Undeserved Shame and the LGBTQ+ Community

June is Pride month, and CPTSD Foundation wants to acknowledge and celebrate our LBGTQ+ neighbors and friends. We will start with an article about how shame impacts lives in the LGBTQ+ community.

Shame is an emotion everyone feels sometime in their lives. This intense feeling can be used for good, warning us that our behavior is causing problems for ourselves and others. However, when used to harm someone, it is a powerful force that damages and cripples those who do not deserve it.

This article will focus on how shame has been weaponized against our LGBTQ+ neighbors and family members who do not deserve such treatment. We will focus on how shame hurts the communities and ways to diminish and hopefully end its use as a bludgeon.

The Causes of Shame in the LGBTQ+ Community

 There are two leading causes of shame in the community; abandonment and hate crime. Unfortunately, we are currently in a time when both are used with impunity.

It is hard enough to come out to parents and peers, no matter your age, when you do so, but having your family reject you and then abandon you causes excellent harm and stirs up feelings of shame.

Add the abandonment of hate crime to your list of worries, and you have a perfect soup of fear, anxiety, and depression. Unfortunately, you have reason to be afraid, as one study found that LGBTQ+ people experienced 6.6 violent hate crimes per 1,000 persons.

Shame feeds these three ingredients of the soup and damages the lives of those who experience them. The shame-filled messages that a gay, transgender, or lesbian person hears are devastating and undeserved.

Perhaps you were ashamed because you are a member of the LBGTQ+ community by, your parents or peers. Perhaps you were rejected and abandoned. You shouldn’t be ashamed and didn’t deserve what happened to you.

 Defining Shame and Its Symptoms

Shame is a negative belief we think about ourselves. These thoughts can be significant and painful, causing great harm. Shame on a deep level that is felt frequently and intensely affects how a person sees themselves and others.

Shame is especially prominent in those who experienced childhood trauma when growing up and sometimes manifests as survivor’s guilt, a belief they could have stopped the abuse, and a sense of being broken or damaged.

 

The shame that survivors feel often expresses itself as complex post-traumatic stress disorder, a trauma response that negatively impacts lives.

The worst part of shame is that people who experience it can conclude that they deserved the treatment they had back then and what they experience today. This is totally wrong.

There are many symptoms and signs that you are feeling shame.

Physical symptoms:

• Nausea
• Sweating
• Face flushing
• Anxiety
• Panic
• Shortness of breath
• Shaking

After noticing how shameful thoughts affect your body, it is easier to identify what you are feeling internally.

How Shame Sounds in Your Head:

Shame leads to thoughts that cause negative beliefs about yourself. This type of shame is known as shame voice. This voice speaks to you in your mind, or sometimes you speak it out loud; either way, it is damaging.

• I’ll never be enough.
• I don’t deserve a healthy relationship.
• I don’t matter.
• I can’t do anything right.
• I’m useless.
• I’m broken.
• I’m weird.

These messages are put in your mind by maltreatment when you were growing up or by people who do not understand you today. For survivors of abuse, these negative messages began very young and continue reverberating into adulthood.

How Does Shame Affect Your Life?

As we’ve seen, shame is a force in the lives of survivors of abuse and those who identify as a member of the LBGTQ+ community. Shame can be all-encompassing, even causing individuals to doubt their orientation or gender identity. Many in the community experience depression and anxiety.

You might have felt shame because your family or peers believe you violate social norms. At such moments, you feel exposed, minor, humiliated, and unable to face those who think you are wrong.

Shame makes you direct your focus inward, view yourself negatively, and focus on the feelings and thoughts of others instead of on yourself.

Shame is Toxic

The term toxic shame was first coined by John Bradshaw in 1990. The term describes a person whose thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are from being repeatedly shamed in childhood. Shame is the belief that you are a flawed human being, and that belief is placed there by uncaring parents and peers.

In Bradshaw’s book, Healing the Shame that Binds You, Bradshaw says, ‘

“If our primary caregivers are shame-based, they act shamelessly and pass their toxic shame onto us. There is no way to teach self-value if one does not value oneself. Toxic shame is multigenerational. It is passed from one generation to the next. Shame-based people find other shame-based people and get married. As each member of a couple carries the shame from their own family system, their marriage will be grounded in their shame core.

 

The major outcome of this will be a lack of intimacy. It’s difficult to let someone get close to you if you feel defective and flawed as a human being. Shame-based couples maintain non-intimacy through poor communication, nonproductive circular fighting, games, manipulation, vying for control, withdrawal, blaming, and confluence. Confluence is the agreement never to disagree. Confluence creates pseudo-intimacy.”

How do we know when the shame we feel is toxic and not? The litmus test for shame is to ask yourself, is the shame I feel helping me deal well with life, or is it running every aspect of who I am?

Overcoming Shame

 Overcoming shame is vital if you wish to live a contented and happy life. You can take four steps to overcome the shame that binds you.

First, you must acknowledge that shame is a problem for you. It is impossible to overcome an enemy you cannot see. Shame comes in many disguises and can be hard to spot in yourself. It is critical that you become aware if you are prone to shame and if you experience toxic shame. Admitting you have a problem helps you to stop being defined by it.

Second, find an empathetic ear and share your feelings of blame with them. Make sure that this person is a trustworthy individual, such as a therapist or good friend. In finding someone to listen to your feelings, you will begin the healing process and move on with your life.

Third, recognize the signs that you are feeling ashamed. When you first feel shame, try to see what is happening before you fall into the trap of negative self-talk. Figure out which physical and emotional effects shame is having on you. One indicator is that when you feel ashamed, you are critical of other people or of your life. This behavior is contrary to how you would feel if you were not bogged down by shame.

Fourth, look for the origins of your shame to understand why you feel that way. Who are the people in your life who are telling you that you are not good enough? What situations make you feel and think you are not good enough or that you are deeply flawed and need fixing? Unfortunately, society is the leading cause of shame for the person who is a member of the LBGTQ+ community.

Ending Our Time Together

June is pride month, not shame month. It is a time when all who are queer can celebrate who they are as individuals who deserve respect and love.

Unfortunately, there are those who would commit horrendous crimes against the community, especially during this time of celebration.

Pride month is a time to nurture and love yourself so that when you are afflicted by those who would hate you, you will remember you are beautifully and wonderfully made.

Please, be safe, and remember that there are those out there who stand with you and walk beside you. We believe you are wonderful and worthy of respect, dignity, and love.

“If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride – and never quit, you’ll be a winner. The price of victory is high, but so are the rewards.” Bear Bryant

“What is pride? A rocket that emulates the stars.” William Wordsworth

References

Flores, A. R., Stotzer, R. L., Meyer, I. H., & Langton, L. L. (2022). Hate crimes against LGBT people: National Crime Victimization Survey, 2017-2019. PLoS one, 17(12), e0279363.

Kammerer, A. (2019). The scientific underpinnings and impacts of shame. Scientific American. August 9.