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“THE DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY RULES 1. Control or Chaos. One must be in control of all interactions, feelings and personal behavior at all times—control is the major defense strategy for shame. In the less-than-human shameless marriage, both parents may be cocaine addicts or addicted in other ways. They may be dishonest criminals. The children experience chaos, as well as secrecy rules that guard their family’s behavior. 2. Perfectionism or Anomie. Always be right in everything you do. The perfectionist rule always involves an imposed measurement. The fear and avoidance of the negative is the organizing principle of life. The members live according to an externalized image. No one ever measures up. In the less-than-human family, there are no rules—the children have no structure to guide them.”
― Healing the Shame that Binds You
― Healing the Shame that Binds You
“Condemning others as bad or sinful is a way to feel righteous. Such a feeling is a powerful mood alteration and can become highly addictive.”
― Healing the Shame that Binds You
― Healing the Shame that Binds You
“There is no way you can share your inner self because you are an object of contempt to yourself. When you are contemptible to yourself, you are no longer in you. To feel shame is to feel exposed in a diminished way. When you’re an object to yourself, you turn your eyes inward, watching and scrutinizing every minute detail of behavior. This internal critical observation is excruciating. It generates a tormenting self-consciousness that Kaufman describes as “creating a binding and paralyzing effect upon the self.” This paralyzing internal monitoring causes withdrawal, passivity and inaction. The severed parts of the self are projected in relationships.”
― Healing the Shame that Binds You
― Healing the Shame that Binds You
“The feeling of righteousness is the core mood alteration among religious addicts. Religious addiction is a massive problem in our society. It may be the most pernicious of all addictions because it’s so hard for a person to break his delusion and denial. How can anything be wrong with loving God and giving your life for good works and service to mankind?”
― Healing the Shame that Binds You
― Healing the Shame that Binds You
“When emotionally abandoned people describe their childhoods, it is always without feeling. Alice Miller writes, They recount their earliest memories without any sympathy for the child they once were. Very often they show disdain and irony, even derision and cynicism. In general, there is a complete absence of real emotional understanding or serious appreciation of their own childhood vicissitudes and no conception of their true need—beyond the need for achievement. The internalization of the original drama has been so complete that the illusion of a good childhood can be maintained.”
― Healing the Shame that Binds You
― Healing the Shame that Binds You
Steve’s 2024 Year in Books
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