A Place For Shame

Written and published by: Annie Kaszina
Women's Self-Discovery Coach
www.joyfulcoaching.com

Last week I was talking with a bright, funny, professional woman who faced a personal dilemma. She was paralysed by shame.

She wasn't in a monumentally awful relationship, but it was bad enough to erode her sense of self. She had her reasons for not leaving for a while yet.

Now, while I would like to see every woman leave an abusive relationship yesterday, I will not judge them. It's not for anyone outside the relationship to judge, least of all me. (I stayed so long in my marriage I got a couple of long service medals.) Still, I do care passionately about their life, their safety and their health.

This woman was ashamed to admit publicly that the relationship was bad because she was still in it.

Now this brings up all sorts of paradoxes in our society. We're very good at telling other people to 'put up or shut up', yet we tend to voice at least some of our complaints relentlessly. And last Saturday the world was exposed to the edifying spectacle of the England football team weeping shamelessly like 6 year olds because they had lost the match and fallen out of the World Cup... It was - for me at least, crabby person that I am - an extraordinary example of the self-indulgence that characterizes society...

Far from being ashamed to show the world their weepy side, our gallant footballers expected to meet with understanding and sympathy. Theirs was a burden for the nation to shoulder with them.

The woman I was speaking to felt obliged to shoulder her burden alone. She had learned to live around the difficult situation in her personal life. I can remember doing that. I remember, too, how hollow it left my life. It wasn't just the Bee Gees who had a 'hole in their soul'.

I believe there is a place for shame; it relates to wrongdoing, the things that we do that harm another person or society.

I do not believe that shame ever attaches to someone who lives with an abusive partner. What need can you possibly have to punish yourself when your partner is already doing it so effectively for you?

We all make the best decisions we can at the time, for the best reasons we have at the time. Whatever decision we make requires tremendous courage. There are no easy options in an abusive relationship. The question is: how can you best protect yourself from further psychological damage?

There is no place for shame in abuse recovery. Whenever you feel shame know that that is the abuser's burden you are shouldering, and embrace the feelings that lie beneath the stranglehold of shame. What you fight will persist, what you embrace will pass.

There may be immense sadness to being where you are - that's perfectly normal. Without the anchor of shame to keep it in place, it will pass much faster than you probably believe.