There’s a complex dynamic between speaking and silence when it comes to the feelings of shame. On the one hand, silence is a key factor in perpetuating and deepening the feelings of shame. On the other hand, it is sometimes speaking that can make shame worse.
So how DO we exit the feelings of shame if we’re faced with a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario?
Let’s look at each scenario…
(**This article talks about sexual trauma.)
Shame… It is a common byproduct of trauma. And for those who have experienced sexual transgressions of any kind, shame is THE hallmark symptom.
I know that shame all too well. The shame of not wanting anyone to know what happened to me. The shame that my choices might have contributed to it happening at all. The shame that kept me from talking about it for many years because after I told a boyfriend, he shamed me for not telling him sooner and proceeded to break up with me. (He was a narcissist by the way, and was more concerned about how his girlfriend being raped affected him than he was for her wellbeing.)
It’s been many years now, since I released all of the shame I carried. Doing so enabled my healing, and now I’m in a completely different place. I am incredibly proud of the work I’ve done for myself, and how I’ve since been able to help my clients through their healing.
I can’t tell you the COUNTLESS people, mostly women, with whom I’ve had to work on the horrible shame they feel for what happened to them. In his book, The Body Keeps the Score, psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk puts it this way:
“It’s hard enough to face the suffering that has been inflicted (on them) by others, but deep down many traumatized people are even more haunted by the shame they feel about what they did or did not do”.
In sexual abuse, the shame is also compounded by the embarrassment and disgust of the act itself. Victims don’t want anyone to associate them with something like that. I’ve had many clients who keep the secrets of their abuse because they’re afraid that people might see them differently if they knew what had happened to them.
This is why I LOVE what Gisèle Pelicot has done in France.
Have you heard of her and her incredible courage?
If somehow you’ve not heard of her story, last year, her husband and 50 other men were tried and convicted of raping her while she was drugged. When the trial was scheduled, Gisele, as the victim, was offered the choice to have a closed/private trial or an open/public one. She was given this choice in order to protect her privacy and to save her the “embarrassment” of her story being in the press. She categorically refused, and said that the trial of these men should be public because, as she said through her lawyer, “it should be up to these men to feel ashamed, not her.” “Shame must change sides.”
Shame makes us keep secrets, and those secrets harm us. Those secrets torment us. Those secrets prevent our healing from happening.
However, this is not a calling for a continued “Me Too” wave of “calling people out” publicly and shaming abusers. I have seen too many victims of sexual trauma name and publicly shame their abusers only to find that bringing them down doesn’t equate to healing.
This is something that one of my neighbors, a former prosecutor confirmed. She said the toughest part of her job was to see the victims of crime discover that the conviction —of the person who committed a crime against them— didn’t bring them the peace and resolution they had hoped it would.
What I want is to issue an invitation for every person who’s experienced a sexual transgression to feel welcomed in the community of those of us who have released (or are releasing) the shame about what happened to us.
In my book, even more important than “accountability” is HEALING.
I’m more interested in YOUR healing than in what happens to the person who violated your boundaries. And the beautiful thing about healing is that once you are on the other side of this story, you find yourself in a much more empowered place from which to discern with clarity, what exactly you want to do or say with regards to the person to transgressed against you.
If you’d like to learn about one way in which you can do that, I would love for you to check out the group I will be facilitating later this winter. Perhaps it’s perfect for you. I’ve been doing this for many years now, and I am passionate about helping people who are carrying this shame.
The group is called Reclaiming Wholeness. Check it out to see if it feels right, and let me know if you have any questions.
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