The Unbeknownst of Shame Part One: What is Shame?

I think that it is safe to say that anyone who has experienced it truly knows that shame is an intensely distressing affective state.  It is a state wherein we autonomically – physically, psychologically, relationally – shrink.  And while for some this state is temporary, a conscious momentary affect wherein one can expand back to a sense of Self with worth, for others shame is an embodied anguish of Self defeat and alarmed aloneness.

That is, there is a form of embodied shame that permeates into our very being, a lingering sense of Self as insufficient or worthless.  Perhaps even such is the emergent sense that one is fundamentally faulty.

This deeply felt sense of shame is not the evolutionarily defined shame that is intended to promote protection from harm…  No, this shame we speak to henceforth is the shame that emerges from continued relational rupture (rejection or abandonment) without reparation (responsibility or accountability).

Indeed, this is an embodied emergence of fragmenting shame.  A shame that transpires from a misuse (either conscious/intended or non-conscious/unintended) of relational power and hierarchy.  This is a shame that is recursively disorientating, disorganising, and disintegrating: a shame that leaves one struggling to grasp a grounded sense of Self.

Fragmenting shame can develop within relationships wherein fundamental aspects of the Self are repeatedly unattended to or (more adversely) create threat.  Specifically, when aspects of our core dependency needs for connection, protection, autonomy, and belonging with communicative meaning-making are seen as a threat to Self-survival we may begin to disconnect from these innate and authentic aspects, the Self then emerging as without worth.

Such threats to Self-survival may stem from micro-aggressive or subtly denigrating interactions within relational, familial, structural, systemic, and/or contextual dynamics that reflect inequality and/or exclusion. 

This fragmenting shame may also be that which emerges from relational interactions filled with provocation, violation, or intimidation and an overbearing use of humiliation, hostility, or criticism; from continued encounters with unreasonable blame for that which was beyond our control.  

With this articulated, perhaps it is possible to fathom that fragmenting shame might begin to form when unattainable or rigid expectations are associated with core needs attainment (implicitly or explicitly).  Further to this, the true epitome of shame in its fragmenting form may just be when those expectations are met, yet responded to with disappointment, disapproval, or disparagement.

This deeply embodied affect may further form from the implicit sociocultural or “ableist” push toward “normal” (in order to attain the resources our survival depends upon): the unbeknownst pressures we may feel to abide and conform no matter its sacrifice to Self.

To be succinct, and as eloquently articulated by a youngling:

“Shame is when you are not perfect and can never be perfect, only everyone expects you to be perfect…”

This seeming paradoxical wisdom emphasises the often-non-conscious expectancy of a Self with conformant “perfection” – whether that be instigated by Self, Other, or the World.  Furthermore, this phrase eloquently captures the vulnerability that can emerge from dynamics wherein an Other’s desire for power and control, and the Self’s defence of passivity and compliance, have become more paramount than reciprocal relationship.  

Already as we read this, we may begin to notice the fear that emerges when vulnerability is met by forms of abuse to, or neglect of, our core needs (dependency/attachment needs).  Indeed, when we speak to shame as embodied and fragmenting, we speak not of its evolutionarily intended attachment mechanism of protection, no, we directly speak of shame’s unfortunate misappropriation within our modern era of power-based progression.

Albeit why is it, or how is it, that something so insidiously toxic can emerge from something intended for protection?