Heal Depression By Tackling Shame

Tackling our shame is at the crux of our recovery because shame is the root of self-loathing. When we feel stuck and imprisoned, it is shame that binds us to our depression. When we experience shame we are not open to the world, we cannot receive from others, we don't trust ourselves not to fall apart if we talk about it, and we feel of little value.

Shaming is something that we experience as children. If we feel deep shame we have a hangover from the way an adult has habitually addressed us in a cruel way. Adults are constantly shaming children. You see it everywhere. Just walk into any supermarket and you can see a child being called some foul obscenity or suffering some awful humiliation. As adults we continue to talk to ourselves in this manner. If we hadn't been shamed as children, we would not take it up as an adult. It just wouldn't happen.

SOME EXAMPLES OF WHEN WE MIGHT FEEL SHAME ARE:

• Too often we feel we are doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, e.g. we turn up at a party wearing full evening dress when everyone else is in jeans

• We expose our weakness, e.g. when someone sees us cry

• We feel less than we are, e.g. we simply don't feel good enough in others' company no matter how many times they tell us we are great

• We judge ourselves harshly, e.g. at the school gates, a works 'do' or our local gym, when everyone else looks as though they have the perfect life and we feel like a social leper

• We feel we have been exposed, e.g. we accidentally send a bitchy email about someone to the person we were vilifying when it was meant to go to our best mate

• We feel we are living a lie and we must do everything and anything to keep up the lie to the point of exhaustion

When we feel shame we believe that the very core of us is contaminated and needs to be kept a secret because, if it gets out, it may contaminate everyone else. Shame grabs our head and pulls it down so that others can't see us. Shame leaves us believing that we are worse than anyone else. Fear of being found out about how shameful we are drives our lives. All our actions are governed by how we can dodge being 'found out'. Being 'found out' means the end of us because we couldn't survive the humiliation.

When our shame becomes unbearable our denial will kick in. This will render us incapable of feeling the shame. But this may become a temporary life-saver (although it may not be others' preferred remedy for helping us) until we feel better and we can face reality a little at a time.

However, until the shame is confronted we are trapped. This is because, as children, we could not confront our persecutors because we needed them for our very survival. The shame that was bestowed on us is still in charge. But as adults we have choices and we can heal this shame.

The healing must start from a different place to healing other parts of our trauma, e.g. our grief. Healing our grief starts when we feel backed up against the wall with nowhere else to go and we feel forced to confront our pain. Healing our shame comes from the opposite corner because we need to feel a little safety and security before we can possibly open up to our shame. The very nature of shame is its ability to hide at the drop of a hat with denial, quickly setting us up to say, 'There's nothing wrong with me!' or 'This is not happening,' or 'I have no idea what you're talking about.'



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