Characteristics of shame-based behavior Here are some attributes of shame-based behavior according to psychiatrist Peter Breggin in his book “Guilt, Shame, and Anxiety“: feeling worthless. worrying what others think about you. being afraid to look stupid.
Shame-based behaviors seek to quell overwhelming and complex feelings of humiliation and grief through escapism. Avoidance, self-harm, addiction, and compulsions are all shame-based behaviors that seek to mask the painful feeling.
If you have grown up in a shame-based family, your thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs are constantly discounted, minimized, rejected, and disqualified. You don't really ever have the opportunity to develop an internal sense of what actually feels “okay” and “not okay” to you.
Shame-based thinking is derived from feelings that make you believe that there is something wrong with you. Merriam-Webster defines shame as “a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety.”
Shame has a central social component, and involves fears of being judged, criticized or rejected by others rather than just judging oneself. The origins of shame can almost always be tied back to past experiences of feeling judged, criticized, or rejected by someone else.
People who live with shame often feel worthless, depressed, and anxious. Shame can be a contributing factor to depression, anxiety, and co-dependency. [iii] People who are constantly ashamed may have emotional difficulties and may fight a mental battle each and every day.
Be aware of the physical signs of shame
Slumped shoulders, lowering our head, looking down, avoiding eye contact, hesitant speech patterns – these are clues that we feel unworthy and want to avoid letting anyone else see into us.
Childhood abuse, neglect, and other traumatic experiences can cause toxic shame and make us believe we're not good enough.
This theory conceptualizes shame proneness as the tendency to appraise the self (rather than behavior) negatively in response to one's perceived transgression, whether real or imagined (Tangney, 1990; Tangney & Dearing, 2002).
According to Richard Schwartz, PhD, shame is a two-part phenomenon: first, there is an inner critic that says, “You are bad.” Second, there is a younger part that believes it. Left untreated, this can become a toxic cycle of depression and anxiety. . .
For example, if you are called out for a mistake in public, or humiliated by someone walking in on you naked. This is typically what many people think of when you mention shame. Disappointed expectation is the third type, which is when you set out to do something and you fail.
Certain types of trauma have been associated with greater feelings of shame, including sexual violence, childhood abuse or neglect, and intimate partner violence. These are types of ongoing trauma that do not fully heal and leave people with a persistent sense of powerlessness.
When we experience a traumatic event, shame and guilt are common survival skills we rely on. Like the flight, fight, freeze and appease response, these coping skills that are often meant for our survival, can leave us paralyzed.
But there is one emotion that tends to creep in over time after the traumatic event, that significantly hinders the recovery process. This intensifying emotion is shame. Trauma that provokes PTSD is well known to cause deeply rooted feelings of shame that foster over time.
Sharing is caring! You won't find “disorders of shame” as a category in the DSM-5 (the official American catalogue over mental health diagnoses), and yet shame is probably the biggest single cause of most of our psychological problems.
Toxic shame is a feeling that you're worthless. It happens when other people treat you poorly and you turn that treatment into a belief about yourself.
In addition to the typical emotions that can accompany shame, such as envy, anger, rage, and anxiety, we can also include sadness, depression, depletion, loneliness, and emptiness as a result.
Narcissistic shame is an intense pain related to social failure, failure to be a true human being. It is a sense of being an inferior human being, exposed to social judgment in the midst of severe disintegration of the self. When experienced fully, the affect is very painful.
Narcissism and shame go hand in hand in so many ways. Narcissists carry a LOT of shame. From mistakes made in the past, fear of not being enough, to fear of criticism in the present and future. For many narcissists their lives are rather shame-based but, they will never admit it.
Body Language Tip for You: Watch out for any time someone touches the side of their forehead or blocks their eyes. It likely means they are a little ashamed or embarrassed, and it might be time to back off.