Overcoming Shame

When we have temporary feelings of self-doubt or inadequacy, we may experience shame. This type of shame is normal and some psychologists refer to it as genuine shame because it comes from within. However, when we are humiliated or embarrassed in public by someone else repeatedly, it is not considered normal. This is called false shame. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame)

Many people who are bullied suffer from false shame. Sadly, it’s also the case with many people who have noticeable disabilities. When I lost my ability to speak normally, I became familiar with it too.

I was already a somewhat shy twelve-year-old in 1960 when my normal speech suddenly became non-fluent. Once this happened and it was no longer easy to speak, I became even more timid. My initial fear was that my peers would tease me or dote on my strange sounding voice, but none of them ever did. It was some of the adults in my life, however, who would prove to be unkind.

My mother could never accept the fact that I had a speech problem. It was important to her that our family appear like we were “keeping up with the Joneses.” Mommy didn’t just want my sister and I to look like we were normal; she strove for perfection. Even before my speech problem began, I was saying the words “I’m sorry” all the time to my mother. Then, when the quality of my speech became shaky and staccato-like, it was impossible for me to even come close to fulfilling her unrealistic expectations.

Once in a while Mommy tried to pump me up and say, “You don’t have a problem. You can achieve whatever you set your mind to.” But most of the time, I saw and heard the opposite.

During my teenage years I became very familiar with a look of doubt on my mother’s face that chipped away at my self-esteem. When I tried to speak and couldn’t, she gave me that look accompanied by, “Iris, speak clearly! I can’t understand you!” I was trying so hard to please my mother, but if my life depended on it, I couldn’t even say my own name. To say something as simple as, “My name is Iris,” was out of reach. Often, when I tried to introduce myself, people thought my name was Miris because I couldn’t separate many sounds, like “m” and “I.” Eventually, they understood my name but they also understood that I had a hard time talking. As an adolescent I couldn’t understand why my own mother didn’t accept and understand this too.

In time it was obvious that my speech was worse around anyone who was impatient and lacked compassion with my inability to communicate normally. If someone asked, “What’s with your speech?” I could sometimes manage to respond with, “Ah-I d-on’t kn-o-ow.” However, numerous people would respond with something like, “Gee, it sounds like it’s really hard for you to speak,” and still keep asking me questions about it. Like Mom, they could see that I was struggling just to utter a single sound, but they persisted in pushing me to talk. I never felt that they wanted to help me. All I came away with were attitudes and looks that made me feel like there was something wrong with me. I felt defeated and frustrated after trying to speak with them, ashamed of my voice and of myself.

My mid-teens were the most painful years in my life because I felt so much shame about myself so often. My mother made me answer all of our phone calls and forced me to speak at dinner every night. I often felt as if she was trying to prove that she was right and I was wrong. All I could ever do is prove time and again that I couldn’t do what she asked of me. Our evenings often ended with Mom yelling and me crying. Daddy usually sat by and didn’t say much, but I remember him intervening when things got heated. He would quietly tell Mom, “You need to stop. That’s enough.”

Many people isolate themselves when they are bullied or intimidated repeatedly, and that’s what I began to do. I locked myself in my room at night and refused to talk to my parents. At social events I stayed in the background too. As the years passed, my undiagnosed speech problem remained just that and, although I began to wonder if there was actually something wrong with me, those thoughts were fleeting. Instead, my instinct to survive took over, and my anger did too.

My mother’s lack of support broke my heart, but it also brought out an intense anger in me. Sometimes anger can be a good thing. In this case it was because it acted as a catalyst that spurred me to leave home as soon as possible. I must have been around fifteen when I made that decision. The thought alone gave me a sense of control and empowerment. It made me realize that I wasn’t as weak as I felt or thought I might be.

 

I left home when I was eighteen. It was hard for me to support myself at the time, but that wasn’t the worst of it. I was an emotional wreck. It would have been nice to leave all of my accumulated anger and shame at home with my mother. Like my other belongings, though, I took my emotional baggage with me.

Living alone gave me the peace and quiet to honestly face my feelings. Looking inward, I began to have breakthroughs. I saw that I was a survivor. At home I had often worried about losing my spirit, but on my own I could see that it was alive and strong. Others may have doubted me or had a need to challenge the difference they saw in me, but I knew that I never created or perpetuated my unusual speech; I could feel that it resulted from something involuntary. I knew I was okay. In regard to my speech, I had nothing to be ashamed of.

When I was twenty I moved from Chicago to California. Even though there were two thousand miles between us, the relationship with my mother remained difficult. I could hear her judging me over the phone, with her audible sighs and little biting remarks like, “I can’t understand you. Can you please stop saying um so much?” My speech problem was still a mystery, but I was learning how to cope with anyone who made me feel bad about it. If anyone did this, I turned the tables and began to question them. I didn’t have the ability to verbally respond, but the words in my head were often, “What is wrong with this person?” I was learning about self-preservation and how to parent myself.

My mother died in 1987. I wasn’t at peace after her passing because I still harbored anger, great pain and sadness over the way she treated me because of my speech. Then, in 1989 I read Toxic Parents, a New York Times bestseller by Dr. Susan Forward. This book looks at many different case studies where children are abused by the ones they trust the most. Toxic Parents has numerous cases that I could easily relate to and it confirmed what I had suspected for many years -- that I had been verbally abused.

In her chapter called The Verbal Abusers, Dr. Forward discusses “The Power of Cruel Words” and also talks about parents who are competitive or perfectionists, and the kind of lifelong damage they can do to their child. Even if all the adults who made me feel bad didn’t mean to, their abuse was real. The book delves deeply into this, but I came away from reading it with the understanding that one of the things my abusers all shared was a sense of inadequacy. In the end, the shame I felt so deeply and for so many years wasn’t even mine; it was theirs all along. Realizing this, I could simply let it go.

If you have ever suffered from a false sense of shame, I hope you will examine it and remember my experience. Once I understood the source of my shame, it went away. By believing in myself and focusing on my strengths, I was able to rebuild my spirit. It had been broken many times, but never lost. That would have been a terrible shame.