I am consumed by shame. I deep sense of shame at my core.

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

It has become pretty clear to me now.  WHat I am dealing with is SHAME.  I am consumed by shame.  I deep sense of shame at my core.  It is so incredibly difficult to work through and is paralyzing.  My ex projected her shame onto me and I identified with it from being made to feel ashamed of myself by people in my childhood. Toxic shame. My hands are shaking.  I didn't develop a coping mechanism as strong as BPD or NPD to hide from this shame. It is consuming me.

the core issue of all of this is shame. 

[Blimblam]

It has become pretty clear to me now.  WHat I am dealing with is SHAME.  I am consumed by shame.  I deep sense of shame at my core.  It is so incredibly difficult to work through and is paralyzing.  My ex projected her shame onto me and I identified with it from being made to feel ashamed of myself by people in my childhood. Toxic shame. My hands are shaking.  I didn't develop a coping mechanism as strong as BPD or NPD to hide from this shame. It is consuming me.

the core issue of all of this is shame. 

[LettingGo14]

It has become pretty clear to me now.  WHat I am dealing with is SHAME.  I am consumed by shame.  I deep sense of shame at my core.  It is so incredibly difficult to work through and is paralyzing.  My ex projected her shame onto me and I identified with it from being made to feel ashamed of myself by people in my childhood. Toxic shame. My hands are shaking.  I didn't develop a coping mechanism as strong as BPD or NPD to hide from this shame. It is consuming me.

the core issue of all of this is shame. 

Have you had a chance to read "The Journey From Abandonment To Healing" by Susan Anderson?   It is reviewed under the book thread and I will link to it when I get to my computer.

The third stage is very relevant for us all.  We "internalize" the abandonment.

I have a copy of the book on my phone (kindle app) and I refer to it often.

It might help, BB.  You are not alone, my friend.

[Blimblam]

as a society we have been conditioned to hide from this shame and create false selfs.  An age of narcissism where we define ourselves through consumption.  The pwBPD in our life has opened us to our core wounds.  The endemic core wounds of society itself.  What we are experiencing are the core wounds of systemic insanity.  A microcosm of the macrocosm.  Our eyes are being opened to the truth the painful truth.  Is it no wonder that Psychopaths rise to the top? The very things that are surfacing the path to healing has been systematically twisted in a way to allow us to hide from our shame.  To allow us to be controlled.

take the red pill.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH6mKLqe4Yc

www.topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/

[Blimblam]

It has become pretty clear to me now.  WHat I am dealing with is SHAME.  I am consumed by shame.  I deep sense of shame at my core.  It is so incredibly difficult to work through and is paralyzing.  My ex projected her shame onto me and I identified with it from being made to feel ashamed of myself by people in my childhood. Toxic shame. My hands are shaking.  I didn't develop a coping mechanism as strong as BPD or NPD to hide from this shame. It is consuming me.

the core issue of all of this is shame. 

Have you had a chance to read "The Journey From Abandonment To Healing" by Susan Anderson?   It is reviewed under the book thread and I will link to it when I get to my computer.

The third stage is very relevant for us all.  We "internalize" the abandonment.

I have a copy of the book on my phone (kindle app) and I refer to it often.

It might help, BB.  You are not alone, my friend.

thank you letting go I have ordered the book and it is on its way.  What really stands out to me when looking at the self help books is that there are two seemingly conflicting paths.  that both have origins in psychoanylysis but one path seems to be aimed at burying core wounds and developing coping mechanisms to rise to the top of the game of musical chairs.  The business self help, based in what seems like narcissism type stuff, like Think and Grow Rich the positive thinking movement type stuff.  Then their is the digging into ones shadow to face ones demons type self help stuff. 

That second link I posted is to a documentary series called century of the self it was on the BBC and won a Bafta award for historical documentary.  It is about How those in power have used the ideas of psychoanalysis and the idea of the self to control the masses.  Its seems appropriate in that what the shame is hidden buried under a false self a false self that has been culturaly conditioned.  Also it is part of the reason when turning to others they can not identify and invalidate us. 

They use our inner shame to control us.  The fear of feeling ashamed in the face of others and ourselves.

[Blimblam]

I just feel like I am bearing the burden of a toxic legacy of shame.  Passed down through the generations. I turn to my family and can see they just bury theirs. By just focusing on the positive and reacting defensively to anything that would remind what they have hidden deep down. I turn to my ex and the same.  The burden of actually feeling the feelings the people I love run away from.

[strong9]

I understand. My family and hers (and she) are exactly the same. It is hard when you are the only one to take ownership of something. You will turn in to the scapegoat and unfortunately tool's question whether you should just drink the Kool aid too. It is tough not too.

[Blimblam]

strong9,

I agree its like everyone just wants you to suck it up and focus on the positive.  Self reflection?  whats that?

It reminds me of the movie American beauty.  People going through life seeking out experiences and things to keep up the façade.  Out of sight out of mind.  Or even looking into ones shadow is feeding negativity so just never do that.  It is just so much like a cluster B disorder.

The more I learn about cluster B the more I see the patterns everywhere.  Everything is a commodity. 

[OutOfEgypt]

From working through this kind of thing with my ISTDP therapist, "shame" is actually from the repression of our core emotions.  It is the result of numbing ourselves to our emotions and burying/fleeing from our core feelings -something which is very normal when we go through trauma and even more normal when you live your life with a person whose entire aura is about pushing their garbage on you and telling you to silence how you truly feel.

Once you find your voice, again, and feel through the pain and the anger, the shame will go.  The anger enlivens us to the injustice we experienced, like our defender, rather than believing that we somehow "deserved" it (shame posture), and the anger is always linked to deep pain for unmet, disappointed love.  Our love is meant to make the other alive, but with them it never does.  It is only met by control, manipulation, coldness, blame, etc.  Nothing we ever do is enough.

In my experience, no books and no "talk therapy" ever helped me work through what is ultimately living in my unconscious.  Only this particular kind of therapy has helped.

[Alex86]

I would suggest reading the following books from Brene Brown:

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't)

and for a quick watch maybe:

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability

[Blimblam]

From working through this kind of thing with my ISTDP therapist, "shame" is actually from the repression of our core emotions.  It is the result of numbing ourselves to our emotions and burying/fleeing from our core feelings -something which is very normal when we go through trauma and even more normal when you live your life with a person whose entire aura is about pushing their garbage on you and telling you to silence how you truly feel.

Once you find your voice, again, and feel through the pain and the anger, the shame will go.  The anger enlivens us to the injustice we experienced, like our defender, rather than believing that we somehow "deserved" it (shame posture), and the anger is always linked to deep pain for unmet, disappointed love.  Our love is meant to make the other alive, but with them it never does.  It is only met by control, manipulation, coldness, blame, etc.  Nothing we ever do is enough.

In my experience, no books and no "talk therapy" ever helped me work through what is ultimately living in my unconscious.  Only this particular kind of therapy has helped.

It clicked like an hour ago.  I feel like time folded in on itself and I relived a bunch of core truamas and current truamas at the same time.

[Blimblam]

I would suggest reading the following books from Brene Brown:

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't)

and for a quick watch maybe:

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability

Ive been eyeballing those on amazon.  I ordered a big stack of books in the midst of all this.

[Blimblam]

I had a break through today.  the answers lie in the shame.  ashamed of abandonement our love being rejected.

and it gets twisted around... .I wont leave you I love you. its in the core Im not really up for writing about it.  surrendering and facing my shame has been the key though to some real healing.

[Ihope2]

Thank you for sharing this Blimblam and it is good that you made this breakthrough realisation.  It is making me take inventory of myself, I think shame may also be underpinning some of my personal issues.  Shame at not being "acceptable enough", "outgoing enough", "good enough", shame at being "weird", "different", "strange"... .

I need to sit with this for a while.  Thank you and take care.

[Blimblam]

thank you Ihope,

I am still processing this breakthrough but it was huge.

I feel a part of myself that has been lost for years.  The real self.  I am still in a very vulnerable state though.  I can feel empathy again, I hate to say it but I had not been able to for months while dealing with the narcissistic injury.  That's ok though I have no shame in that it is a part of the healing process and I am glad that I went this route rather than bury it and rebuild my false self. 

The breakthrough was extremely powerful it felt like I transcended time and space. I cried and each sob echoed from a lifetime of pain and suffering buried in the deepest darkest corners hidden from myself. Like the outside turned in as the inside came out.

I feel like I am able to begin to focus again.  Like my core is starting to slowly reclaim the gaping hole.

this is the beginning and I still need to be gentle with myself.  To think I am all better now would be a lie my false self reinstated to bury and hide my shame.

[Allmessedup]

I am going to second the recommendation of the brene brown books.  They were instrumental in helping understand the shame and the ramifications of it for me. 

It is a hard dark place you are in right now and I battle with shame greatly still.  The breakthrough I had was indeed very powerful and painful.  However it sounds like you are very much on the right path.  Denying shame, hiding it, only feeds it.  Shining light on it can eradicate it.

Be gentle with yourself... .it's not a race but it is an exceptionally enlightening journey.

Amu

[Blimblam]

allmessed,

thank you I will definitely check them out.

Ive had another realization  my step mom is borderline too but high functioning.  Holly crap and the ex I thought was "normal" has borderline tendencies at least.  man my eyes are opening wow wow wow.  I don't know if I have ever had a relationship with a "non" before ever.

this is really tricky because I still live with a borderline in my life and today she painted me black and has turned my dad against me with a lie.  I don't know how to explain this to him?

It all is starting to make sense now.

[Blimblam]

What a journey of self discovery these last few months have been. I had to go through hell and hit rock bottom to start to see.  Thank you bpdfamily I would still be lost of ot wasn't for this place.  Now I have to dig myself out of the hole I've fallen into. 

[seeking balance]

I will 3rd Brene' Brown on this subject.  Go to Oprah.com and watch her 2 part life class with Brene' - very powerful and will give you the feeling on not being alone in all this along with the hope of recovery.

Shame - the feeling of "I am bad"

vs.

Guilt - the feeling of "I did something bad"

Shame needs 3 things to survive: "Secrecy, silence and judgment: those are the three things shame needs to grow exponentially in our lives."

Shame Resilience happens by taking these three steps:

-Talk to yourself like you talk to someone you love. "I would say to myself, 'God, you're so stupid, Brene,'" Brown says. "I would never talk to my kids that way."

-Reach out to someone you trust.

-Tell your story. "Shame cannot survive being spoken," Brown says.


Brown agrees, adding, "The antidote? Empathy. [Shame] cannot survive being spoken and being met with empathy," Brown says.


Blimblam - are you working with a T to help heal your childhood wounds?  You are not alone in feeling the way you do and this is big work, a good T is worth his/her weight in goal for you right now... .at least for me that was true.

Peace,

SB

[Blimblam]

Thanks for the insight sb.

Just today my stepmom tried to shame me. But I didn't internalize it. She likes to kick me wen I am down.  She has some sort of cluster b stuff going on and when I think back trying to have a real conversation she never was able to understand.  Or times a relative of hers would talk about hard times she would start bragging about traveling. 

I will work through this.  I need to work on finding a T. Money is really right right now.

[Blimblam]

I will 3rd Brene' Brown on this subject.  Go to Oprah.com and watch her 2 part life class with Brene' - very powerful and will give you the feeling on not being alone in all this along with the hope of recovery.

Shame - the feeling of "I am bad"

vs.

Guilt - the feeling of "I did something bad"

Shame needs 3 things to survive: "Secrecy, silence and judgment: those are the three things shame needs to grow exponentially in our lives."

Shame Resilience happens by taking these three steps:

-Talk to yourself like you talk to someone you love. "I would say to myself, 'God, you're so stupid, Brene,'" Brown says. "I would never talk to my kids that way."

-Reach out to someone you trust.

-Tell your story. "Shame cannot survive being spoken," Brown says.


Brown agrees, adding, "The antidote? Empathy. [Shame] cannot survive being spoken and being met with empathy," Brown says.


Blimblam - are you working with a T to help heal your childhood wounds?  You are not alone in feeling the way you do and this is big work, a good T is worth his/her weight in goal for you right now... .at least for me that was true.

Peace,

SB

The thing is the shame I had within me was buried way deep down.  I have people in my life that would shame me my entire life and it hurt.  Really the only time the shame really surfaced or was internalized as an adult was when being devalued by my BPD birth mother and when being devalued by BPDexgfs also after being dumped by an ex of mine with cluster B traits.

This last ex I let her in all the way and put my hopes dreams and finances fully into a future for us.  I internalized the shame she projected and it formed some kind of bridge to my core truamas in life which are shrouded in shame.

I really dug deep inside and asked myself, why I would I try so hard to please someone who shamed me? and How I identified with her projected shame I internalized.  My core truamas emerged, and broke through the surface into my present consciousness.

I am consciously aware of my vulnerable state and my real self and false self vying for control.  My false self says let me take over and not feel this pain anymore.  My real self says stay with the pain and process it.

I am being patient and processing it.

It is an uncomfortable experience.

I really think I will come out of this stronger and more *whole* than ever before in my life if I stay the course.

[seeking balance]

It is an uncomfortable experience.

Yes, reparenting our inner child is uncomfortable, unfamiliar and can be scary - but it really is worth it.

Pema Chodrin - Comfortable With Uncertainty and Start Where You are were really helpful to me when I embarked on the journey you are at.

Patience & Time - good you are giving that gift to yourself. 

[Blimblam]

thanks seek,

this path is difficult the guiding line is staying with the pain.  This may sound counter intuitive to some especially with the positivity movement so often ascribed to. 

The thing is I have been going through hell and now that I have myself back my real self who is wounded.  The "devil" or "false self" tempts me with unicorns and rainbows offering me a way out of feeling this pain.  It is a lie, I would be running away from the wounded child I found in the pits of despair.

[charred]

I would suggest reading the following books from Brene Brown:

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't)

and for a quick watch maybe:

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability

Excellent books for understanding what is needed and origin of the shame... not much on making things better though... for that you might try "The PathWay" and "Wired for Joy" by Laura Mellin... they are excellent and have tools for boundaries and getting from high stressed states of mind to lower and lower ones. Loved the Brene Brown ones... but little in the way of next steps to take.

[Blimblam]

Thanks charred I think I've embraces most of my shame by this point.  I still have a lot of emotions to process.  I think being true to myself is what I have to do now. And find healthy outlets of expression

[rollercoaster24]

Hi all

Thanks for the wonderful posts and links.

Shame and guilt are my two biggest monkeys, and are at the basis of low self esteem and panic/anxiety attacks, (something I have suffered my whole life from time to time).

It is also the reason I likely (and unconsciously) entered into the relationship with now exBPD and stayed for so long.

I will make it my aim to heal from this toxicity for the rest of my life.

Blessings all

Roller

[Blimblam]

As I continue on my journey I begin to realize their are many layers to this.  I will work through a layer it being very uncomfortable and then have some sort or release from it.  Then a period of feeling good and feeling like I know who I am perhaps even feeling confident.  Then the crappy uncomfortable feeling is back.

What I have begun to do is use "Who are you?" or "who am I" as a mantra I ask myself.  I don't focus detached on the mantra, but I explore who I tell myself I am. Then I use the mantra, "Is that you  think I am or just how you want to perceive yourself as?"  

Doing this is helping me to get through the layers.  I realize under each layer of shame I have more fragments of myself that attach to my , "false self," giving me confidence and the ability to shine but ultimately is narcissisticly inclined and if I cling to it I will not be working through what is deeper.  I know their is more deeper because I can feel it in my chest.  I think going to the breaking point of my sanity and beyond has brought up my most deepest of core wounds into my present conscious experience being held by my body.

While I am happy to be healing this process is all consuming energywise.  I need other people around to take energy from just to be able to complete basic tasks that don't specifically pertain to my own healing.  In fact even to heal I need to take energy from others and I do that through my use of this website.  To be at this point I must have hit absolute rock bottom and it sure felt like I did.

[Blimblam]

People in my life tell me crap.  "F*** that its bull shi*," or "you can't let that do ___ to you," or "you just need to be strong."

That just brings more shame.

  I need to be true to myself.  I need to be vulnerable and not feel ashamed of it. I need to lay here for a few hours feeling like I weigh ten thousand pounds and this ever present feeling in my chest pins me down to the floor and surrender.  The "important," things in life I 'need' to attend to can wait I have no choice Its costing me thousands of dollars in losses.  I am left with a choice surrender or die.  No one I know believes me when I tell them this or understands at all.  If I fight it I will work my way into a full blown hallucinatory anxiety/panic attack and if I keep fighting I will either have to kill myself to escape the extreme pain or surrender to it.

surrender or die.

[Blimblam]

if you have ever seen the movie eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.  there is a part where they are trying to erase the memory of her and he is hiding her in all his shamefull memories. this is so accurate to what I am experiencing.

its like each time I hit a new layer there is a release followed by a bunch of vulnerable narcissistic ideas of myself then I release those thoughts and ride out a High during the high I am quite powerful and able to dominate people around me fairly easily. crap im a narcissist. I feel like a repressed darkness ive been pushing away all this time trying my best to be a good person and I feel a deep connection to my ex in this feeling.  I find myself bargaining about my ex again and surprisingly I am also finding a bunch of repressed good memories of my first uBPD exgf from more than a decade ago. this was what happened last night... .I woke up feeling like I weighed 10,000 pounds and pinned to the floor, completely drained energy wise. the anxiety is strong and overwhelming me once again.

[charred]

From working through this kind of thing with my ISTDP therapist, "shame" is actually from the repression of our core emotions.  It is the result of numbing ourselves to our emotions and burying/fleeing from our core feelings -something which is very normal when we go through trauma and even more normal when you live your life with a person whose entire aura is about pushing their garbage on you and telling you to silence how you truly feel.

Once you find your voice, again, and feel through the pain and the anger, the shame will go.  The anger enlivens us to the injustice we experienced, like our defender, rather than believing that we somehow "deserved" it (shame posture), and the anger is always linked to deep pain for unmet, disappointed love.  Our love is meant to make the other alive, but with them it never does.  It is only met by control, manipulation, coldness, blame, etc.  Nothing we ever do is enough.

In my experience, no books and no "talk therapy" ever helped me work through what is ultimately living in my unconscious.  Only this particular kind of therapy has helped.

I agree that the shame is repression of our core emotions, and learning to repress them happened in our FOO, and few things help therapy wise... but something does help.

Finding your voice again... is close... it is uncorking the feelings/emotions we repress that has to happen... and most the books I have seen don't offer much help at all.

However, an old one I found does. "The Betrayal of the Body" by Alexander Lowen M.D.

It came out in 1967... and was recently re-released...

He explains how we repress our feelings, why we do so (it was only choice we felt had to maintain our sanity)... and how the net effect of repressing them is to lose connection to the body. we numb ourselves and armor ourselves to be able to take the hurt feelings... eventually we learn to not feel very much. The solution... learning to feel again in your body... a mix of mindfulness and learning to relax and let down the armor. He explains how the ego uses images to replace the feelings we have, so that we work towards our ego's image of what we want, not our true needs. Have to give an example to make sense of it... .

A disordered woman may have mixed feelings about being a mother, she wants kids because they can complete her and allow her to be the perfect mother... .so she has kids. When they cry, scream, poop... she may react to them as demanding little monsters... and the feelings she communicates to the kid is that they are bad. At other times she is playing the role of the perfect mother... and interacting with the kids... as objects... .not beings with needs... and the kid quickly learns to play the role of "the perfect kid"... to keep from getting the wrath of the disordered mother... while hiding true feelings... .especially not showing anger. In time the kid can repress all kinds of feelings/emotions... but what happens when you suppress bad feelings... is that you numb yourself to good feelings at the same time. A kid in that situation is looking to survive not seek pleasure... so everything becomes survival... and anything that brings pleasure creates anxiety. If the disordered mother is religious... or judgmental... then the kid is told that sex and pleasure are evil and a great deal of shame is created.

People that grew up being dealt with as an object... instead of a person (whose feelings needed to be respected and nourished)... withdraw and numb their feelings, and find it very hard to make decisions... especially about what they really want... as they don't know. They tend to live a role and be operating from an image of what they are, instead of being in touch with their body and feelings. They breath shallow, have stiffness and signs of almost lifelong anxiety and stress... with a disconnection from bodily experience. Dr. Lowen's treatments are to get back in touch with the feelings through bodily movement and therapy.

Shame is pointless, especially if it is from when you were an infant/little kid... but it does linger and take away the possibility of feeling joy ... or just feeling normal emotions, at all, if it is bad enough.

[DreamFlyer99]

Once you find your voice, again, and feel through the pain and the anger, the shame will go.  The anger enlivens us to the injustice we experienced, like our defender, rather than believing that we somehow "deserved" it (shame posture), and the anger is always linked to deep pain for unmet, disappointed love.  Our love is meant to make the other alive, but with them it never does.  It is only met by control, manipulation, coldness, blame, etc. Nothing we ever do is enough.

Now we're in my backyard! That is what I learned at the knee of my parents, and I remained full of shame for not simply "knowing" how to make them happy. Then I carried it into my marriage with my uBPDh who backed up those feelings because I couldn't make him happy either (my terrible lack of boundaries! I didn't know I was allowing these things to continue because I was still doing the same old schtick of "trying to make him happy" when that wasn't actually my job.)

People that grew up being dealt with as an object... instead of a person (whose feelings needed to be respected and nourished)... withdraw and numb their feelings, and find it very hard to make decisions... especially about what they really want... as they don't know. They tend to live a role and be operating from an image of what they are, instead of being in touch with their body and feelings. They breath shallow, have stiffness and signs of almost lifelong anxiety and stress... with a disconnection from bodily experience. Dr. Lowen's treatments are to get back in touch with the feelings through bodily movement and therapy.

Shame is pointless, especially if it is from when you were an infant/little kid... but it does linger and take away the possibility of feeling joy ... or just feeling normal emotions, at all, if it is bad enough.

Also me--dealt with most of childhood and a fair amount of adulthood by dissociating (unbeknownst to me.)

Blimblam, you are on the right track of figuring out this shame thing early on. I've let shame keep me from doing things because I figured i'd just fail anyway. I still struggle with that. And shame tells me that if I make one mistake i'm a loss as an entire person, and that's a big fat joy stealer.

still in a big long process,

dreamflyer99