One of the biggest difficulties I have had as a survivor, and this was true before I knew I was a survivor, is the elimination of shame. If existentially and by observation, as I have concluded, shame is a learned behavior, then it can be overcome by unlearning it. Unlearning is a matter of identifying behaviors and scenarios that invoke the shame -- triggers -- and using some method to remove it. The shame not the triggers because they will always be there. The thing is to disarm the triggers.
Shame invades all aspects of my life. My first reaction to anything good or bad is a shame reaction. Whether that shame is slight only momentarily hardly detectable or whether it lasts and leads to a spiral, my first reaction to any event or human interaction-- almost every human interaction -- is shame. This is a legacy of child abuse and child sexual abuse. It requires identification and effort to remove as it occurs, and as my story is told and retold eventually it will not be a reaction.
The past few days, I have found myself nearing or even entering a shame spiral. I can feel myself reacting and acting in ways engaging in behaviors and entertaining thoughts that have only lead to increased shame in the past. A shame spiral can occur when there are successive events that produce shame to a degree and that the shame does not subside prior to the next shaming event occurring. This can lead to a paralysis and the odd but true condition of being ashamed of being ashamed.
I do not qant to do this. One reason is that I am in need right now. Neediness can increase shame. so, the trick is to stay out of neediness Recently, I took a risk and left a place where I was doing good work internal work for a contract opportunity a long way from where I wanted to be. I hesitate thought and prayed and concluded that the risk given my finances was worth it. I took a risk going to the place I left in the first place and it was working out though not as quickly as I would have liked.
Today I have chosen to eschew shame and to not allow those back into my life who have caused the pain of shame in the first place.
So, what is this tendency? Is it neediness and why do I reah out thus when I feel needy. People have let me down, and recently I have decided not to lend any support ot the family strucyure in which I originate4d. They molested me and almost killed me between the ages of 4 and 9. Instead of a cradle of love they were a cradle of hate objectifiying and discounting me to the point where it was more important to deny the truth than to even let me live. Do I understand abortion from the point of view of the unborn?
Shame cannot defeat me. It never has. I am not one to quit or give up. It is debilitation and it can take a real hold, if I let it. The time for feeling shame is wasted the time to rid me of a shame incident is valued, but would be better used for something else. it would be best just to forget it and push forward as if there were nothing to work though. However, when thus ignored as most people can overlook things and push forward, with a survivor the time not sepnt identifying the roots of the shame and then pull it as if a weed is necessary, otherwise the shame that does not go away but is glossed over will come out in other ways as such as symptoms of abuse ptsd,
Symptoms can be anything from a mild dream or a full blown traumatic experience the truama triggered by the shame must come out and thus there are the symptoms of PTSD
In my own case the shame triggers a struggle, the struggle mimics the original traumatic experience that occurred as when I was sexually abused and shamed, but also when I was suffocated to the point of death and the preview of that was a struggle. Imagine a four-year old boy hanging over a wash room sink feet not touching the ground, sink edge pressing sharply against the diaphragm water running inhibiting breathing from the nose and then of course mouth full of a fresh bar of lava soap.
At four years old struggling nightly against suffocation and death. No big deal? A fight for life is always a big deal and anyone who would do that to a child is a criminal l. There is no way to minimize it. Although in my own mind I have always tried to do the same minimize it that is.
And this is what happened to me. First I was approached in the night by a person I trusted my grandfather who sodomized me whispering in my ear only being half asleep it seemed more like shouting Horrible things about my death which lead me to believe it was imminent with him inside me splitting me apart. The biggest cache of shame came when a recent memory bubbled to the surface. That of the actual penetration. The feeling as it always does comes delayed after the actual image memory comes the feeling memory. This image feeling memory came relatively quickly. within minutes I was overwhelmed by a sense of sham a wave of sham such as even I have never before experienced. This lasted only minutes as the mind can only take so much. Then ass I tied the feeling to the memory however using the constructivist model that the mind does this. I had release a few hours of actually being shame free or what I believed to be shame free -- how would I know. Also dirty nasty words about being a whore whatever that is. I have not told this story enough nor have I written it enough. By exposing the truth to the light Jesus heals.
The next morning I greeted grandma with the story form the night before an was promptly punished with washing my mouth out with soap. or really suffocation She took her stored anger all the anger she had from who knows where and vented it on me as the handiest object around. that is exactly right, I was an object objectified First at night objectified for sexual pleasure and then the next morning an object on which to vent anger as if through a rock or a dish only I was the dish.
And yes there is more physical and sexual abuse.
Now I am angry that I have to spend time digging this nonsense out and exposing it to the light.
God does not give us crosses we cannot bear.
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