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Shame?

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by skiff, Feb 25, 2014.

  1. skiff

    skiff Guest

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    Hi All,

    Lots of people talk about the feelings of "shame" about being gay and I want to understand the basis of it.

    I never had shame about being gay, I simply feared society and what it is capable of (from Nazi's marching gays into gas chambers to Mathew Shepherd, to family rejection).

    My mother used guilt to motivate her children. Whether we were insolent or smart we quickly learned to say; "Pack your bags, she's sending us on a guilt trip" to her face when it happened. She still did it but she knew it would get her nowhere.

    So shame... Where does it come from? Is it yours? Handed to you?

    Gay was always a part of me. Natural as my eye color, came as easy as being right handed or my hair color. It was dangerous because society was/is stupid on many levels. From pet rocks to politics it is just stupid. So I never take society too seriously.

    I told the story in another thread about older boys forcing me and a friend to give them oral sex as they tried to humiliate us. I have no angst or shame over that. I did not choose it, they did it. I imagine they have real issues if they recall it, but I don't.

    What is this shame people are suffering for a natural thing? Fear I understand.

    Tom
     
    #1 skiff, Feb 25, 2014
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2014
  2. taobroin

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    Guilt is about feeling bad about something you've done - but shame - Toxic Shame - comes from feeling (knowing) you're flawed and defective as a human being (to the core). It's one of the worst things to suffer from and takes a great deal of effort to break free of.

    Shame, as it relates to being gay is something I know a lot about. The origin for me is the messages I received from the culture at large, and from the Roman Catholic Church in which I was indoctrinated as a child. Thankfully I eventually have come to understand over many years the toxic shame that was drilled into my head at home, and in American society. It was because of this shame, that as a teen and in my early 20s, I attempted suicide several times. It's a miracle I survived - it's devastating, but I'm proof that one can heal.
     
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  3. skiff

    skiff Guest

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    I thank God you are here!

    I was raised RC too... Never took. I started with the Latin mass, militant nuns (brutes) and fish on Friday.

    I LOVED the fish on Fridays. :slight_smile:. That took.

    Tom
     
  4. taobroin

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    Thanks Tom (I'm Tom too!). re: RC - Crazy right? LoL - so glad that's behind me.
     
  5. GayDadStr8Marig

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    Well, I jumped on board the RC guilt ship later in life, but I had early on firmly entrenched myself in the shame game. As long as I can remember, boys were expected to be playing sports; I hated sports. Boys were expected to be gear heads; I didn't care all that much about cars, but did was races on TV with dad when I was younger. Boys were expected to climb tress, jump bikes off ramps, and generally do foolish things that eventually led to a broken arm or two, though parents always admonished to be careful; I wasn't interested in any of that stuff, I was more inclined to take a long bike ride around town, ride down by the shoreline and smell the water and watch the gulls dip into the waves. Boys were expected to be interested in girls and have a girlfriend by the 5th grade; I was more interested in the cute boys, especially in gym class.

    At church, we were taught that if you don't follow the Bible exactly (except the parts they decided no longer applied of course) you're going to burn in hell. If you have sex outside of marriage, you're going to hell. If you're gay, you're going to hell. Now, these were the same people that railed against drinking, smoking and dancing, but you'd find a good number of them at a bar on Friday or Saturday night, and a good number too had packs of cigarettes in the pickets and purses while they were shouting Amen's when the preacher railed on with his fire and brimstone.

    So, the shame comes from being taught by the people you instinctively look up to -- parents, teachers, coaches, pastors -- that you are deficient, less capable than your peers, defective, immoral. It becomes internalized early on and when the hormones begin to kick in and change the brain chemistry, the shame takes on other forms: people pleasing, trying to project a false perception of ourselves to others, and a massive construction binge on a fabulous closet.
     
  6. piano71

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    For me, the shame built up slowly. It wasn't so much about being gay per se, but about social limitations and how others react.

    I've had a couple of bad experiences that happened when others thought (or found out) that I am gay: shunned in a class during college, passed over for promotions, pushed out of a job.

    So I often think that I would have "done better" in life were it not for being gay - and all the negativity from others that it attracts.

    On some level, it should be "their" issue and not mine, but I was the one who lost friends, opportunities, and even a job because of their prejudices. After a while, I started wondering if the haters are right.

    Of course, the haters are WRONG. But there is a thorny issue lying underneath: Who sets the rules that society operates by? If an overwhelming majority of society thinks that being gay is wrong, it gets defined as inherently wrong. It's really difficult to hold out when you know something to be true, but deep down know you're one guy up against millions who will never understand...
     
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  7. setnyx

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    i was handed shame by those around me because they feared what others would think of them. like weeds it grew and choked the life from me. as i began to live for me ( very late in life ) it's better but i still have to weed ( occasionally )
     
  8. Paul13

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    I have read your views and would like to comment on what I think causes me most distress during my coming out process:
    I am too old to be ashamed of being gay
    I am embarrassed about the fact that I had been married to the most wonderful beautiful, talented and stylish women on earth for over twenty years whose life I feel I might be ruining.
    I am embarrassed that people will think that I, a respected, empathic professor of Psychiatry could do such a thing to his wife
    I am embarrassed that I fell completely in love with an innocent beautiful 27 year old gay man whose life is now in turmoil because of me.
    These things are holding me back from completely embracing my sexuality.
    I sometimes feel as if I am very much fitting into the stereotype that society assosciates with gay folks.
    I have become a much better teacher, more empathic and understanding of my patients' fears and I feel more competent and confident in my abilities as a psychiatrist than ever before.

    I embrace my new sexual identity and feel a new life energy unlike ever before, but am crippled by these other aspects at the moment and expect it to last for a considerable time.

    Thanks for listening.
     
    #8 Paul13, Feb 25, 2014
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2014
  9. tscott

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    Ah, back to the baggage, at least that pile of beautifully matched Louis Vuitton is getting smaller with each of these posts, retreat session, or therapist's visit. I started this journey as part of a religious retreat (the 19 Annotations of St. Ignatius) with the am at becoming closer to my wife. God has a very twisted sense of humor, which makes me like Him better. A big piece has to do with God's unconditional love of us. Well, I wasn't buying it. How could God love me when down deep I didn't love myself? Call it guilt, call it shame...it was profound. My Jewish buddy and I had lots of discussions about this and whose guilt was worse, the Jews or the Cathoics. Long story short, it wasn't until I admitted to my self that either God was wrong or I was wong. All things being equal, God has a better track record than me. That meant that I had to admit I was gay. Big epiphany! If I had to admit that then logically God made me in His image and it had to be okay with Him. My big sin was my pride in telling God He was wrong. I have no guilt or shame about being gay any more, but I must admit there is about hurting the people closet to me, such as my wife, but there was no intent there to harm. One more drawer openned of that big old steamer trunk. :lol:
     
  10. ornoir29

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    Guilt... Although my family is not religious, I come from a very Catholic country, so society often has very restricted view. And my step-dad doesn't like homosexual people - I think it's very common in some men who say that in order to "re-affirm" their masculinity. Whatever.

    Also I was teased by my male classmates when I was 12/13, they called me a "girl" because I spent all my time with girls. Which shouldn't be that strange, considering that most of those guys are now in jail for scams or drug-dealing. Yet, being called "girl" when you feel 100% male doesn't help.
     
  11. Choirboy

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    Despite riding on the Catholic guilt train for 5 decades, religion really doesn't seem to have figured much into my shame issues.

    I remember getting negative comments rom my mother about typical male behavior since I was a small child, all the way down to comments about the bearded hippies that hung out at the fountain in front of where she worked ("If you ever grow a beard I'll disown you!" which made facial hair something that made me uncomfortable to say the least when I started growing it). Or comments about the sex-crazed guys who were dating (and eventually married) her younger sisters, who were 9 and 10 years older than I. Men in general were bad.

    I got an awful lot of criticism for not keeping my wild younger brother in line as well, and got a ton of comments about how I should be able to keep him in line, being the oldest. My dad, the high school football hero, didn't say much but his look when I tried to do anything boyish was pretty painful.

    So being masculine was bad, but the programming was for a wife and kids, and I wasn't living up to that either, and I had no exposure to the stereotypical gay guys whose behavior was just close enough to mine to be recognizable, but not enough to be comfortable. Small wonder that reliving my childhood is something you couldn't pay me enough to do.
     
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  12. Chip

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    Shame, very simply, is the very deep belief that we aren't worthy of love and connection. The simplest way to characterize the difference between guilt and shame: Gullt: I did something bad. Shame: I am bad.

    So if you get wildly drunk on Sunday night and miss an important meeting on Monday morning, if your self talk is "Wow, that was a really bad decision, and I need to not do that again" that's guilt. If it's "Wow, I really suck, and I'm such a loser for screwing that up"... that's shame.

    There is no positive benefit of shame. It is always a negative feeling that affects our self worth. The older literature (mostly John Bradshaw's work) differentiated between "shame" and "toxic shame", but Bradshaw has since said that a lot of what we know now wasn't known then, and he no longer believes in the concept of positive shame.

    Shame is something we all have, and the less we talk about it, the more we have it. In the case of LGBT people, even if our parents raise us in a very positive environment and never shame us, we still get a tremendous amount of shame from media, religion and culture around us. We hear slurs against gay people in school, on TV, in the media. We read about Westboro Baptist Church. We hear many religious leaders talk about how gay people are an abomination. We hear otherwise seemingly intelligent people talk about how being gay is a choice, and we should not have the right to marry. We know that people will judge us if we tell them we're gay.

    All of those things contribute to our shame, because ultimately, it tells us that there's a giant club of people (people who are straight) and we don't and cannot belong, because we aren't straight. So most of us try to "fit in" and are closeted for part of our lives, and that, in turn, increases the shame because we know we don't really belong, and it ends us making us feel even more unworthy.

    The antidote to shame is empathy. So when we speak about our shame, share our stories with those who have earned the right to hear them, and, in return, get empathy and understanding and caring in response, that creates connection, and extinguishes the shame.

    Most of the above is based on the work of Brené Brown and Robert Hilliker, principal researchers and authors on the topic.
     
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  13. StillAround

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    (*hug*)Thank you, Chip. (*hug*)
     
  14. prettylonely

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    i can really relate to this. i am christian now and not giving that up but growing up, i remember thinking that i mustn't have sex until i'm married and if i did, i would be a big sinner and burn in hell or receive forgiveness but i had to live perfectly after that forgiveness or i was going to burn again if i died before i could recieve more forgiveness and confess my sins. it wasn't the confessing that was the problem. it was the repenting....turning from your evil ways. but the problem with the same sex thoughts was that i couldn't seem to "fix" them or pray them away. so i thought that if i did not act on them, that was the best i could do. so i guess any form of 'acting" on that i felt was sinful made me feel horrible and that somehow i had failed not only my family but God. i know others will get on here and maybe bash the religious aspect but whether you believe in religion or not, please do not bash it becaues that's now what we need right now. but then i think i had a screwed up view of what real Christianity is/was and it is only now that as an adult I am learning the true nature of a personal relationship with God but sadly the old shame still lingers, like it has been entrenched in my head. the thought of not having teh wife and kids and going to church with them....well it just feel like i am screwing up my life to think of having a man as a partner. but yet, i am still attracted to them. i wish i could be like others and just be "happy" being gay but i'm really not happy with my orientation but living asexually has not really being a walk in candyland either.

    ---------- Post added 25th Feb 2014 at 06:03 PM ----------

    i feel a double whammy of guilt and shame. i remember as a young boy my dad told me that the worst thing a guy could be was gay. i think i also remember running into my room and crying later in secret because of that. even then i guess i knew i liked guys even though i did not know what being gay was. i knew they were talking about me. i also remember being in church ones and the preacher said that gays could also be saved. i remember feeling butterflies because i knew i was in that "group" but i felt bad because gays were lumped in with other "bad" types and then that meant that i too must be bad. i remember one time at summer camp i had a humongous crush on another boy and he flirted with me too. i must have been in 3rd grade. i remember crying at home one night before i was sleep praying not to be gay because i felt that i was because of the crush. so even though i am in my late 30s it feels like i have been depressed all of my life as soon as i can remember about being gay. i think maybe i always knew. i remember my cousin kept asking me if i had "discovered girls" and he wanted to set me up with another girl in a different elemementray school and i remembered feeling like i did not want to meet that girl. so i guess for over 30 years you learn to hate yourself everyday, it's hard to suddenly feel happy and free. it's really weird because even though i am a grown man, in a way i feel like a little boy that wants to be "good" for my parents and family and church and pastors and etc etc etc etc and get a gold star. i know that sounds immature and stupid but that's how i feel. even though the adult side of me knows that this is my life and that i should try and enjoy it.
     
  15. GayDadStr8Marig

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    It's absolutely not immature nor stupid. We've been locked away inside ourselves since we were very young. Part of us was never allowed to grow up like straight people did. And feeling of needing to "be good" ties into the whole people-pleaser aspect of being closeted.
    http://emptyclosets.com/forum/lgbt-later-life/124955-people-pleasers.html
     
  16. prettylonely

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    i never associated my need to people please and get approval from others with me strugglign with gay acceptance. i so deperately want to be liked. i dont want anyone to hate me. i will hurt myself so that i can stay in company with someone i might not even like just so they wont reject me. its crazy. i think when i think about it, i have been carrying this secret. and the secret made me think that everyone would hate me if they found out. so that made me try and be perfect so that as long as i was perfect they would love me and if they found out maybe they would stiil love me cuz i hadn't done anything "bad" in my other life. but its too exhausting. i think my closet doors are coming off their hinges this year. i physically and mentally and emotionally cannot go on anymore like this.
     
  17. Tightrope

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    I love the insertion of religious guilt into this thread. I really do. It sort of makes it humorous, in a weird way, and makes it resonate.

    It seems that terms take turns being popular in the world of pop psychology, if you will, and "shame" or "shaming" is basking in the spotlight this year and last. In the past, it was boundaries, shut down, and a few others that people used a lot.

    I don't know what there is to be ashamed about when it comes to sexuality. I think that the only shame I can see is that associated with playing the field, for those who do or have done that. People don't want to be perceived in this light, since it's not the best behavior. That applies for people of any sexual preference.

    However, if you are not ashamed, or dealing with shame, and you're a fairly tough person, it would be hard for others to shame you. As for the sexuality issue, I always distill it to "What does it matter who I rub up against? It just doesn't."

    Like the OP said, it sounds like it more of a mind fuck or control issue on other people's parts.
     
  18. StillAround

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    A lot of us have been where you are right now. The "people pleasing" thing is absolutely part of the shame. Because we feel so flawed that we need to be "better" in others' eyes to be worthy of acceptance. But you're right--it's too exhausting. But until we learn to let go of the shame, I don't think we can really be ourselves, in the moment, at peace.
     
  19. confused mwm

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    I was always raised to believe that gay wasn't a choice and that gays and lesbians were not bad people. Our family knew a few openly gay people as far back as the 70s.

    I felt I was different at a very young age and suspected that I was gay during adolescence. I wasn't ashamed, but I did not want to be gay. Yet even after I fantasized about guys almost exclusively and fooled around with a few guys in my late teens, I never felt ashamed afterwards. I just wanted it to be different. I resolved and accepted that my fantasy life would be gay and my real life would be how I wanted it.

    I'm not ashamed of my homosexuality on its face; I'm ashamed that so many lives would be disrupted if I made the decision now. It's not horrible, this straight life, but it's not totally me either.

    But is it enough of a departure from the life I have now to blow it all up? I see a lot of guys happy they stepped out; others wondering whether it was the right decision after all. That's the crossroads I'm at right now, which explains my screen name and my mood status on this site.
     
  20. Chip

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    I think many of us have had our shame made significantly worse by religious disapproval, and by thoughtless comments by parents and others during our formative years. I know many people who knew from the time they were 4 or 5 (sometimes even earlier) that they were different than others, that they liked people of the same sex, and that they didn't "fit in." Yet many of those people still struggled with coming out until their 20s or later.

    I talk a lot about Brené Brown's work on shame and vulnerability, and I mention it again, because I think it's particularly relevant to this thread. Her books "The Gifts of Imperfection" and "Daring Greatly" both address how shame affects us, and steps we can take to become resilient to it (we can never completely eliminate it, but we can learn to recognize when we're in it and change our behavior so it doesn't impact us much.)

    I also strongly recommend her TED talks "The Power of Vulnerability" and "Listening to Shame'
     
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