Toxic Shame

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Sheepdog,

I read this thread and then I read the post in which you described why you are so ashamed of yourself. Well of course you feel horrible through and through! Your entire culture and upbringing has taught you that infidelity is the worst possible thing, you were seduced by a pwBPD over a long period of time and thus, you, as a human being who wishes to be accepted by your "people" feels awful about yourself.

Have you been holding all this information back from your community? Have you been keeping this a secret? I'm NOT suggesting you tell anyone. I have no idea if you would be rejected for it or if there is a way for you to be forgiven.

In my culture, we "confess" to the priest. That way we can continue to be accepted after we've "sinned". I'm sorry, I've changed religions because I was highly educated and was not able to get adequate answers from the Catholic church to my questions and therefore I sought out a new theology and have connected with a new community. But this is not an option for everyone. I've found ways to survive outside of my "family of origion" culture.

I am fourth generation immigrants and the "Judgement" from one's culture can be completely overwhelming. It is there to try to "protect" you but I believe it is also there, in many instances, to try and "control women" and their bodies. Thus, I do no "agree" with all of the teachings o my culture. I was taught (outside my family of origin culture, in my very good schools) to think critically, independently, to question these teachings and try to put them into context. However, that is an academic exercise. An intellectual exercise. We are still social creatures who need to be loved by "our" people.

One more thing I can relate to. My husband comes from a VERY conservative religion too. His conditioning by them is so severe he too feels toxic shame at times. We have both walked away from those communities that teach us that we are bad and that others are bad because of their behaviors when we know the religion is just trying to control people to serve their own interests. We know that we need to practice loving each other and being gentle about our mistakes.

The fact is that life is hard, people can trick us, and when we fall prey to their manipulations, we may feel guilty for our part in it, but we must accept also that we are human and that sometimes people can successfully manipulate us to their ends. ANYONE can be tricked and it doesn't make you bad for having done so. To me, bad experiences help me to open my heart up because now I know what it feels like to walk in someone elses shoes. This is where compassion comes from. nd compassion is the ability to hold someone our hearts, in our circle when they've stumbled. We all stumble at one point or another. And we cannot survive without others there to embrace us when we do. Thus, in living we learn to embrace wider and wider as we go always striving do well and right.   

Good luck on your journey! Tea

Tea - I could never tell anyone.  I am 1000% positive that if anyone knew what I did, they would be done with me.  I think about that all the time.  A lot of people I work with think I am so nice, upbeat, etc, etc.  They would stop speaking to me immediately if they knew what I'd done.  I think my family would, too.

I agree with what you said and may even subscribe to it except that I can't.  Because I didn't do it once, or it only happened on one weekend.  It went on for like a year.  He met my husband's family.  He slept in his childhood bed.  He ate dinner with us.  It is so disgusting.

[sheepdog]

Sheepdog,

I read this thread and then I read the post in which you described why you are so ashamed of yourself. Well of course you feel horrible through and through! Your entire culture and upbringing has taught you that infidelity is the worst possible thing, you were seduced by a pwBPD over a long period of time and thus, you, as a human being who wishes to be accepted by your "people" feels awful about yourself.

Have you been holding all this information back from your community? Have you been keeping this a secret? I'm NOT suggesting you tell anyone. I have no idea if you would be rejected for it or if there is a way for you to be forgiven.

In my culture, we "confess" to the priest. That way we can continue to be accepted after we've "sinned". I'm sorry, I've changed religions because I was highly educated and was not able to get adequate answers from the Catholic church to my questions and therefore I sought out a new theology and have connected with a new community. But this is not an option for everyone. I've found ways to survive outside of my "family of origion" culture.

I am fourth generation immigrants and the "Judgement" from one's culture can be completely overwhelming. It is there to try to "protect" you but I believe it is also there, in many instances, to try and "control women" and their bodies. Thus, I do no "agree" with all of the teachings o my culture. I was taught (outside my family of origin culture, in my very good schools) to think critically, independently, to question these teachings and try to put them into context. However, that is an academic exercise. An intellectual exercise. We are still social creatures who need to be loved by "our" people.

One more thing I can relate to. My husband comes from a VERY conservative religion too. His conditioning by them is so severe he too feels toxic shame at times. We have both walked away from those communities that teach us that we are bad and that others are bad because of their behaviors when we know the religion is just trying to control people to serve their own interests. We know that we need to practice loving each other and being gentle about our mistakes.

The fact is that life is hard, people can trick us, and when we fall prey to their manipulations, we may feel guilty for our part in it, but we must accept also that we are human and that sometimes people can successfully manipulate us to their ends. ANYONE can be tricked and it doesn't make you bad for having done so. To me, bad experiences help me to open my heart up because now I know what it feels like to walk in someone elses shoes. This is where compassion comes from. nd compassion is the ability to hold someone our hearts, in our circle when they've stumbled. We all stumble at one point or another. And we cannot survive without others there to embrace us when we do. Thus, in living we learn to embrace wider and wider as we go always striving do well and right.   

Good luck on your journey! Tea

Tea - I could never tell anyone.  I am 1000% positive that if anyone knew what I did, they would be done with me.  I think about that all the time.  A lot of people I work with think I am so nice, upbeat, etc, etc.  They would stop speaking to me immediately if they knew what I'd done.  I think my family would, too.

I agree with what you said and may even subscribe to it except that I can't.  Because I didn't do it once, or it only happened on one weekend.  It went on for like a year.  He met my husband's family.  He slept in his childhood bed.  He ate dinner with us.  It is so disgusting.

[C12P21]

Because I didn't do it once, or it only happened on one weekend.  It went on for like a year.  He met my husband's family.  He slept in his childhood bed.  He ate dinner with us.  It is so disgusting.

The shame is his, not yours. You have been through an ordeal that is  difficult to sort through, you were seduced by a predator, someone that gained your trust and then turned that trust against you. Someone that you viewed as a friend.

Try to keep that in mind.

As far as peoples judgement of you, you might be surprised how many women have been in similar situations. Are there any support groups where you would have the support of women? Perhaps not now, but when you are ready... .   validation is important in healing.

Living with this must be painful and it sounds like you feel alone although surrounded by friends, family and coworkers. Is there anyone you can turn to that you can trust?

C

[TeaAmongRoses]

Hi Sheepdog,

Since you cannot tell anyone in your personal circles, as forgivness of you is not an option, then I suggest you keep talking about it with folks here or with a therapist. I don't know if there can be healing without your real community embracing you, but at least you will be able to cope. I fear that you could become quite depressed by holding your secret.

I will share with you a little bit from my experience. Before I was with my husband, I had unwanted attention from other men. However, I was too concerned about not hurting their feelings and sometimes they would advance further with me than I wanted. They were predators and percieved my friendliness as openness to their advances. Sometimes it went further than it should, for example, going out on "dates" when I really wasn't interested in them romantically at all. It was quite a problem because they were married and I was not truly consentual. When I started seeing my husband he was extremely strict about me cutting off contact with all men. It was difficult to achieve because in my work, women and men work along side each other. However, I did make the effort to gain his trust by cutting out all male friendships. This was actually very liberating for me because I was, for the first time, able to see that I was getting "unwanted" attention from men, in part because of my behavior.

Now that I've come to the conclusion that I cannot have any male friendships (because my husband can't handle it), it has actually worked out well because I don't have any unwanted advances from men anymore. Part of it is being married. As an unmarried woman it was much harder. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that of course there are thngs you can do differently to ensure that you NEVER get these kinds of advances again. You don't talk to men in the future about persnal things and  if they ever give you a sob story about how much they need you, you just turn the other way or say "my husband would not appreciate you talking to me like that". And be done with it. When I had a harassing eexboyfriend approach me after we broke up, I told him my new fiance waas extremely jealous and would beat him up if he came around. He never contacted me again.

I had another exboyfriend tell me he understood my husband's feelings and never contacted me again. So, while you may regret what you got into with this person, you can certainly change your behavior so that it doesn't happen again.

Can you focus on your intamacy with your husband? Can you share with him in some way that you've been violated? Seems like you need to connect and heal with him, without actually telling him what happened since you believe that would be devastating.

It sounds like you love him very much and in the end this is about you and him. So if you could find some way to share some aspect of it with him it seems it would be healling for the two of you. At least talking to a therapist seems important. SOmeone who is totally bound to confidentiality. Good luck! I worry about you!  Tea

[sheepdog]

Here is the deal with me (and I've been like this all my life) - I don't share.  And if I do, it makes me feel very anxious because then the other person has a piece of you that you can't ever get back.  If I was to tell someone about this, they would always have that knowledge, would always look at me,  my husband, me and my husband - differently.

I'm not sure what you meant by intimacy, Tea.  If you meant physical... .  well, my husband and I have not been physical in quite some time.  It makes me so sad for him... .  for us.  He, of course, doesn't know the *real* reason why but he knows it has to do with how anxious/ashamed/sad I've been.  Weird that I feel dishonest being physical with him now.  We hug, kiss, hold hands, but have not had sex in a while.  It's like now I am seeing exactly all that I did.  Before, when I was doing what I was doing with BPD - I was saving a life, I was in over my head, BPD did not think I was 'dirty' (yes, we actually had these convos and I so stupidly believed them).  Now, I see all for what it really was and I feel tarnished and tainted and don't want any of that to get on my husband.

I don't see a way out... .  

Thank you so much for your comments.  They mean a lot.

Modified to add:  Tea, I could have written what you wrote here myself:  "I will share with you a little bit from my experience. Before I was with my husband, I had unwanted attention from other men. However, I was too concerned about not hurting their feelings and sometimes they would advance further with me than I wanted. They were predators and percieved my friendliness as openness to their advances. Sometimes it went further than it should, for example, going out on "dates" when I really wasn't interested in them romantically at all."