Healing the Shame That Binds You

I want to expand the meaning of the word abandonment to include various forms of emotional abandonment: stroke deprivation, narcissistic deprivation, fantasy bonding, the neglect of developmental dependency needs and family system enmeshment. My definition of abandonment also includes all forms of abuse.

This process is a reversal of the order of nature. Now the child is taking care of the parents’ needs, rather than the parents taking care of the child’s needs. This caregiver role is strangely paradoxical. In an attempt to secure parental love and avoid being abandoned, the child is in fact being abandoned. Since the child is there for the parent,

Let me expand here on the process whereby healthy shame is transformed into toxic shame. The process is called the “absolutizing” or “internalization” process. The healthy feeling of shame is lost, and a frozen state of being emerges, whereby a person believes himself to be flawed and defective as a human being. This transformation involves three d

In my own case it has taken me a lot of work to connect with my own true feelings—my anger, jealousy, loneliness or sadness. The good news is that I have been able to do it. Being disconnected from our feelings is the result of abandonment.

Another consequence of this emotional abandonment is the loss of a sense of self. When used as another’s narcissistic supplies, a person develops in such a way as to reveal only what is expected of him and ultimately fuses with his own act or performance. He becomes a “human doing” without any real sense of his authentic self.

Codependency is a condition wherein one has no inner life. Happiness is on the outside. Good feelings and self-validation lie on the outside. They can never be generated from within.

For example, in my beginning relationships I always went too far and wanted too much. If I met a girl and we hit it off, I immediately began talking about her in terms of marriage—even after one date! Once she was in love with me, I expected her to take care of me like a mother. Needy children need parents, so adult children turn lovers into parent

One of the devastating aspects of toxic shame is that it is multigenerational. The secret and hidden aspects of toxic shame form the wellsprings of its multigenerational life. Since it is kept hidden, it cannot be worked out. Families are as sick as their toxic shame secrets. See my book Family Secrets for a full discussion of the dynamics of toxic

The problem of toxic shame is ultimately a spiritual problem.