The Impact of Shame on Characters’ Psyche

App Heaven for Writers Part 2: Writer... Power to the People

The Impact of Shame on Characters’ Psyche

This is a rewrite of an article I wrote a long time ago about shame. Shame plays a profound role in personality development, self-esteem and adult relationship formation. As a writer, it is one of the strongest motivations that underlies a great deal of character behaviour. I hope this article is helpful to you in putting together the pieces of your character’s psyche.

Failure Is Spelt “M.E.”

“When I feel guilt, I feel that I have made a mistake, and when I feel shame, I feel that I am a mistake.” John Bradshaw

We’ve all done things we regret. However, shame runs much deeper than regular guilt. It becomes a part of our identity and colours our ability to connect with others, achieve or be happy. We beat ourselves up constantly as we didn’t live up to the set expectations. We’re not the person we wanted to be. Instead, we’re a worthless failure, with no hope of change. Shame is associated with feelings of being unloveable, useless, unwanted, ugly, inferior, stupid, dirty or bad. Shame hides the real ‘me’ for fear of rejection and ridicule.

Shame’s foundations are, not surprisingly, laid in childhood, then reinforced as time progresses. As children we can be repeatedly told: “You’re stupid.” “You’re lazy.” “You’ll never amount to anything.” “You’re nothing but trouble.” “I wish you’d never been born. You were an accident” Being caught up in incest, physical abuse or emotional victimisation makes it worse. School can be fertile ground for developing shame: being compared to siblings who did better than you, not being a brilliant scholar, playground bullying, name calling, teasing, rejection by your so-called “friends.” It adds up to make an insecure adult, terrified of failure. This can lead to further victimisation as an adult, whether in the workplace or in relationships. “Shame is above all a relationship wound… our identity is based on our ability to form and maintain relationships.”(Quote source unknown. Site is now offline.)

Photo: Copyright Sam Mugraby Photos8.com

It’s common sense that no one achieves all the goals they set for themselves, neither can we be everything that everyone wants us to be. Those disappointments in life shouldn’t automatically brand anyone as a useless waste. Yet when embedded in shame, at any age, our hearts and minds don’t necessarily see them as anything other than additional failures.

Shame is a difficult mindset to break out of, as it is so deeply ingrained in how we see ourselves. We can try positive self-talk and reprogramming, but if we fail to achieve that goal, it takes us deeper into feeling a failure. People move into cycles of shame where the harder they try, the more they fail: then the deeper the shame becomes. Successes are played down and not celebrated. They are stuck in pessimism and learned helplessness, perhaps becoming perfectionistic or a workaholic to give their existance value. That is a heavy burden to carry: perhaps dooming them to exhaustion, disallusionment and breakdown and… more shame.

Healing can come, but usually it comes in gentle stages over time. It comes through achieving small goals and celebrating success. It is enabled by caring, empathetic friends who genuinely appreciate us. It is about learning that making mistakes is OK and that we need to forgive ourselves.

If trapped in shame, we need to change the way we think about ourselves. Healing is being gently opened up to being loved by others and ourselves, and by allowing ourselves to know we are good at what we do. It’s a life-long developmental process which involves learning to love life and enjoy it without fear. Our self-belief and expectations of ourselves can improve, no matter how damaged we’ve been.

From TED: “Shame is an unspoken epidemic, the secret behind many forms of broken behavior. Brené Brown, whose earlier talk on vulnerability became a viral hit, explores what can happen when people confront their shame head-on. Her own humour, humanity and vulnerability shine through every word.” To really understand shame, you need to watch this clip. It’s life changing.

NOTE: Please realise that this post is a very brief, non clinical introduction to the topic of shame. It is in no way meant to be used as advice or guidance in how to get through any shame you have had or are now experiencing. No liability will be accepted for your use of this material for any purpose, or any of the material on the linked web sites. Please consider what you read carefully, seek professional help and make up your own mind. Thank you.

This post is in the process of being collated into an e-book, “Building Emotionally Realistic Characters” (Book Two of the Four Dimensional Characterisation Series.) It will be available in Kindle, Nook and iBook form before the end of September 2012. For further information, please keep an eye on this blog.

The girl on a bench photo in this post is paid for and licenced to me. It is Copywritten. You may not save it or use it for your own purposes. You can purchase it from iStockphoto.com