how PG), led her to fits of anger and projected shame. I would do anything in my power each time to escape her presence or distract her with whatever I could. Her shame, unchecked, always seemed to focus on her poor son, or worse, on the older brother who would be forever painted black.

I became a master at reading her moods and deflecting or distracting her scrutiny. My style of survival clashed with that of my brother. Where I chose capitulation, he opted for open rebellion. My great regret from all of this conflict was ever siding with her to spare myself. I’ve since been told that doing this to survive was nothing I should feel ashamed of, but I’ll bet my older brother suffered greatly as a result. I haven’t ever been able to talk to my brother about any of this, but I hope that one day we might try.

I suspect that when our mother passes away, there might be a window of time where we can find a common fraternal safe haven to talk candidly about our horrid upbringing. This is probably wishful thinking, as he has presented a lot of the hallmark traits of a narcissistic personality disorder. I have kept my distance from him for the last few decades. My younger brother was mostly shielded from our mother’s emotional abuse, and I see him once every few months. Since I have suspected my mother’s borderline personality, I have shared a little here and there with him, but for the most part we don’t talk about our childhood. I can’t help but feel that this is building to a conclusion of some sort. Her instability has gotten much worse in the last few years, and her alcohol abuse worsens as well. My father’s enabling has allowed her to continue on unchecked in her madness, but she has turned on him as well.

Healing from Shame
Coming to terms with my childhood has only come about since I sought out a therapist. I actually found her using Goodtherapy.org’s therapist finder application. I have been working with her for almost a year now, and have made a lot of discoveries, both good and bad. I write a blog of my own to make sense of what I was forced to be and what I am trying to become, but this particular story doesn’t want to fit in there anywhere. It’s too rough, too raw, too painful. While I have banished my mother from my life, her ghost still comes to call from time to time.

I write this now as a cleansing ritual to scrub her influence from my mind and spirit. I have reclaimed my life. Memories of pain like these ones have no place in my future except as footnotes. I hope that in sharing this story I can share the hope that comes from deep within me — the hope that we can heal ourselves from anything we’ve had to endure. The transmutation of shame into healing is the greatest magic I have ever seen, and it brought me to tears to see it for the first time in my own life. My greatest wish is to find a way to show this magic to anyone else who has ever needed it.

Many who live with disabilities are burdened by a chronic sense of shame that can be as difficult to live with as the actual disability. Shame is not the same as guilt. Shame is persistent and represents how we feel about ourselves (“I am a shame and disgrace”) rather than how we feel about something we did or did not do (“I feel guilty and embarrassed”).

The term “ashamed” is often used interchangeably with “humiliated.” Shame may be the result of humiliation, but not humility. Humiliation entails stripping a person of his or her sense or worth—of wounding the person’s very being. Humility is more a sense of meekness or equality with others. Dr. Brené Brown has been researching shame and vulnerability for a few years, asking people how they experience shame. Many say it makes them feel small and vulnerable; it includes an almost physical sensation of being kicked in the gut; it takes them to place that feels wounded; and they want to disappear.

How does this happen? How do we begin to feel wounded? Small? Vulnerable? Shamed? Humiliated? It is usually a response to something that happens to us—that is done to us. We are somehow victimized, humiliated, or traumatized by the actions of a person or people who inflict injury upon our sense of self—our very being.

This wounding may be intentional or inadvertent: The shame of a child whose first-grade teacher refused to allow her to go to the bathroom, resulting in an accident in her clothes in front of the whole class. The man who can’t read well enough to complete a job application being verbally harangued by an uncaring receptionist in front of an office full of people. A person in a wheelchair who is “holding up the line” for an elevator when a busy executive is in a hurry. The family with an older autistic child boarding an airplane in advance while others accuse them of making excuses to avoid waiting.

Regardless of the source, this pervasive sense of shame can result in a lifetime of fear, avoidance, and anxiety when faced with issues that trigger similar feelings. The triggers may be subtle and seemingly unconnected, but that feeling of being diminished remains.

For the first-grader who was humiliated by the refusal of her teacher to allow her to go to the bathroom, triggers may transfer to a dislike for authority figures, issues with toileting, or avoidance of school.

The man with difficulty reading who was humiliated by the lack of awareness or disregard of the receptionist may avoid looking for work, find that he is defensive with people working in offices, or resist going to the doctor if it requires filling out forms.

A person in a wheelchair who was humiliated due to holding up the elevator and inconveniencing the busy executive may avoid leaving home, resist taking the safety precautions necessary in a busy location, or feel “less than” people in white-collar jobs.

The family of the child with autism may avoid traveling by plane, become defensive when in need of special treatment, or limit interactions with people waiting in line.

I recommend that those who have feelings of shame learn more about the causes and triggers by getting professional help to address these feelings. Two types of therapy—EFT (emotional freedom technique, aka tapping) and EMDR (eye-movement desensitization reprocessing)—may reduce or eliminate shame reactions.

Healthy narcissism is an accurate picture of the self properly valued, without shame and without overblown estimations. But most of the time when we talk about narcissism we’re thinking about the other kind, where the person thinks he or she is perfect in every way; you are just the opposite, a total loser, and the “Perfect One” is an expert at making sure you feel that way. Now, I’m not saying this is a plot, something done on purpose. It can be unconscious, but that doesn’t make it easier to live with.

Everyone knows a Perfect One, and might even admire the person a little. Perfect Ones are always in the know, or seem to be, but what they know best is how to take the bad feelings they have about themselves and shovel them onto whoever is around and ready to accept them. They lower your feelings about yourself so they can feel better. Putting you down raises them up. And if you’re lacking in self-confidence, you’re their perfect companion.

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Could that be you? If you’re self-confident and aware of your abilities, taking credit when it’s coming to you should be a pleasure. But if you lack self-confidence, accepting a compliment can be pretty hard. Instead of feeling good, you may even feel ashamed. How come? And can you do anything about it? If you sometimes react with feelings of discomfort or shame when you’ve done something really well and been told about it, you may be responding to early feelings of worthlessness that were part of faulty family situations. Maybe your parents lacked self-esteem, too, and passed that on to you, or maybe you’re related to a Perfect One who trained you to be his or her audience, or perhaps you endured bullying in school. Perfect Ones make good bullies.

It could be that when you were a kid you were subjected to the envious feelings of others, so every time someone tells you something good about yourself you don’t believe it, or you expect something bad to happen, because that’s how you’ve been trained, so you’d rather put the spotlight on someone else, and who better than a Perfect One? Perfect Ones expect all compliments to come their way. If this applies to you, try to figure out who around you might be part of the problem. You can talk to them about it, but—even better—you can talk to yourself about it, remembering that what Perfect Ones are saying has more to do with their own feelings about themselves than about you. In fact, if you listen to the negative things they say, you’ll learn a lot about their secret, shameful feelings about themselves, proving that, deep down, they know they’re not really perfect after all.

Shame and narcissism are fellow travelers, a continuum of feelings about the self. Picture a seesaw with shame on the bottom and narcissism on the top. Envy accompanies the up-and-down actions of the seesaw. Perfect Ones feel envy all the time, and process that feeling by making others feel envious so Perfect One can feel superior. Perfect Ones’ feelings of superiority go with the expectation that they are better than everybody else and deserve favorable treatment in the world. They use others to get what they want, they believe they have it coming, and when they don’t get what they think they deserve they react with intense anger, called narcissistic rage. Perfect Ones don’t see others as equals; they see others as tools. Their internal feelings about themselves are unsteady, and they have to work hard to keep feeling good.

We’ve been talking about a make-believe person called Perfect One. The use of the word “one” is important here. Think ONE. A universe of one, where Perfect Ones want YOU to love THEM, but they are not capable of loving you or anyone else back. It’s a pretty cold world when you are the only Perfect One. If you’ve spent any time with Perfect Ones, you may have felt very lonely. Inside, the Perfect Ones feel lonely too, because no one is good enough to share their world. You might feel sorry for them, but don’t let the Perfect Ones take advantage of your ability to feel for others. Perfect Ones are expert manipulators.

After you have learned the game and how it’s played, you can stop playing with Perfect Ones and find humans who aren’t perfect but play fair. You’ll have a better time all around.

Remember my image of the seesaw? Perfect One on top? Well, Perfect One will fall down with a thud when you get off the seesaw. And then you can get back on and come to a good balance with someone else.

In a highly anticipated interview with Oprah Winfrey, famed cyclist Lance Armstrong has finally come clean about the allegations of doping that have haunted him for much of his unparalleled career. Armstrong, who in August 2012 was stripped of his record seven Tour de France victories and banned from competitive cycling due to mounting evidence of performance-enhancing drug use, is just one in a long line of athletes—most notably baseball players—who have either confessed to using performance enhancers or whose images have been tarnished by credible allegations of doping.

It’s no secret that many athletes will go to any length for a competitive edge, but performance-enhancing drugs carry numerous health risks, including baldness, impotence, infertility, addiction, psychiatric issues, hypertension, liver problems, and numerous other issues.

In a world where athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs always seem to get caught, often with disastrous consequences for their careers, what would compel an athlete to risk not only his or her health but livelihood as well?

Perfectionism and Pressure to Perform
Competitive sports can be cutthroat. Fans, coaches, and sponsors have high expectations for athletes, and hold in high regard records and never-been-done-before, seemingly superhuman feats. These expectations are frequently unrealistic, but can place considerable pressure on athletes. People in the upper echelons of athletics are often perfectionists to begin with; after all, it’s not easy to make it to the top. These perfectionist tendencies can make performance-enhancing drugs seem not only justified, but necessary.

Particularly when the competition uses performance-enhancing drugs, a dedicated athlete might feel like he or she has no choice. If the competition has an unfair advantage, taking drugs may seem less like cheating and more like leveling the playing field.

Peer Pressure
Particularly as more and more athletes admit to the use of performance-enhancing drugs, it can seem like sport is full of doping. Athletes may experience peer pressure from friends, teammates, and coaches, who may suggest that they can’t keep up with their competitors if they don’t use drugs. Peer pressure can also come in indirect ways. When athletes are criticized by peers, they might feel like their only hope for improvement can come in a vial or pill. Coaches, teammates, and even physicians or trainers may be complicit in doping.

Financial Issues
Not all athletes are wealthy. Particularly among Olympic athletes, financial gain often comes in the form of sponsorships, not from the sport or league. Many athletes spend years paying coaches, trainers, and gyms, and may get deep in debt covering the costs of developing into one of the best at what they do. Athletes are much more likely to get cushy sponsorship deals and contracts when they break records or win competitions. Particularly when an athlete knows or believes that other successful people in his or her field are using performance-enhancing drugs, they might seem like the most attractive or likely way to get out of debt and into financial security.

Secrecy
Although many athletes are regularly drug-tested, dopers try to stay one step ahead of the science. Many athletes have devised novel ways to avoid being caught, and in a high-stakes world, it’s easy to believe you can outsmart the testing mechanisms. Indeed, many athletes have managed to do just that for years, so the risk might seem worth it to an athlete under immense pressure.

References:

1. Oprah: Lance Armstrong confesses. (2013, January 16). ESPN. Retrieved from http://espn.go.com/sports/endurance/story/_/id/8845599/oprah-winfrey-confirms-lance-armstrong-admitted-doping
2. Performance-enhancing drugs: Know the risks. (2012, December 12). Mayo Clinic. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/performance-enhancing-drugs/HQ01105
3. Shermer, M. (2008, March 31). The doping dilemma. Scientific American. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-doping-dilemma
4. Shermer, M. (2009, September 07). Why athletes dope. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shermer/why-athletes-dope_b_278861.html