victoriaa.onyiA lot of us are suffering from one of the greatest sicknesses in the world. It is also one the most invisible by nature. It saps our ability to always spot its symptoms. This sickness has afflicted you and your productivity in the past or present.
It is called the sickness of toxic shame!
There are two type of shame;
- Normal shame
- Toxic shame
Normal Shame: This is type of shame that goes away when we do the right thing. It is a human emotion that protects us from doing stupid things in public. It prevents us from embarrassing ourselves in front of other people.
For example, before you go out on a date you take a shower and put on some fresh clothes. You want to look and feel your best and you don’t want to embarrass yourself in front of your date. What makes you behave this way is your normal feeling of shame. And this shame goes away as soon as you adjust your behavior. So when you take a shower and you put on your best clothes, you prevent the embarrassment and the feeling of shame goes away.
On the other hand, we have Toxic shame that never goes away. It’s a part of your identity. It’s a part of who you are. It defines you.
When you’re afflicted with toxic shame you feel bad. You feel inferior to other people and you feel unworthy. Unfortunately that feeling is always present. It doesn’t go away by itself. You can’t just adjust your behavior and expect the toxic shame to go away. It just doesn’t work this way. It’s too deeply engraved into your identity.
Most times the history of toxic shame can be trace down to our child hood. The emotional abuse we internalised. We are not born ashamed. We were thought to feel shame. When we internalize negative words told to us such as;
- “You will never amount to anything”
- “You’re the family idiot”
- “You disgust me”
- “You’re too dark”
- “You’re too fair like mammy water”
- “You’re ugly”
We begin to accept them as true and believe that we are unworthy. We can be ashamed of our facial appearance, physique, genital parts etc.
CONSEQUENCES OF TOXIC SHAME
We don’t allow people to get too close to us
We believe we are not too good on physical intimacy
We get scared easily and hide
We have a lot of secrets
We go into addictive behavior for our own self hatred
We want to please everyone
We always want to explain ourselves
We are defensive and prone to Anger
WAY OUT
- Accept that every human who has and still walking the face of earth is flawed. No one is perfect. Every human is selfish, deceptive and wicked.
- Don’t try to be perfect, as you would never attain perfection. In trying to measure up to perfection, you set yourself up to feel shame.
- Ignore those who shame you as they have forgotten their own flaws.
- Don’t shame others to feel good about yourself as you would be attracting more shame.
- Don’t hide your vulnerability as no one can shame you for what you’ve owned up to.
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