Shame on you!

Still trying to make it gel for me!!!!


I wonder...do we struggle with ashamed cos we don't have aguilted?

Some friends of mine had been in Nazi Germany and had for several years admired Hitler.
After the war they were not only sorry, but deeply ashamed as well.
When the morons who tortured Iraqis say they are sorry, it means they regret being caught on pictures.
Unless they are ashamed of their behaviour, they should not be forgiven.

they dont have to.
you get shipped off to a private space ( jail ) where noone SEES you, and you dont have to face your neighbors or family.
In jail you can make a whole new set of 'friends' and learn to obide by a new set of societies rules.

When you come out, everyone offers counceling and other resources to help you 'deal with' jail time.

Where is the shame in that when you are automatically seen as the damaged person for having to endure jail time?

dlowan's post is a thinker.

Maybe I'm a freak, but I always thought of guilt being just as bad, and just as much of a social control as shame. Both are horrible feelings, and can be used against us. I'm thinking specificially of my past (of course) and the Catholic family. Guilt was a weapon, and got all confused. I was able to feel guilty about things that were harmless; mainly because of how people reacted to me.

But...that is the neurotic version of guilt.

Yes Flushd......I guess the trick is, for a parent, to help a kid get in touch with real empathy for the one/s they have wronged, so that they feel bad for the harm they have done, while remaining empathic and close enough and loving enough themselves to help the child retain their sense of being intrinsically ok DESPITE having done the wrong, and to assist in regulating the negative affect for the child so that they are not overwhelmed and do not shut down emotionally and are able to reflect and be optimistic and hopeful re being able to repair the wrong, or at least to forgive themselves after a time, and not make the same mistake again. (THAT was what was lacking for me....so when I had hurt someone I was utterly overwhelmed and traumatised).

Have you guys heard of mirror neurones yet, by the way, in relation to empathy?


I guess all of that really, yet again, is stuff that happens naturally and easily where there is a good attachment relationship....and mirrors the process by which infants and parents repair inevitable breaks in attunement at an earlier stage.

I guess that makes a brief stab at answering Nimh:



but I suppose another attempt at responding to that question would be to say that the self the child sees reflected in the parent's attitude in helpful chastisement remains basically good...ie you have done something which has had these effects which are bad ones, but I am still here for you and I will help you to deal with this and then we will get over it, you just have some learning to do....and I will help you to do that learning.

Hmm. My shame went out the window when i discovered alcohol. i dont really have any anmore. i dress like a weirdo and just do what i want really.
shame is just like regrets really isnt it?

yes! Its actually regretting yourself.

For me, the concepts of shame and guilt are related, but distinct.

Guilt is having done something wrong, knowingly and willingly. Now, you
can feel guilty as well as be guilty. But not everyone who is guilty feels
guilty and not everyone who feels guilty is guilty. The latter is true
because sometimes what one did was not really wrong, or they did not
fully realize it was wrong, or there were extenuating circumstances. But
still that person feels guilty. It may be that one has too delicate a
conscience or a badly-educated conscience.

I think shame comes about when one violates a set of standards that they
have committed themselves to. There's a feeling of failure there, of
disappointment, a feeling of having let one's self down. Often, it involves
a feeling of letting those down whose esteem you value.

Now a big problem is that when someone holds you in high esteem, they
have placed great power in your hands. If you aren't careful, you can
use that power, the power to generate shame, in such a way that you
create problems for people that persist a long, long time.

That is a very thought provoking post, George!

Earlier in the thread detano inipio talked about forgiveness when someone expresses shame.

This comment sparked a conversation between Mr. B and me under the guise of Ken Lay and the Enron ordeal. I asked him if his feelings towards Ken Lay would be different in Mr. Lay said "I am ashamed of what I did."

It was a complicated conversation -- too hard to completely recount but essentially we both determined that we would feel differently about him if we thought he had seriously reflected on what his actions had led to.

Then George's post comes up and forces me to delve a bit deeper still...

I think this is an important distinction so I want to be sure that I'm following.... especially the part about "not everyone who feels guilty, is guily".

I'm thinking of the old adage "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" - that sometimes we do things expecting a different outcome. When the table spins we are caught unaware but this does not absolve us from feelings of guilt.

The other kind of guilt, the "not everyone who is guilty feels guilty" could obviously be the psychopatic, Ted Bundy kind of thing: he knows what he's doing is wrong but he thinks he should get to do it anyway.

On the complete opposite end of this scale could be the person who robs a store to feed his family. He IS guilty of robbery but he thinks his actions are justified.

Now all of these people are/feel guilty but none of them feel ashamed.

Is that right?

To me, guilt would be the uncomfortable feeling that the person experienced, that he had done wrong.

Shame would be the embarrassment of knowing that the people around him knew of his wrong act.

I am much in agreement with detano on this one.

I find many times people aren't sorry for what they've done, they're sorry they got caught.

Maybe it's just semantics, but my understanding of the words guilt and shame are quite different, even the opposite of what others have said here. Well, whatever it takes to act like a honorable person I guess.

The word guilt to me signifies others opinions/pronouncements of my actions. Others find me guilty or not guilty of committing certain actions. I may acknowledge I have done or not done whatever others are saying…but that has nothing to do with how I feel about it. I may feel that I am guilty of something, as in "yes, I did that", but also say, "and I believe it was the right thing" Guilt is something imposed on me by others…it's up to me how I feel about it.

Shame on the other hand, is much more complicated for me….and I feel it can be either good or bad.

Shame that is loaded on you by others is, without a doubt, one of the most damaging things in the world, especially if it is undeserved. But still, there are times, and proper ways to show another that what they did was hurtful, bad, whatever word you want to use, and bring them to the point where they see that, and feel a healthy shame toward themselves. If one feels shame about something, you are unlikely to do it again.

I feel the need to tell a story, if you don't want to hear it, skip over this paragraph, but it does really get to the point of my opinion on shame…..
Let's see, this all occurred from the 5th or 6th grade through the 8th grade.
There was a girl in my class, I'll call her Lucy.

No one could stand being near Lucy, she stunk so bad. Grime ground into the creases of her skin, greasy lank hair that hung in her eyes, and an odor you could smell 3 desks away. Once, it was a Friday, I noticed Lucy had a od dried booger hanger from her nose. GROSS! I kept glancing over at it, it was embedded in my mind….The weekend went by, it was sometime on Monday, I looked at Lucy, and the same dried booger was hanging from the same exact spot off her nose. That's how bad Lucy's hygiene was.

On top of that, she could barely read, mumbled, was last in the class in every subject, couldn't even jump rope, and no one wanted her to anyway. Every child, including me, was so cruel to Lucy on a daily basis. I'm sure you can just imagine.

I don't know why, I can't imagine things being that different then, I suppose it was, but….I don't recall any teacher, nuns or lay, ever working with Lucy in any way….it was almost like they couldn't stand her either.

Lucy obviously came from a terrible family life. But we kids couldn't see that. I really can't speak for why she fell between the cracks, or other kids treatment of her. I can say that I am personally still deeply shamed of how I individually treated her for years.

I cannot go back and ever fix that, but the shame I feel over making that poor girls life an even bigger hell keeps me from treating anyone else like that.

Footnote: I saw Lucy one more time after grade school, I must have been 17 or 18, and walked into a convenience store. The cashier said "Hi Chai" I had absolutely no idea who she was. She said "I'm Lucy"

I know this sounds like a story, but Lucy had blossomed into an entirely different person. She was actually quite a beauty. She wasn't mumbling, she was clean, she looked me straight in the eye and smiled big.

What did I do? I grabbed my change off the counter, and walked out of the store as fast as I could, never looking back. I was a coward, and too much was happening too fast. I wanted to still be disgusted by her. I was so screwed up in my own life by that time, all I could think was "She must have gotten a boyfriend"…God I was a moron.

Would even a heartfelt apology have done any real good at that moment? I don't really think so. Seeing someone for an instant after all that abuse can't really initiate an apology. Am I sorry? You betcha. How do I work that into my life today? By letting the shame remind me not to ever treat another person like that again.





Pentacle Queen - I'm getting a little worried about you. The alcohol? It's not getting rid of the shame, it's only delaying it.

I'm right there with you Chai.

Your story about Lucy and what you brought out of it is just exactly what I was talking about -- how chanting an unkind poem at a girl still makes me feel like a jerk 40 years later.

I have made a concious effort never to be so cruel to anyone ever again.

Intersting thread...

I have done something very similar to what boomer did - chant unkind things to a girl in my class although, even at that time, i knew it was wrong. Whenever I think of this i feel guilty. Like you, I have made an attempt never to be cruel or spiteful again.

Maybe it;s just semantics, as Chai, said. But my own cruelty or anything that I should not have done - causes me to feel guilty, remorseful, and even disgusted with myself. I do not remember feeling "ashamed" about such things...

As for things I'm ashamed of - they are things over which I have no control.

As a child, I used to be ashamed I was the daughter of a loud and cruel woman. (I used to be ashamed of being known or addressed by other people as her daughter)... I'm ashamed, for example, of my community when they do something cruel - like burn down houses or riot against other communities...I do not feel guilty since I have not contributed to the act..

The conditions applied to modern day life including general upbringing have varied vastly over the years. It was once a sign of good manners for instance to appear humble, hence the 'I am ashamed of myself' terminology. Modern day conditions are more akin to 'I don't give a ****'

I find it more beneficial to accept the changes than to compare them, it serves to save a great deal of good thinking time.