Living in the Shadow of Shame

My family live in Wales and England, so I am often found driving up and down the motorways stopping off at interesting spots along the way. One really beautiful evening I found myself on Crosby beach, just north of Liverpool. I stumbled across one hundred striking sculptures of life size male figures (iron casts of the artist, Anthony Gormley’s, own body apparently). They were standing at some distance from each other staring out to sea.

I found myself being quite emotional. Every one of the hundred ‘iron men’ were standing alone, at some distance from the next ‘man’. They all looking the same way, into the distance, but not at each other. Each man felt isolated, but equally were part of a family. Each man wanting the same thing, but not being able to reach out.

It is exactly that what many parents describe to me during my visits. The feeling of standing alone, even though there are people around them often wanting the same thing. The feeling of loneliness, even though there is often no space. Waiting for the next wave to submerge them.

It is also what I have learnt that children feel. However, they often mask it very well, indeed to survive they have to do as it is so painful. People around them, but feeling alone. Stuck regardless of what tsunami hits them next. The feeling of disconnect, of powerlessness, of hopelessness, of being unlovable. Of shame.

Shame. The more children and parents I work alongside, the more I have realised the role that shame plays in our children’s lives. Sometimes too, the huge challenges of caring and loving our children, causes feelings of shame to rise in the parent. “I have failed, I am not a good enough parent” is something that I hear often. The parent mirrors the child. Everyone feels despondent.

There is a wonderful American author, social worker and academic called Brené Brown. I love her TED talks and books (I would encourage you to take a look, they can be found on YouTube). Brené is a researcher on ‘shame and vulnerability’. Brené speaks about shame being “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and unworthy of love and belonging”. I would also add it is a ‘deep’ feeling. It goes to the core of a person: it isn’t just one part of them, but a feeling “this is who I am”. Unchallenged this ‘shame’ governs a child’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours. All three sides of that triangle.

So, how does shame develop in a child? Well, to make sense of it all we should think about a child who is emotionally healthy, and doesn’t experience shame. And yes, it is all linked to attachment and intersubjectivity in those vital early months and years, including pregnancy. Through loving and nurturing for babies involving millions of positive interactions, they see themselves as loveable, worthy and also able to invoke pleasure in others. They are the children who trust that their caregiver will be there, will comfort them and have the security to start to explore the world around them.

So, what happens to the neglected baby? What about the baby whose needs are sometimes met, other times not and often met with angry glances or reprimands? Those babies develop, very early on, a sense of mistrust of others and a sense that they are not worthy of love and attention. Of course they do! Their attachment behaviours, whether it be clingy, angry, cut off from the world, is how they survive their scary world. When someone shows them love, well.. it goes against everything they think they know about themselves. They don’t know how to deal with it. They often reject it.

But, how do we help a child who is enveloped in shame? How do we parent them, love them? Again, let’s think of a child who was brought up with loving birth parents from conception who are emotionally healthy. These children develop a secure base and use this to explore the world around them. Their interactions with their parents have led them to believe in themselves, see themselves as good people and others as people who they can trust. Yes, there are challenges along the way but they generally believe in themselves. That self-belief makes these challenges so much easier. When they have done something wrong, they don’t suddenly start thinking that they are a ‘bad person’, ‘unworthy’. They generally accept the natural consequence of their actions, apologise, do something to remedy their misdeed, and move on to live another day. Even if they were to receive ‘sanctions’ or ‘consequences’ they would probably, with a bit of moaning, take it in their stride. This is the “normal” way of parenting. Pretty easy eh? Compared to what many of you have to do, absolutely.

For children who live with shame the ‘normal way’ just doesn’t work. Every time we ‘sanction’ a child who lives with shame, we enforce that feeling of “I am not a good person”. Whilst we might be thinking that taking away their phone might help them see that something is wrong, what they experience is “you believe I am unworthy too, and this is proof of it. I told you so”.

So, how do we help these children become free of shame? There is sadly no magic wand. But, parenting in a therapeutic way, using the Dan Hughes’ DDP techniques, can start the process of healing. Making connections about how children are in the present to their life stories, can also trigger big changes, even when they have no memory of these stories.

Life Story Journeys is here to support you in your steps down both these pathways. The next insights explore both of these areas.