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Shame

A place for those new to this site. The more experienced users of this site tend to frequent the members only section more.
marko
Posts: 1802
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2017 4:20 pm
United States of America

Re: Shame

Post by marko »

I'll go one step further as I thought of this today. My LE doesn't cross over rated PG. I think I want to be the cleanest shame--free person on the planet when a person interests me. I can think of this way back as I always thought I should be the best person I can be. Noble as it sounds, it's more than likely an attempt to get away from shameful me. If I put on this front I must be good and will be liked. I always wondered why I do spawn some romantic notions, but none of them turn sexual. I do nice things, I become maybe more charming--in my eyes, perhaps creepy in theirs? I can see how my self inflated actions wouldn't cause me shame. Yikes.
vesseloflight
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:16 pm
Gender:
United States of America

Re: Shame

Post by vesseloflight »

I can relate. Lots of shame because I feel I’ve always been off or just too weird. Having a hard week. So much shame I feel deep to my bones. The longest I can go NC seems to be 2 weeks. He has not communicated with me since January. The fact that I keep trying to reach out is shameful. I’m so confused. I miss having a close connection with him. Most of all…I miss myself. Afraid I don’t even know who I am.
marko
Posts: 1802
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2017 4:20 pm
United States of America

Re: Shame

Post by marko »

vesseloflight wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 4:28 am I can relate. Lots of shame because I feel I’ve always been off or just too weird. Having a hard week. So much shame I feel deep to my bones. The longest I can go NC seems to be 2 weeks. He has not communicated with me since January. The fact that I keep trying to reach out is shameful. I’m so confused. I miss having a close connection with him. Most of all…I miss myself. Afraid I don’t even know who I am.
What helps hurts. This will hurt but think how little you are in the thoughts of the one who doesn't communicate back to you. I feel lucky it's that way, but still want to beleive I mattered just a tiny bit. Let it make you mad a bit, but don't blame them.
JupiterTaco
Posts: 5666
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2015 6:12 pm
United States of America

Re: Shame

Post by JupiterTaco »

I have several new layers of shame so can probably go on all day. Many I've already discussed in my journals, but a hopefully quick recap,

-shame for being the only girl around growing up -shame for attracting toxic friends and not being able to stand up to them or get away from them -shame for not understanding social dynamics for so long -shame for my need for love and attention -shame for not getting enough adequate emotional support -shame for not learning how to be an adult -shame for my bisexuality -shame for looking like my dad -shame for not being dark enough that everybody on earth can see that how I look makes me a target -shame for thinking I was white -shame for realizing I was ashamed of my white side shame for being a target of bullying, harassment, abuse, and much more -shame for being an unwanted stepchild -shame for my mother not defending me against my emotionally-immature stepdad -shame for my mother not being emotionally mature herself -shame that my mother always wanted to escape from her life and from us -shame that my brother and I were so different and that now he apparently wants nothing to do with me -shame for being the family scapegoat -shame for not being successful in life -shame for not going after my dreams -shame for struggling -shame for late-life-blossoming -shame for not having relationships -shame for wanting relationships -shame for not wanting relationships -shame for not wanting motherhood -shame for not being able to help my family -shame for being my age in my situation -shame that the world blames me for where I am -shame that they might be right -shame for thinking I don't deserve better -shame for thinking that I should -shame that sometimes all I want to do is end it all and run away -shame that in the same day sometimes I feel like I can conquer the world -shame for my isolation -shame for continuing to attract toxic people into my life -shame for situationship after situationship that I just don't want and yet feel like I have to have to survive right now and that it's a reminder that presently my life is worse than at one point it was -shame that all I want is those four years where my life was mine and mine alone and was on the up-and-up back, even if I was being harassed by my neighbors -shame that all I want is to be alone to live my life and why is that so much to ask? -shame that I feel like I have to exit society before anything will ever change in my life -shame for failing others -shame that I can't talk about these things outside of this forum

My coping mechanisms go back and forth these days from drinking to working hard, to attempting to sleep, to journaling and just trying to take the best care of myself that I can and work towards the goals that I want.
"You know for a big black guy Cleveland's got a cute little white ass!" Peter, Family Guy
"Um...that wasn't Cleveland," Brian
David
Site Admin
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Joined: Wed Feb 19, 2014 8:22 pm
Location: London UK
Gender:
Age: 64
Great Britain

Re: Shame

Post by David »

Looks like a lot of insights you have JT with your relationship with shame. Parents and people that make up society dump all their judgements, beliefs and unresolved emotions onto us innocent children. Not sure how or if that will ever change
Purchase the 24 part video series on overcoming limerence - see https://limerence.thinkific.com/courses/healing-limerence
L-F
Posts: 4500
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 9:55 am
United States of America

Re: Shame

Post by L-F »

"It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me."
Stephen Fry


I still don't identify with shame. Have I done shameful things? Absolutely. Embarrassing? Totally. Regretful things? Yep. But the identification thing? No. From a young age I've always viewed the 'bad things' that happened to me wasn't my fault, more of a case of what happened to me (not because of me). Call that selfish? I don't know.
Take for example child birth. Some women defecate depending on what's in their system when they push. All very natural and normal, but oh so shameful. Why? Because society says so. When I learned this in childbirth class I thought 'fuck this, fuck shame, im pushing because I aint holding nothing back because of natural childbirth bodily fuctions being shameful'. And I didn't.

All those bad things? Rape, etc. Poor parenting resulting in poor manners? Not my fault. Why should I feel ashamed? Call that repression, but this over-identification thing? Nope. Don't buy unto it. And I don't believe others should too.

What the hell have we got to feel ashamed of?
"And in the end, we were all just humans…Drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
JupiterTaco
Posts: 5666
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2015 6:12 pm
United States of America

Re: Shame

Post by JupiterTaco »

How can I forget being from a single parent household, being born out of wedlock, having a different last name than my mom and brother my mother working so hard and resenting it and blaming everything, my lazy eye and of course having an absent dad and step-dad my grandma who I couldn't call Grandma while my real grandma was never around, oh and the endless family estrangements...
"You know for a big black guy Cleveland's got a cute little white ass!" Peter, Family Guy
"Um...that wasn't Cleveland," Brian
L-F
Posts: 4500
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 9:55 am
United States of America

Re: Shame

Post by L-F »

This is where I get ~x(
Not at you JT or anyone who feels shame. The last thing I want is for those who feel ashamed of their upbringing to feel more shame.

Idk. It's like kicking a wounded dog for being wounded. Why should anyone feel ashamed for how they were treated given it's not their fault? It's the same as telling a young lass who is wearing a mini skirt that she is to blame for the wolf whistles from pervy men.

It's not the child's fault nor problem that they were raised in a dysfunctional home by dysfunctional family and a dysfunctional society. Shame to me feels like an immature coping mechanism for the protection of others. Hide that family secret and shroud it in shame. Don't tell anyone in case one is humiliated on the behalf of someone else.
Nope. I would totally debate this with a client, friend, etc who felt shame for something someone else did, or for the wrong doings of the world. It's bulkshit. No one should take on shame for the sake of something they couldn't help. Otherwise we might as go around blaming all the children in the world with that mentality. But no one will. Why blame oneself as a child and not other children? The irony.

JT, did you choose to be born out of wedlock? No? Then why internalize shame for it? Because society said so? Now that you're an adult, you have a choice to unburden yourself from that shame.
"And in the end, we were all just humans…Drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
David
Site Admin
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Joined: Wed Feb 19, 2014 8:22 pm
Location: London UK
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Age: 64
Great Britain

Re: Shame

Post by David »

JT, thanks for posting the list of things that you have struggled with shame over, it makes sense to me.

shame is so deeply embedded within us that we can’t just stop feeling it. It’s a kin to saying to an addict to stop doing what you’re doing and for most of us with limerence, this does not work. Given Limerence is an addiction it might be worth asking ourselves are we using this as a way of masking some deep feelings of shame?

From my own experience the way to work through my shame has been to grieve my inner child for what he did not get what he needed, then identify what I felt shame about, and then to start talking about that in safe places.

With my own shame I wish it would’ve been that easy, its taken me decades of work to unshackle myself, and despite all that at times, I can still dip back down into it if I don’t watch my shadow .

YMMV
Purchase the 24 part video series on overcoming limerence - see https://limerence.thinkific.com/courses/healing-limerence
L-F
Posts: 4500
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 9:55 am
United States of America

Re: Shame

Post by L-F »

It's not just parents who damage their children, but society too, that's what makes me arrrghhh... The damage we do to children's psyche

So incredibly sad

No need to have shame here when sharing.

But.
Despite the negative side of shame, I still think it's vital adults realise their agency rather than think it's a dead end street. Do whatever work is required to as David said, 'unshackle' oneself, however long that takes. It's not a matter of snapping out of it BUT it is important to understand adults have agency.

Again, not annoyed at anyone who suffers from shame, I'm annoyed they were put there in the first place!
"And in the end, we were all just humans…Drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
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