2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
How do we avoid shame? In different ways, everyone has their own way. Everyone lives as he can and is saved as he can. Let's highlight some of the main ways to hide your shame.
1. Denial Is the most effective defense against any unpleasant feeling. The extreme degree of denial is repression. We tend to crowd out what we don't like, what we don't want to meet. The essence of denial is self-deception. We pretend that nothing has happened, that we do not feel anything.
As a rule, traumatic events, physical and sexual violence are forced out. Along with the event, the feeling that accompanies it is also repressed. We encapsulate all this inside ourselves, allocate separate containers in our psyche for this, and close it. But it is impossible to seal it hermetically. It phonites - through our life, guides our actions and choices.
For such cases, psychotherapy is needed. Open up your containers, unpack unconscious feelings, live them with a specialist and process them. Everything that is not processed in the body is poisonous.
2. Care Is an attempt to escape from something unpleasant. When a person escapes from shame, he can do it both physically and mentally. Physically, for example, an attempt to move to another city, change place of residence, change the team.
During shame, a person experiences unpleasant sensations, he blushes, lowers his eyes, turns away, there is a strong adrenaline rush. In order not to start fighting, crying, screaming - we are trying to leave the stage, move away. People using this protection are aware of their shame, they feel visible, they feel that they can no longer stand it, that the pain is enough. Grooming helps to save your identity from destruction.
The problem is when leaving becomes habitual. A person avoids any situation, just not to experience shame. But then, in this place, his development ends.
“Invisibility is another symptom of the need to escape shame. Ashamed people get used to the fact that being seen is painful humiliation; in their attempts to protect themselves from such feelings, they come to the conclusion that the safest thing is when no one pays attention to them at all. Such people develop a remarkable ability to blend in with the background. They simply refuse to draw attention to themselves, preferring a behind-the-scenes position in life, allowing others to be recognized for the good things they do, so as not to be rejected for any of their shortcomings. The price they pay for safety is that they cannot give others the opportunity to thank them. These people do not receive positive attention and therefore have little chance of reinforcing a pleasant sense of pride in themselves. They remain convinced that something is wrong with them, and therefore continue to hide in the background 1
3. Exhibitionism (shamelessness) - the other extreme of salvation from shame. This defense is the most paradoxical. If shame makes us hide, then the exhibitionist drives us to over-attract attention. A person ignores the generally accepted norms of modesty and decency. From walking in strange clothes, making loud speeches to sexual promiscuity.
What's the point? Children in childhood go through a period when they want to be in the spotlight, but at the same time they are afraid of being abandoned. Shame develops from the tension between the desire to be visible and the fear of being abandoned and attacked.
The exhibitionist tackles this crisis in a special way. He believes that he will be safe only by being in the spotlight, in plain sight. The worst thing for him is ignoring, so he tries to always be visible, noticed, no matter with what feelings. His tragedy is that he is not able to find a place for himself if he is not the center of the universe.
4. Perfectionism - ashamed people constantly experience fear of failure. They are incapable of treating error as a natural process of human existence. This is a tragedy for them. The desire to avoid mistakes turns into perfectionism.
If appearance is important to them, then not a single hair should be knocked out. Work - you have to work better and achieve more than any of your colleagues. If a parent, then he must be the most exceptional dad or mom.
The perfectionist cannot be “average”. He lives only in two aesthetic categories "beautiful" and "terrible". He lives constantly with a sense of impending shame. And only perfection can save him from this.
The perfectionist has a low tolerance for shame, which is why he spends so much excess energy trying to avoid it.
5. Arrogance Is a combination of grandeur and disdain. Grandiosity is an attempt to exalt oneself. Contempt is the desire to belittle others. The arrogant person brings his shame out and projects it onto others. He sees them as more defective, inconsistent, flawed.
An arrogant person does not notice his arrogance. His friends and relatives see it. He considers himself the best. He needs to believe in his uniqueness and giftedness, so as not to experience his deep inadequacy.
How does such an individual pay? He puts a wall between himself and others. He is incapable of experiencing intimacy and intimacy. For this, equality is important. Equality is unbearable to him.
6. Rage Is the last way to avoid shame. If someone comes very close to you and is about to see your imperfection, the best remedy is the destruction of the "impudent". Rage makes it possible to keep your distance from others. “I cannot survive the exposure of my shame. I will attack if you get too close”1.
Angry people may view the world as a dangerous place to be ashamed. They have no time to relax and rejoice. The cost of this is the loss of contact with others. Others turn away from them. This creates even greater shame - something is wrong with me, no one wants to do business with me. Feeling even more defective, they can increase their aggression and defenses.
Rage is a painful and costly defense against shame. Few who have developed it can refuse it.
Feelings of shame can be unbearable. The defenses described above: rage, denial, withdrawal, arrogance, perfectionism, exhibitionism help a person hide shame from himself and others. But don't fix the problem. Shame is the marker where we betray ourselves. If you want to change your life, working with shame is essential. One of the best ways is psychotherapy, group work and individual work. I recommend! Go for it!
References: 1. Ronald T. Potter-Efron. "Shame, guilt and alcoholism"
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