Subtle Shamers

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”
― Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame    


     I am having a moment ... this is a much needed ... leading to health ... very much needed moment in my life ... I want to bite somebody ... I want to bite them hard.  You have to be able to name the offense to forgive.  There were moments in this walk when I had "Aaaaha moments" like when I realized I had been raped though for decades I had said, "He touched me".  When you put the correct label on the crime, you can forgive the correct crime. 
     I set out a couple months ago to forgive the two people I cannot seem to forgive and set myself free.  I try to forgive and I fall back to hate, I try to forgive and yet dream about revenge.  Why can't I get past this.  I have forgiven horrible things, why not these two? 
     I had a friend offer to walk through this with me.  She knows forgiveness.  She knows anger.  So we will meet once a week and forgive these two so I can move on with my life.  I began reading all I could find on forgiveness.  The first thing to jump out and grab me was the statement that every person who rages, who struggles to control their anger has shame.  When I went to my friend and repeated this she actually showed me a diagram with a ball of anger, wrapped in shame and then a layer of something else and another and another.  Those layers I have dealt with, but the shame ... where do you even begin? 
     I started by looking for a book on shame.  They are very difficult to find if you want one form a known author.  If you want a Christian known author it is nearly impossible.  I prayed and found Released From Shame by Sandra D. Wilson, Ph.D.   Like most books, you read through and some where in your brain you know this all makes sense.  Sometimes it's just putting known thoughts into clearer statements.  But then, as in every life changing book experience, the "Aaaaaha" bombs start falling.  When you have been molested, raped, beat, etc. the shame is obvious, the offense is obvious, the forgiveness is correctly labeled because the offense is correctly labeled.  Well, it is after you take down the minimizing signs "he touched me" and "he molested me" and put up the correct "RAPE" signs.  Then you are able to forgive and actually bless those people. 
     So if rage rises up every time I think I have forgiven these two, where is the shame?  First, what is shame?  Shame is believing you have the same value as a steaming pile of dog shit on the sidewalk.  What value does dog shit have?  None.  People avoid it, people wrinkle their noses and look away in disgust, even gagging at the smell and/or sight.  Nobody wants to deal with cleaning you up ... or should I say cleaning your nasty self from the sidewalk.  When people have given you this message over a long period of time and depending on the relationship, it can wear you down to nothing.  If I was to draw a diagram of shame it would not look like the ball with outer layers at all.  Shame would be the roots of the tree and anger the trunk. The shame came before the anger.   All those other things that come later such as comparing yourself to the offender, rehearsing the injury, depletion of energy, altered world view, etc. would be the branches that sprout from the shame and anger tree.
     When you first look at the ways you were shamed, you automatically ask yourself, "Did I do that to my kids, friends, spouse?"  If you have the true desire to heal, you have to ask yourself that question.  As Sandra D. Wilson says in her book, "Yesterday's shamed become today's shamers, as shame begets shame."  One of the examples she first uses is a little girl in the public restroom with her mother.  She drops her coat and washes her hands getting water and soap everywhere.  Shame comes in a look.  I received that look many, many times as a child and I in turn gave it to my kids.  Instead, I could have been taught and taught mine how to wipe up the mess like no big deal and move on with your day.  A quick wipe with a paper towel could have saved a lot of therapy. 
     There is a huge difference in my parents.  My dad, who has done some horrible things, is still someone I want in my life.  His sideways looks when I was a kid were more of a "Check yourself.  Should you be doing what you are doing right now?"  He was encouraging.  He made mistakes and he really hurt me when he left me, but I knew and still know he loves me.  My mother on the other hand, was never pleased with anything.  I got the look all the time, I got the sneers and the "You are ruining my life" looks.  Everything I did, everything that happened to me and everything she regretted doing were somehow my fault, because of who I am.  When I asked her why she never hugged me as a kid, like she hugged my brother and sister, I expected an answer like, "That's not true, I hugged you" but what I got, without hesitation was "I resented your birth".  Confirmation, steaming shit, on her sidewalk of life.  It is possible to not like someone, yet leave them with their self worth.  But who, even resenting their child's birth, would actually tell their child that?  The dog who shit you on to the sidewalk.  That's who.   I am beginning to understand the shame, putting the correct label on the crime and know I will be free one day soon.
     The other person I am struggling to forgive hid their shaming a lot better.  In trying to find it, I even blamed myself for trusting too much.  Maybe I did, but ...   The pastor I went to for help in the beginning of my walk was the opposite kind of shamer.  Actually it was in the beginning that he was a subtle shamer.  "Subtle shamers favor rescuing.  It allows them to look stronger and more competent than the "victim" while also maintaining the appearance of respectful kindness." (from Released From Shame, Sandra Wilson)  When I began to grow out of a place of dependence on him the shaming became blatant, from slamming me and others in sermons, phone calls of screaming everything he thought wrong with me, to sending out a letter warning security to watch for me.  If you ask him, he had good reason for all of this.  Oh yes and I shamed him also, but as in the first example, who was the adult and who was the child, even if in a spiritual sense.  The harm that came from this, added his name to my offender list.  Now, a good forgiver, sees that the offender (shamer) had to have been shamed in their life.  I have not healed enough at this point to care, but maybe one day. 
     As I was frozen in my "Aaaaha moment" of this realization,  I also realized how deep this goes in our society.  If raging, uncontrolled anger is about shame, atheists must have been shamed by a believer at some point, races shamed for skin color, men shamed by women, and so on and so on.  Our society, America is an angry nation rooted in shame.  I think I may have my calling.  To understand the depths of the roots of shame and to share the shovel to dig those roots out, can change a lot of lives.  I truly believe you have to understand the crime, the offense, the true wound, in order to forgive it and be free.  And now, moving towards forgiveness...


Overdependents have been called the "fairy godmothers of the world".  Now the problem with trying to be everyone's fairy godmother is that you keep waving your magic wand but nothing happens.  The truth is this: We do not have the magic power to change and control other people.  We are living a fairy tale if we think we do.  And living in this fairy tale about control traps us in overdependent bondage. - Sandra D. Wilson, Ph.D.