The Shame Face

 

 I've learned that a "shame face" is what we addictive personalities wear around in public. It's a face that says "I'm unacceptable. I'm not allowed to be me. I'm worthless. No one will ever truly love me. Don't approach me. I can't face the pain of further rejection and shame." 

My body immediately reacts when I'm in public, forcing my shame face to the surface for all to see. I've been especially aware of this recently, and this awareness is the first step in challenging the thoughts and feelings that feed my shame face.

After several good days of pushing past my shame face, today was a big step backwards. I failed miserably, no matter how I tried to rescue myself from it. My guess is that I had many negative thoughts buzzing around in my subconscious mind. These thoughts, which aren't easily detectable to the conscious mind, drove my feelings to crash like a stock market disaster.

Although I am not happy about this setback, I'm not really upset about it either. I've been in recovery long enough to know that every addictive person in a recovery program is going to take steps backwards at times. This usually means to me that there are lessons I still haven't learned about my childhood/teen/young adult trauma. I expect to take steps backwards because I know I have not uncovered, much less faced, all of my interior wounds.

I find the shame face to be one of the most difficult signs of abuse to deal with rightly. I know it's being fed by negative subconscious thoughts and the fears associated with those thoughts. I know these thoughts are simply replaying the verbal shaming I accepted as a child/teenager. The same words that I then turned into mantras that have played and replayed endlessly in my head.

I remember a few years ago, I was seeing a therapist in Tucson and he told me that he had seen me at Park Place a few days ago. He then said "You looked totally unapproachable." He validated what I had long feared: that my body language screamed "STAY AWAY FROM ME!" It drove others away, even people that I did not want to drive away. It kept me from making friends at parties or other social settings. It was the visible version of my lack of self-acceptance and of all the pain tied to the abuse I grew up with-- abuse from others and from myself. 

 So, how do we free ourselves from our Shame Faces? Well, the word shame says it all. A shame face speaks of internalized shame. Much of it is from a lifelong self-imposed shame that has built up inside of us for years. Some of that shame we accepted from others, thinking that they were right and we were wrong and so we deserved to be shamed. The rest of our shame is the byproduct of the shame we accepted; the shame that we chose to own and we likewise chose to whip ourselves with internally.

If we indeed chose to accept that shame from others, we can also choose to release it. Shame no longer serves us (if it ever did). We don't have to continue to accept and brutalize ourselves with it.

In rejecting, or refusing to own this old shame any longer, we also need to identify what we feel shame about. This is the hard part. Too often we've felt like we were under an avalanche of shame. It was impossible to identify the various sources of the deep shame we were feeling.

To get past this conglomeration of shame, it's a good idea to attempt to identify those things about ourselves that we deem are unacceptable. We will never be free from shame if we are not willing to accept the things we cannot change about ourselves (our ethnicity, sexual-orientation, body size, gender, level of intelligence, etc.) We also must accept the things about ourselves that cause shame, but are within our power to change.

As I've said in other posts, I have a great deal of body shame. It drives me crazy because it's two pronged-- feeling fat on the inside as well as on the outside. Even when I'm not physically carrying extra weight on the outside, I'm still carrying the ugly feeling it imposes on the inside. This is something I have to truly deal with before I can be free from my shame face.

I know many of my shame-based feelings are hidden and I need to work harder on bringing them to the surface where my mind can begin to consciously work through them.

I can do my part in relieving myself of the shame face I wear, but I will also need the help of my Higher Power. This undertaking is too big for me. The fear and guilt associated with the shame are more than I can push past on my own. So, if you are faced with conquering your shame, remember to turn over to your Higher Power whatever you are not able to do for yourself. It's also good to have a trusted friend that can help you sift through your hurt.

Let's get started. The sooner we do, the sooner we will be able to walk into the future with a "Radiant Face." Bye-bye shame face.