Even now, I miss you with a fierceness that makes me want to jump into the afterlife and beat the crap out of you for leaving

Rational? No.

No, but if there is one thing I’ve learned, grief isn’t rational or delicate. It’s snot-slinging, messy, headache and heartache, forgetting to eat, not caring about anything through a painful moment of years that binds trauma and emotions to… well, everything.

When the cancer was first diagnosed, I felt like it was a big joke; someone would jump out from behind the proverbial curtain and say, “Ha! Just kidding. I won’t take her. She’s too precious to many people. Her light can’t be dimmed. It’s just the way it is. She is so much more than this stupid disease.”

Watching you waste away eight years ago with double pneumonia — as a result of chemo — and on a ventilator made no sense. Four days after you got off the ventilator, my family moved across the country. I will never forget standing in your parents’ driveway, tears streaming down both of us, your Dad and my son, prying our grasping arms apart from each other.

And then you beat it.

After watching the chemo almost take you first, a clean bill of health seemed like a win that could be revoked at any second. We celebrated quietly at first, like oh, don’t get comfortable here, but as time went on, we became more and more set in the space of “it’s gone,” we can relax.

And we did. Little did we realize the clock was still ticking.

We returned to being the best kind of besties: supportive, loving, you-are-my-person besties. We took vacations together, made the trek across the country to visit, talked, and texted all the time, and each time we saw each other, it was as if no time had passed; we knew all was right with our world. When one had a work issue, or a friend issue, or a boy issue, any issue, it was worked through by communicating to that one person who was so completely safe and protective. It was just that way with us from the minute we met decades ago.

The parking lot was pretty full, I’d never eaten here, but meeting friends for a coffee, late 90’s time-frame. Unfolding from the car, stretching after a long drive, the first weekend ever where I left my kids with my mother-in-law, and while I was nervous, I knew I needed a break. Walking in, the bored hostess greeted me, and I waved past her as I saw my group sitting in a cracked booth. I walked up, enveloped in hugs, and saw a woman smiling at me. Something energetic and profound passed between us. I sat across from her, and we introduced ourselves. It was like a cheesy romance novel only on a bestie plane: we instantly connected, and those bonds never faded. I can still see your smile and hear your laughter.

It’s strange as I sift through the thousands of memories of your ready smile, warm hugs, and generous heart that when we met through mutual friends all those years ago, it was like no one else existed. We sat at the table at a coffee and donuts place and felt like we had come home.

You used to say frequently that we would outlive the men in our lives and be little old ladies, cussing up a storm, sitting on the porch in rockers at night, looking out at the mountains, cackling at the stars over inside jokes.

Remember that time when I was heartbroken because my ex cheated, leaving me with two little ones to raise, and you were ready to commit murder and instead opted to concoct a plan to put cranberry juice in the gas tank of his motorcycle? And, when we got to the house where he was living with my ex-friend, we suddenly couldn’t do it, the dictates of your sobriety, decades strong, said “Turn around and think about this.” And you said, “Dammit! I’d have to make amends.” I recovered, of course, from that broken heart with your support, but I love that story because it’s the crux of who you were. Even though you were so angry and protective and watching me barely hold it together, you couldn’t harm him. You held me as I sobbed, and you said, “There is life after him.” Once again, you were right.

When my Mom died by suicide, when your ex also cheated when your Dad passed, when I went back to school in my 40s and started on a new career trajectory, when we lost multiple fur babies, when other friends faded, when when, when… We’ve been together through all the barbed wire, high-tree-sitting, confrontational, horrifying, appalling, bloody, joyous, traumatic, complex moments, years, and lifetimes for and with each other.

When I needed to sober up after my mom died, you told me that I was skating on the edge of the pond and pretty soon I was going to fall through the ice and that if I didn’t stop it, I stood to lose everything I’d worked for. You walked through the insanity of early recovery, helped me, bit your tongue, and never gave up on me. Every year on my dry date, you would blow up my phone, badly sing “Happy Birthday,” and say, “I’m so proud of you.”

You would remember, even when I would forget and judge myself, how hard it was for me as a child growing up in the dysfunction and abuse. When my career turned in this direction to help others, you were my biggest cheerleader and support. When you decided to quit corporate and work with animals, we walked through what that looked like, and I held your hand and sat in fear. You were so freaking strong, and you didn’t always know it. I told you every chance I got.

You had this amazing humility and humor. You were there for and with my kids every birthday, every milestone, and every hug. One Christmas Eve when they were little and my son was worried that Santa wouldn’t be able to get to our Christmas tree because we didn’t have a fireplace, you stood outside their bedroom window and rang bells on a freezing cold night, and when they didn’t wake up to hear them but snored through it, you kept ringing those bells until you were frozen through. We laughed and put baby powder and boot prints on the floor next to the laundry chute to simulate Santa stomping around: “Plan B,” you said.

Our master plan was this: my son finishes college and we move to the mountains, have houses next door to each other, and we live out our days, you helping animals and me helping other developmental trauma survivors. We hike and bike and see live music. Dance with our hearts. “That’s my Bestie!” you would always chime. We were two halves of the same whole.

My heart is heavy with my pain. There are so many layers, complicated, nuanced, HARD pieces, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. All the people you touched in your sobriety and helped on that journey. All the families whose beloved fur babies you helped transition. All the goofy things we did, all the laughter. Your joy when I talked you into kayaking the first time, and you loved it, just like I do, skimming the surface of the water, splashing me, your laughter echoing and racing away. Those moments were the best.

How many times did we hike mountains in Colorado, on vacation from our lives? Standing on the peak, knowing all was right in the world just because we were each other’s foundation. You would always joke and say it was too bad we were heterosexual, as we would have been the most amazing couple. I would respond that we were in love with each other’s souls.

That isn’t to say we didn’t argue; we most certainly did. When you have two stubborn, independent women who may get stuck in an agenda, it happens. The great thing about it, though, was that after a time out, we would come back and talk it out, usually ending up teasing each other and laughing.

In October of last year, when I was super-stressed with work and had taken on too much, you said, “Okay, that’s it. I’m getting on a flight: my Bestie is too stressed.” You came for five days, and it was like it always was. Little did we know it would be the last time you would feel good. You got back and had a scan, and they found a tumor next to your spine. You would never call my phone during the work day, so my heart dropped to my feet when it rang.

It was back. It progressed and raged like a forest fire through your body.

After getting a call from your oncologist nurse on a Wednesday in early December, saying you were having brain surgery on Friday and that your spinal fluid was filled with cancer cells and saturating your brain, I caught a flight on Friday. I walked into the hospital room Saturday morning with my son. You opened your eyes and said “Hi,” like we had just seen you the day before, and then you realized you hadn’t. With a squeak, you held out your hands, gripping my cold ones, and tears rolled from your beautiful brown eyes.

After seeing you in December, after the brain surgery, when the doctors said you couldn’t beat this, after my denial period was over, my inner mantra very quickly became “Please take her sooner rather than later, she’s suffering so much.” It’s beyond painful to watch someone you love, now a shell of their former vibrant self tormented in physical misery.

In January, we went up to see you again.

You were so skinny. Everything hurt and it was hard for you to hold a conversation, you’d fade in and out. I sat by your bed and held your hand, fed you, and brushed your teeth while I talked endlessly about our lives, how entwined we were, and how much love we had.

The powerlessness I felt watching you navigate the cancer, the pain you were in, the harsh drugs, and all of the bi-products of pouring poison into the body will forever be etched on my heart. Holding your head up so you could take a sip of water, you said once, “You didn’t sign up for this,” and I said, “Yes, I did.” Didn’t matter what was needed, whatever light and love I could give you, it was my honor to do it.

Your humor never left. At one point, someone passed gas, and you opened one eye and said, “Ewww… whoever did that needs a toilet.” My son and I cracked up and I heard your laughter one last time.

Leaving to come home from that trip was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, knowing that I wouldn’t be back before you passed.

You slipped away peacefully in your sleep; we weren’t there with you, and I know you wanted that—a beautiful butterfly flitting into the next realm.

When our important people pass, it feels like the world should stop and take a moment, but that doesn’t happen. People get up, go to work, write articles, and live their lives. Part of me just wanted to yell, “STOP! You don’t get it, she’s gone; how does this thing called life even work now?”

My pain comes in waves: it’s tangible, suffocating, and overwhelming. And yet, I would do it all again, knowing the outcome. I wouldn’t give up one second of being your Bestie. I will be immobile in my heart, trying to shake off the concrete shoes of this grief for a long time.

That’s okay. It sucks to feel this way, to miss you so much. I can’t breathe sometimes, and I honor that in myself. It means I’ve loved with my whole heart, and unexpected love is such a rare, true gift.

So! Bestie, if you are listening today, know I’m continuing with our plan, moving to the mountains, and helping others. My son is graduating college this year and is coming with me. I’m fulfilling our dream.

It doesn’t mean it’s easy to go on without you. You imprinted yourself upon me in a way no other relationship ever has. Your unwavering courage in the face of such a horrible disease and treatment is a lesson I will never take for granted. Missing you — missing us — is part of my heartbeat today.

But you’d be the first to say, “You have to keep going, move on, take our dream, and run with it. Keep helping others, staying authentic, bring yourself to the table, no matter whose table you are eating at.”

So I am. Some days are easier than others. Grief has a way of expanding your soul to encompass the intensity and break down any barriers and expectations you think you have as a human being.

I’ll see you on the hikes, Bestie, and around the porch in the evenings.

Jennifer Kindera

As a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach Supervisor and Certified Healing Shame Practitioner, my focus at Jennifer Kindera Coaching is to help clients navigate their potential traumas which may be holding them back from living life to their fullest capacity. Trauma recovery coaching and healing shame takes time, but with an honest, inclusive, and compassionate space for the unfolding of your life journey, you can work to unravel the binds of trauma and shame to promote your capacity for healing and growth.

www.jenniferkindera.com

There was no blood, just a strong gas smell from the lawnmower. A tarp is placed strategically on the concrete floor. Maybe it was covering up the blood? But she was lying on top of it. Where was the blood where?! The gun was next to her stiff form; her fingers curled up grotesquely, sparkly rings flashing merrily in the artificial light, but no blood. I could just see her face, frozen in her last moments; her makeup looked painted on. The magenta fabric bunched up in derisive ruffles. The air was so heavy in the room and oppressive as if it were July instead of October. I could smell the taint of something rancid, and when I realized it was my own vomit on my favorite pair of shoes, I felt surprised, shocked even because I didn’t remember throwing up.

Once upon a time, a little girl tried to be everything her Mama wanted her to be: perfect in her dresses, pristine, and calm. But she could never get it right. She was always making mistakes, climbing a tree and ripping her dress or laughing too loud.

Her Mama said she had to be punished, and so it began…a cycle of emotional, physical, and narcissistic abuse that would last her whole life until her Mama decided she’d had enough of this world and ended it all one rainy night.

After the final act is completed, there are so many questions, so much grief, so much shame, could I have done more, how did I not see it had escalated to this? Did I see it and ignore the signs? What kind of monster am I not to save her? I didn’t know how to feel; she was so abusive, but she was my Mom.

So many unanswered loops played on auto-repeat. The grief when an abuser dies is unlike any other. There is a missing, but not of the person; more of a core knowledge of any chance for repair is completely obliterated. I didn’t know how to feel, and what I felt seemed false and wrong.

For me, my Mom’s suicide was the culmination of years of enduring painful emotional abuse and narcissism. She lived her life like a steamroller, flattening anyone in her path who got in her way, including her children and especially her daughter.

The trauma of her suicide was two-fold: the actual event of the shooting and the subsequent love-hate shame & grief bind, which fractured my hard-earned sense of self.

I wanted to say so many things. Everything was trapped inside, within a voiceless soul. Why wouldn’t you get help? The shame was magnified by the realization that my life was easier with her gone. Then there was the shame of why I hadn’t acted more strongly, forcing her to get evaluated. Was it my fault? Layer upon layer of blame, grief, shame, and hurt.

Breathe. In. Out. Feel your lungs expand and hold. The walls aren’t really closing in. Breathe slowly out as if you are exhaling through a straw. The heavy weight of the stares of the other people in the room watching you fall apart, they don’t matter. It’s okay. At least they aren’t mocking you, right? That’s what she did when someone was suffering. Maybe they think it’s my fault too. I still can’t see any blood, but I do see the gun shot wound, it’s smaller than I think it should be. I mean, if it takes someone from alive one minute to dead the next, shouldn’t it be huge, a monumental hole that took life away?

People act differently with suicide. Plastic pauses and judgment. Human beings want to be able to help someone in heavy grief, and when it’s natural causes, there is nothing that really can be said to comfort them, but they try.

When someone dies by suicide, there are lots of side-eye glances, statements of ‘I don’t know what to say,’ which is actually better than people who say, ‘well at least she’s out of pain now,’ or ‘she’s in a better place.’

Those statements from well-meaning friends and family slew my rawness. How could suicide be better than staying here and dealing with your trauma, shame, and pain? Why are we so afraid to say, ‘I’m messed up?’ We would rather take the most drastic action of suicide, rather than face our own emotional chaos.

As sick and dysfunctional as it was, I realized in a frozen moment of time that I had no one. I began to sleep less, drink more, and work harder not to feel my feelings. I was still a Mom, even though I didn’t have one. I had to work and support and smile through homework questions and teeth-brushing. The tremendous weight of the loss was a dark cloak that shifted my lens of perspective from I’m working to be the better version of me to Nothing matters anymore, my hope was stripped away, and I was, once again, invisible.

It was a total reset, as I had spent two decades finding my voice and working in therapy, several stints of EMDR, and reading books on emotional, physical, and narcissistic abuse, but none of the healing I had worked so hard on seemed evident anymore. Traumas revitalized, and I was on top of the roller coaster again.

Oh god, I woke myself up again screaming and crying; the nightmares are so vivid. Drowning in the sheets, someone is dragging hot pokers across my whimpering skin, I can’t stop shaking, panting. Just a dream, not real. It’s the same one, I’m standing in the garage and she stands up, holding her bright blouse to her chest and saying, it’s your fault, you did this to me. I try to talk, scream, yell, but I can’t. I put my fingers on my lips, except I have no mouth, nothing to open to let the words escape. I sink to my knees and onto the frigid floor as she stands over me laughing…you will never forget now, will you, she says. She is right.

I was at ground zero, everything I had learned didn’t apply because every day the loop was on repeat: I let my Mom die. The sound of my heart breaking was not actually a sonic boom, it was more like a gentle plink of glass splintering, the devastating cracks created gaping holes.

The services were a joke. These people didn’t know her, crying and sobbing about what a beautiful, loving person she was. What a crock. She was mean and foul on a good day. She only acted like she loved you when she wanted something. I held my son on my lap, and my daughter clung to my hand. Never would I do this to them. They didn’t even know her; she hadn’t wanted to spend time with them when she was alive. How could she do it? She wrote my name and number on a Post-it note and left it on the kitchen table before calling 911. I listened to the tape of her call, she sounded so calm, detached. Her decision was final.

During the years of heavy grief and shame, my heart felt awkward in my chest. Its shriveled form sharply didn’t fit anymore. Grief is hard enough to navigate when you love someone who passes. In the death event of your biggest abuser, the grief is so complicated and murky that you can feel like you are literally drowning in emotions.

Fragments of shame, loss, and bleakness filled my heart and mind. I truly felt I was responsible. Her suicide had made the already long struggle of dealing with my abuse into a vast and empty wasteland where nothing ever felt right. I missed her, I didn’t. I hated her for how she had treated me, but I loved her and wanted her love. It was a spiraling quagmire of despair, laden with questioning my worth with no end in sight, and the vision of her lying on the cold concrete was bleached into my mind.

She loved the holidays. Our house always looked like something out of a Christmas card, with carols playing in the background. She wrapped up empty presents and placed them under the tree with care. Once, when my son was little, and we were invited over, he saw them and yelled, ‘Santa came!’ and took off running. She screamed at him to stop and I’ll never forget the look on his face, the beautiful, kissable cheeks as tears welled up in his eyes, I don’t think anyone had ever screamed at him like that before. She said, ‘The presents are empty, they are just for show, get away from them!’ We stared at her, and all I could think was what a metaphor for her life.

I had someone say to me once, almost a year after it happened, you just have to let it go. It happened; how long are you going to hold onto it? I was enraged. How can you judge when you haven’t walked in my shoes? I didn’t have an answer; I just knew that if anything were going to change, it would not be on a timeline I could dictate. I was so tired of feeling like I had the wrong emotions.

People start to steer clear of you when you have grieved for ‘too long.’ Shame surfaced again and again, as I couldn’t just ‘get over it,’ I knew it was more than just her death; it was also the chaos and pain because of a million unresolved splinters of trauma from my childhood, as well as her final act. I kept asking my therapist, how do I not go under with this? How do I survive? Her answer is one foot in front of the other, and when you can’t move anymore, stop for the day. It will take time, but you will survive. You have all along.

It was a joke, I think. Not sure who I was listening to or if I caught part, as I was back to dissociating constantly. It’s one of those not-really-funny moments that just seem so funny. Someone said a play on words, maybe a cheese pun and I felt it in my chest, a little flutter and it was directly connected to my face, it had to have been, because I smiled. I smiled a real smile for the first time in I don’t know how long. Thought rushed in, the shame roared instantly, do I deserve to smile? My inner critic said no. My kind inner coach, who was growing louder all the time due to my therapist, who kept pounding home that this wasn’t my fault, said YES.

Today, as I reflect back, I can’t pinpoint exactly when I laughed again or didn’t end the day in tears. I just know that a little burbling of laughter bubbled up one day. It was unexpected, and I felt like I wanted to turn around and say who did that? Who made that sound?

And it was me.

The healing started to glimmer through the fissures in my heart in fits and starts. I began to heal through other people who cared, held space with me, saw me, and didn’t walk away when I couldn’t ‘just let go.’ My beautiful, shattered heart began to beat again.

Healing after the loss was agonizingly slow. Watching the rest of the world continue on felt unfair. I would look at others talking about their problems and feel angry—what does this matter? Don’t you know how fast it can all go? Why are you worrying about trivial things?

The healing of a grief & shame bind is complicated, there are a million moments when sadness overwhelms and shame rushes to the surface. Navigating the rocky terrain, holding onto hope when you have none, and just going through the motions of daily life feels so futile. It feels wrong somehow, to still be standing, breathing, functioning, in the face of such despair.

As I kept trudging the long road of mending a fragmented heart, regulating my nervous system, which was in a state of constant hypervigilance, and learning to love myself, relief from the pain was incremental. It was minute pieces at a time; my inner critic was loud, demanding, and boisterous.

I would stop when my head was spinning, look at the thoughts, and say, ‘That is a lie and not who I am.’ Little shifts were happening inside of me when I would have success, even if no one else termed it as that. I would smile inwardly and feel my heart expand. Sometimes, I could take a deep breath. I got a taste of empowerment and wanted more. My strength was starting to shiver up through the cracks in my heart, and the darkness was slowly receding.

I planted tulips for years in the fall, around the anniversary of her death. They were a tribute to a life unfulfilled, mental illness, and hope. They were a celebration of mine, and I survived. They are such happy flowers, the bright colors resonating. I hope she is at peace.

I wasn’t to blame for her choices or her undiagnosed mental illness. There was no shame in not being the perfect daughter of a narcissist. The thought is laughable, I could never have lived up to her ever-changing expectations of perfection. I wasn’t alone, even though I felt alone. I mattered, even when it didn’t occur to me to think I should. The grief was overwhelming until it released a little at a time. The shame could tank me, take me down for days.

Today, I think of my Mom and feel sadness for her, the nature of her mental illness, a never-ending whirl of emotions. I feel sadness for myself, too; I couldn’t have done it any differently than I did, coming out of my family with toxic/pervasive shame, addiction, and codependency as the safeguards of protection my brain used. Giving in and going numb was my response to the threat. I don’t live in shame or blame myself as much. The question of whether I miss her in my life is a complicated one. I remember times when she was happy and seemed to like me and her life, but those are limited, surreal memories. Mostly, I know how I could never please her and how often it usually ended in pain.

The transformation from a toxic, pervasive shame bind with grief is tremendously liberating and hard freaking work. The nature of shame is to hide and be invisible, and I believe it saved my life today. Its agenda is to protect, and it doesn’t care if my feelings get hurt in the process. The inner critic is the voice of toxic shame, but it is a process that grows with us.

For me, it mirrored the things my parents and brother said and did to me, especially my Mom, and became internalized quickly, so it felt like who I was as an adult. But because shame is the master emotion, and it binds with other primary emotions, I was an adult with multiple shame binds. The toxicity gave no compassion for the standards the binds demanded, and it was my baseline.

In my case, shame turned toxic because of chronic abuse and emotional neglect. My protection was self-abandonment. If I didn’t talk back, just agreed with what was going on, then maybe it wouldn’t escalate even more. The solution then became the problem, as I believed their version of me. When she died by suicide, of course it was my fault, there was no other explanation. But I couldn’t have done it any differently.

The beautiful differences between toxic/pervasive shame and healthy shame can show us that we are not at fault for everything happening around us. It helps me to accept limitations and know that I’m good at some things and not good at others, and that’s okay. Healthy shame is always going to be a ‘work-in-process’ for me because, with the death of a primary caregiver who was abusive and the tragic way she died, it’s layer upon layer, like the preverbal onion peeling back.

I can have healthy sadness, healthy anger, and healthy grief; we had a complex relationship, but the grief is not bound up in shame, for the most part. The help I received from professionals, the caring, attunement, and understanding without judgment, holding a safe container for me to walk through all my emotions, was intrinsic to the healing I’ve done. Without the help of professionals and the caring tribe of friends I have, I don’t think I would be in the place I am today.

And that is truly one of the finest gifts I’ve ever earned as a human being struggling to do the best I can.

Each day is a place I’ve never been before. The nightmare comes every so often, the thoughts of ‘what if…’ but I don’t stay there as long. I have dedicated myself to helping other trauma survivors deal with the hand they were dealt. Aside from my children, there is nothing more rewarding in my life. We get to look through the lies abuse teaches us, through the blame others project onto us while taking responsibility for ourselves. I am able to look in the mirror today and know I am a worthy human being who survived terrible atrocities and lived to advocate for other invisible ones. There is absolutely no shame in what was done to us. I see you every time I look in that mirror, and your heart is beautiful, too. Please don’t go under like I thought I would. You can do this: survive and thrive, give and receive. I believe in you.

If you are struggling with suicide loss, I encourage reaching out, even when it hurts so much you don’t know if you can breathe one more second. Lean on others who love and support you, and discern who is safe. Find what tools work for you, manage the shame spirals, and hold onto them fiercely.

My heart is heavy for anyone in the place of utter desolate despair. There are no words sometimes. It took me over two years to write and finish this article, the layers are so deep, the grief so keening and the healing so profound. Please know some days are harder than others, but there are others who have been there too, and you aren’t alone. You matter.

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Jennifer Kindera

As a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach Supervisor and Certified Healing Shame Practitioner, my focus at Jennifer Kindera Coaching is to help clients navigate their potential traumas which may be holding them back from living life to their fullest capacity. Trauma recovery coaching and healing shame takes time, but with an honest, inclusive, and compassionate space for the unfolding of your life journey, you can work to unravel the binds of trauma and shame to promote your capacity for healing and growth.

www.jenniferkindera.com

What is Toxic Positivity, and how does it apply to Self-Care and Shame?

Toxic positivity is the expectation, either by one’s self, others, and/or culturally, that even though a person’s emotional pain or difficult situation is overwhelming and/or uncomfortable, they should only have a positive attitude.

Toxic positivity is a deeply embedded part of our culture, and it can come from external sources, such as from articles that are titled “Five Things You Must Do to Be Happy,” or from a friend responding to your pain with invalidating statements of “you should look on the bright side,” and this cultural toxic positivity can infiltrate into our mindset and affect our emotional and relational self-care.

And, of course, toxic positivity can trigger shame because we can’t cognitively change the unconscious reactions in our body, aka, our emotions.

Externally, toxic positivity can look like the family member who censures you for disclosing irritation instead of listening to why you are frustrated. It can be phrases like, “Choose happiness,” “be grateful for what you have,” “Don’t think about it; stay positive,” “Positive vibes only,” or “Power through.”

Toxic positivity can be your feelings and thoughts that you shouldn’t focus on emotions of sadness, shame, depression, anger, anxiety, loneliness, or fear. Because negative emotions feel uncomfortable, they are seen as “bad,” and when we compare ourselves to others, shame rises up because we assume, often erroneously, that no one else feels those “negative” emotions, so we feel different (and not in a good way).

Positivity and happiness are the expectation, and other human emotional experiences are not only not welcome, they are denied, minimized, and overruled. This affects our emotional well-being, and can bring up feelings like it’s wrong when you have emotions rise up that aren’t “happy,” which can then be internalized in a broken core belief that you are lacking or weak because you don’t feel or react the way ‘everyone’ else does, and in the shame world, that translates unconsciously as you are unworthy of taking care of yourself in a beautiful way.

Why should this matter? Everyone wants to feel the pleasurable emotions, right?

It matters because it’s a setup.

As human beings we have lots of emotions, all the time, they originate in the brain, and we then have a physiological response in the body, and it’s impossible as a human being to only feel certain ones, or to do away with the ones we don’t favor. So when we have an unconscious reaction in the body, in response to an external event, and our reaction doesn’t fit with the “happy” emotions, shame will rise up: “why can’t I just always be happy,” we may ask ourselves, “ something must be wrong with me,” etc. Often, people will look at others and think the others have it all together, and compare themselves to those others. Shame rises up when we feel like we are doing things wrong, or like we’re not doing things well enough, because we don’t think that we “have it all together.”

Some may argue that positivity keeps us striving to be our best, but when we struggle with a self-love deficit, as trauma survivors often do, such incessant positivity becomes toxic because shame isn’t a sustainable motivator and because minimizing our true emotions is never an authentic place. Instead, self-compassion, gentleness, and taking care of ourselves is.

Signs we may be assimilating toxic positivity can include:

Invalidation of negative emotions: All emotions have value: they are signals, communication that starts in the brain, then go into the body and back to the brain, where we cognitively label them, and are an indicator of how we feel at any given time. When we bypass, blunt, stuff, deny, or numb the negative ones, the energy of the negative emotions can’t be released. I love Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor’s work on the “90-second emotions rule,” as it explains the science behind that “rule.” When people invalidate our negative emotions, it can lead us to believe that our emotions are “wrong,” and because we can’t just ‘change how we feel’ in the body, that can make us bypass and stuff down the energy of our own emotions.

Overemphasizing positive thinking: Pressuring ourselves and others to always focus on the positive causes us to ignore the complexity of emotions. The cultural emphasis on positivity can lead us to ignore our own emotions and delay or prevent our healing.

Avoidance of negative topics: Unwillingness to discuss or address challenges, or insisting that we, or others, maintain a façade of positivity is the mask people wear when disconnected from emotions! Behaving as if there is nothing “negative” in the world or, at the very least, not permitting others to talk about anything viewed as “negative,” can cause emotional isolation and more pain.

Minimization of struggles: Downplaying or minimizing real difficulties and challenges instead of acknowledging and addressing them, along with downplaying or minimizing the emotional responses in the body disconnects us from emotions. Having our emotions or experiences minimized can cause us to doubt ourselves and can also lead to social isolation, and of course…more shame.

Forced positivity: Encouraging individuals to suppress or deny their true feelings in favor of a cheerful exterior teaches us to suppress our emotions. The whole “look on the bright side” attitude that we are culturally encouraged to favor does this. Then again, if we don’t look on this “bright side” and we instead sit in the emotions that maybe aren’t pretty, we are told (or it is implied) that we are doing things “wrong,” that we are not doing things well enough, not trying hard enough, or that we are in “victim” mentality. (A question I ask clients a lot is, what if it’s not “victim” thoughts or behaviors, but grief?) Insisting that we — or others — be “positive” no matter what has happened or is happening in our lives disconnects us from our own emotions and makes us feel more inadequate.

Blame for negativity: Projecting blame onto individuals for their “negative” emotions (like anger, grief, frustration, loneliness, etc.) when we can’t control emotions in the body is an implication that individuals are responsible for their unhappiness (anger, grief, etc.) and are doing something wrong if they are feeling that way. Toxic positivity adds blame and shame to someone’s emotional disconnect by attempting to force them to “control” or suppress any of their less-than-positive emotions. This is Survivor Shaming!

Lack of compassion: Not being able to be with our own or with someone else’s struggles and pain, while offering only minimizing “positive” solutions without understanding the context is like slapping a Band-Aid over the top of the serious wound: it is not accessing our authenticity or being nurturing (to ourselves or to others). People can be uncomfortable with their pain as well as with another person’s, but toxic positivity, instead of encouraging human connection through understanding struggles and difficulties, exacerbates pain through a lack of compassion.

Comparison and judgment: Comparing someone’s journey to that of others by either insinuating or by saying outright things like, “oh, but so-and-so had THIS happen, that’s so much worse,” or “you are lucky that’s all that happened to you,” is telling another person that, in essence, they shouldn’t feel bad because others have it worse. These kind of statements, where the comparison is loaded with (explicit or implicit) judgment, invalidate someone’s feelings and their perceptions of their own experiences.

Glossing over or dismissing realistic concerns: Not allowing valid concerns that have emotions attached to be discussed or felt, usually along with the overriding “everything will be fine” without addressing what is actually going on, is gaslighting (coined from a 1938 play-turned-film). Gaslighting is psychological manipulation, and it can cause people to question their own thoughts, memories, and/or perception of reality. Glossing over or dismissing realistic concerns, our own and others, can lead to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, and sometimes to mental health issues. Gaslighting, by any name, is always abusive.

Pressure to just get over it: Wanting people to quickly “move on” from challenges without allowing them the necessary time to process and heal, and especially to grieve a situation, is a common form of toxic positivity. For a lot of people, other people’s pain is uncomfortable (and shame rises up), so the insistence on just getting over it becomes a shaming tactic, as if someone isn’t looking at at their own life experience through the “correct” lens. Because we need to feel our emotions, hash out the challenges or experiences, and come to a place of understanding for ourselves, any pressure to “move on,” invalidates our experiences and emotions.

So what about self-care? In the culture of toxic positivity, proposed self-care activities are often somewhat superficial: taking a bubble bath, lighting candles, and reciting positive affirmations. Self-care can include these things, but it is also functional, relational, physical, emotional, and internal. Sometimes, taking the time for self-care looks selfish and unnecessary, because even if you are experiencing burnout, you are “supposed” to be looking for the “positive” in your situation. When trauma survivors can’t find the “positive” in their current or past experiences and are struggling to keep emotions contained or suppressed, survivors will once again turn everything inward and keep pushing through to try to be “happy,” invalidating themselves and experiencing toxic shame at not being able to achieve happiness no matter how trying the circumstances.

The key to emotional self-care is self-compassion, gentleness, reassessment, and curiosity about why we are feeling the way we are, reminding ourselves that it’s okay to not be okay, setting attainable plans/goals, and reorganizing expectations when we need to. Self-care is sitting in all our emotions and not trying to change them, not trying to “force” our emotions to be “positive.” Self-care is, for example, waiting to respond to an invitation to see if it’s something you want to do. Setting boundaries. Getting rest when we are tired. Listen to your somatic clues in terms of your self-care: your body will tell you — through your emotions — what is right for you now. Remember, too, that it is possible to hold two contradictory emotions simultaneously, and both are completely acceptable. We do ourselves a disservice when we don’t allow ourselves to feel all our emotions.

Take care of yourself by learning how to feel your feelings: emotions are messengers from the body to the brain, and all emotions are valid and worth your loving kindness.

Hoping you are taking good care of all your parts today, especially those with toxic shame. You deserve healing and nurturing.

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Jennifer Kindera

As a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach Supervisor and Certified Healing Shame Practitioner, my focus at Jennifer Kindera Coaching is to help clients navigate their potential traumas which may be holding them back from living life to their fullest capacity. Trauma recovery coaching and healing shame takes time, but with an honest, inclusive, and compassionate space for the unfolding of your life journey, you can work to unravel the binds of trauma and shame to promote your capacity for healing and growth.

www.jenniferkindera.com

My clients find me because they are looking for help with their childhood trauma, and many don’t realize the depth of the toxic, pervasive shame that goes hand in hand with that. While I’ve written more in-depth articles on shame before, (see article Unshaming Shame) as it’s a huge part of what we show the world, and how we view ourselves, I haven’t done a bite-size article. This topic is vast and we seem to underestimate the power of this mysterious primary emotion, time and again.

When we are born, we have the cognition of shame. This is where it differs from guilt, as guilt is a secondary emotion, not a primary. In childhood, it takes one triggering event to bring the healthy emotion of shame to the center. Shame is meant to protect us, to keep us safe.

When you were little, maybe toddler age, you perhaps reached for something that the adult with you deemed was unsafe, such as the hot stove. This adult grabbed your hand back and said, “No! Don’t touch that!” Pretty standard for kiddos, yeah? In that moment though, shame rose. You heard the tone of voice, saw the facial expression and body language, and the panic. Shame jumped up and said, “Oh no, protection time!” You most likely started to cry and hopefully were comforted. Shame keeps us small and silent, to mitigate risk and keep us out of trouble where we could get hurt.

That sounds like a pretty great mechanism inside our bodies and minds, doesn’t it? Like a safety valve that gets flipped to try keep us alive. Amazing.

Now, that doesn’t speak to how it “feels,” because it’s so darn uncomfortable. Shame feels like we did something wrong and people outside of us are going to see and it’s bad bad bad, if they do. We can feel exposed and it’s uncomfortable.

Despite how this “feels,” it’s a beautiful thing to recognize that our bodies and brains use shame to help us stay safe. And, it’s healthy.

That being said, when we are little ones, growing up in dysfunction, healthy shame can turn toxic. It becomes the go-to mechanism and we will turn it inward, resulting in a loud, harsh, and unrelenting inner critic who has lots to say and none of it is nurturing.

When healthy shame turns toxic, its purpose is to keep us small and silent to try to mitigate the risk of repeated chronic, consistent trauma and abuse. As we grow up, this toxic shame doesn’t just go away. It is the guiding principle in all our parts and has to be addressed for healing to happen.

Toxic shame is about a person, not an event(s). When a child growing up in a healthy family, makes a mistake, the caregiver might say, “It’s just a mistake, we all make them, let’s clean it up together.” The child is not shamed and taught a valuable lesson; they get to be human, and make mistakes, however, they are not the sum-total of their mistakes.

When a child growing up in a dysfunctional environment makes a mistake, the caregiver may say, “You are so clumsy, stupid, how could you do that?” This moment is the break in attunement. Toxic shame has now been established. The child then takes those statements and internalizes them as “I am my mistakes.” Not, “I made a mistake.”

And, we know that shame, healthy or toxic, is a primary emotion and a nervous system freeze.

If you are a science geek like me, understanding the nervous system piece with shame is vitally important. We feel shame in the body and have a cognitive label for it and the nervous system goes into fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or flop when it rises in the body. Bottom-up approach!

What does this look like in our adult life? I mean, hey, we are grown up, out of that home life where all the abuse happened, why am I not fixed, better, okay with who I am? Why do I question myself at best, and berate myself at worst?

You guessed it: because of the toxic shame. So the trauma(s) may have been addressed in therapy and/or trauma coaching, but if we miss working with the toxic shame piece, it will continue to rise and attempt to protect you, by mitigating risk and keeping you small.

It looks like so many things. As toxic shame is pervasive, it affects our personal relationships, professional life, parenting, choices we make, and lifestyles we choose or don’t choose.

For example, in a professional setting, it can look like perfectionism, self-sabotage, disorganization, and many other things. I created an infographic a while back for teaching: here is a clip of just some of the ways toxic shame manifests in our work life.

© Jennifer Kindera LLC, 2023. All Rights Reserved.

The layers run deep for those of us with developmental trauma and toxic, pervasive shame. What I know to be true today, is that developmental abuse and attachment wounding are relational trauma and must be healed in the context of a relationship. For toxic shame “pockets” as I like to call them with clients and students, it means we shine a gentle light on them and excavate the non-reality of the internal statements, re-shape and soften the events and the deeper meaning of “I couldn’t have done it differently.”

Is this easy work? No. Is it worth it? Absolutely.

Hoping you are taking good care of all your parts today, especially those with toxic shame. You deserve healing and nurturing.

Jennifer Kindera

As a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach Supervisor and Certified Healing Shame Practitioner, my focus at Jennifer Kindera Coaching is to help clients navigate their potential traumas which may be holding them back from living life to their fullest capacity. Trauma recovery coaching and healing shame takes time, but with an honest, inclusive, and compassionate space for the unfolding of your life journey, you can work to unravel the binds of trauma and shame to promote your capacity for healing and growth.

www.jenniferkindera.com

For a lot of us, though, who come from families that were dysfunctional and abusive, family gatherings are a source of extreme stress and anticipatory anxiety. Gathering some resources to help us navigate is vitally important to surviving the holidays: you get to choose your level of involvement and how you frame it for yourself. You matter!

Setting Boundaries

I get questions from clients all the time about how to start to set boundaries, what to do if someone continues to crash through them, and how to “make” the other person abide by them.

Setting boundaries is hard, so please cut yourself some slack. As you start to practice setting boundaries, you will get more comfortable with it. It’s very uncomfortable at first, and that’s okay. We are starting to do something that we’ve spent years — decades, perhaps — not doing! There will be a learning curve, so please tell your inner critic that your kind, inner coach says “Shup, you are doing great just trying!”

There is a misconception that boundaries are to get someone else to do or stop doing a behavior, to stop treating us in a way that is harmful and hurtful. In reality, any boundaries you set are all about what you will allow and what you won’t tolerate. When we set boundaries, we are saying we value ourselves enough to say “no” and stop accepting the harmful behavior.

The incredible irony of boundary-setting is that when you set them with people who are pretty healthy emotionally, they automatically accept and respect them. Who knew!? I spent years not setting boundaries: my family of origin taught me that I didn’t get to have an opinion on my own life. When I started to set boundaries — and, wow, did I bumble around for a long time practicing — non-toxic people accepted them with kindness and grace. I was blown away.

It’s when we are setting boundaries in the context of an unhealthy relationship, when the other person fights them, crashes over them, it’s a sign that perhaps this isn’t a person we should be investing our time and energy in, and we get to exercise our voice and choice.

So how do we know what our boundaries are? Our emotions. Our senses. Our nervous system reaction. In short, how we feel.

I love observing my emotions. Emotions are somatic, from body to brain; they’re raw data from the body and its unconscious, so we can’t control them. Our feelings stem from emotions, which is amazing because it’s like getting a personalized report on yourself at any given moment. The physical sensations in the body let us know what is happening.

Here’s an example of boundary-setting and subsequent crashing: Aunt Betty wants you to leave work to take her grocery shopping next Wednesday during the workday, and everything in you rises up and says, “What! I can’t, I have no vacation left,” etc. That’s your body to brain, letting you know you want to say “no.” If you are watching your window of capacity, you may feel some activation.

Here is the good news. We are not powerless in this situation. We have options. But what we can’t do, is control how someone else responds to our boundary. We can, however, note and absorb that their response is giving us a ton of information about them, which helps discern who is safe and who isn’t. Remember: it’s all about emotional and nervous system safety.

When people minimize and push back on boundaries you are setting in a clear and direct way, out comes the dysfunction.

So Aunt Betty pushes back and says something like, “Oh, c’mon it’s only a couple hours; you can afford to miss work, I saw that new car you are driving, Spendy; you know I can’t drive because of my arthritis; I can’t believe you won’t help me; that’s not what a good niece does,” etc. (There are a lot of ways people crash boundaries, some overt and some covert, some complete gaslighting; these are just a few things that could be said, and they’re all shaming.)

What are your options, as she says some of these things you feel shame rise up (because it’s going to, it’s part of the human condition).

• Resetting the boundary. This can look like repeating verbatim what you stated earlier or adapting it. This does not have to include over-explaining your position.
• “No.” That’s a complete sentence. If you are getting pretty good at setting boundaries, you may want to try this. You get to say “no” and then nothing else. The other person may sputter and gaslight and try to convince you to do what they want you to do, but you still don’t have to say anything more.
• Remove yourself. “Oh, thanks for the chat, Aunt Betty, I see Uncle Joe over there,” or you can simply excuse yourself to the restroom to reset your nervous system. Let your answer stand and then get out of there. There’s no shame in doing this: it’s actually great to walk through it, and it’s very empowering.
• Statements of re-direct, such as asking questions about them. Say you don’t want to just remove yourself, and that you want to practice your skills even more. You can ask about work, kids, hobbies, anything to re-direct. Sometimes the person will go with the re-direction and sometimes not; if they circle back to what they are trying to get you to do or be, you still get to choose your response.

Side note: Don’t forget to soothe your young parts since they may be jumping around freaking out, as this is super uncomfortable for them and they may be feeling a lot of shame when you set boundaries.

Lastly, on the question of how to “get” someone to respect your boundaries.

If we are listening to our emotions rise up in the body, a common one to emerge is anger, and a lot of survivors don’t know what to do with that, as they have been conditioned by abuse to not express it, not to feel it, and to vilify it.

The purpose of anger is to let us know when our boundaries have been crossed. It’s the emotional response to an external stimulus.

Back to Aunt Betty: you’ve set the boundary, remained calm, and heard her answer, which was push-back. You start to feel anger rise up at the things she’s ranting about: they aren’t true, how can she say that, why isn’t she listening to me… How can you make her understand your boundaries and stop pushing?

You can’t.

We can’t control other people’s reactions. Aunt Betty has an agenda, and I’m pretty sure at this point her agenda is all about what she wants and she is not looking out for you.

You can, however, let her have her own reaction and make your choices from there. We get to choose.

I have a general rule of thumb I utilize in situations like these. I will set the boundary, reset it once if necessary, and then walk away.

This gives me a lot of information on the other person, and I get to then evaluate how much or how little I want to interact. Maybe this is someone with a long history of pushing on my boundaries and my body is telling my brain, “Yeah, we are done.” I get to sit with that, figure out what I want to do, and be kind to myself.

And, let them sit in their stuff, because, at the end of the day, I refuse to take on anyone else’s shame or blame. I get to make mistakes and go from there, but when someone has a history of rupture without repair, then I am setting myself up to be hurt and taken advantage of, if I let them take advantage of me or otherwise not honor my boundaries. It’s all about what we will allow and learning to value self.

I am not responsible for what other people think of me or my decisions.

When people give us lots of information about themselves, their patterns, their reaction to shame, and their behaviors, we get to choose if they are safe to emotionally invest in or not. If they are not, it can be little contact or no contact: you have the power to choose.

Acknowledge your feelings first, voice your truth if you feel safe doing so (always keeping an eye on your window of capacity and potential activation in the nervous system) while gently maintaining intrapersonal bridge/attunement with self and valuing self because your own needs matter!

What happens if a gentle approach doesn’t work?

“Gentle assertiveness” is a term I like to use in relation to setting boundaries. We don’t have to compromise who we are, insult someone else, or be defensive. We can work on just stating our truth with gentleness and self-compassion.

If the other person gets insulting, defensive, or shows anger, it can be powerful and empowering for you to say something like, “I get that you are upset, but trying to convince me to do something I don’t want to do isn’t going to work.”

This topic may have to be a series, as the next piece of setting boundaries is self-care, and well-worth a whole article!

I hope you are taking good care of yourself today, nurturing you. You deserve to heal! You matter.

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Jennifer Kindera

As a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach Supervisor and Certified Healing Shame Practitioner, my focus at Jennifer Kindera Coaching is to help clients navigate their potential traumas which may be holding them back from living life to their fullest capacity. Trauma recovery coaching and healing shame takes time, but with an honest, inclusive, and compassionate space for the unfolding of your life journey, you can work to unravel the binds of trauma and shame to promote your capacity for healing and growth.

www.jenniferkindera.com

Codependency is a fawning response in the nervous system. Everything boils down to the nervous system and emotional safety; we can’t control this within ourselves, this drive to stay safe. The brain’s first order of business is to protect the body. Fawn types seek safety by merging with the needs, wishes, and demands of others.

In another article where I chronicle my journey with Codependency — because let’s face it, we don’t end up in this work by accident — I talk about it as, “ I sacrificed my own needs, wants, and thoughts to satisfy someone else in hopes that they would love me and never abandon me.” One of the keys to this statement is the abandonment piece. (Read the full article here.)

The dysfunctional family role of Scapegoat is the person in the family who is groomed to accept all the responsibility, the fault, the blame, and the shame

So that begs the question, how do we get here?

Growing up in abuse and trauma, the dysfunctional family role of Scapegoat is the person in the family who is groomed to accept all the responsibility, the fault, the blame, and the shame. It’s the way the abusers discharge their own shame, blame, and hurt onto another person so they can escape the intense emotional responses. Of course, we know it doesn’t work, but that’s the unconscious intent.

And, being on the receiving end of that is one of the foundational pieces in our toxic, pervasive shame, because the Scapegoat is seen as a threat to the dysfunctional family, and are barraged with mental and emotional abuse. It’s daily emotional abandonment from the people who are supposed to care about and for you.

Why are scapegoated children a threat? A scapegoat child’s growth threatens the abusive parent’s delicate, brittle, and bloated self-worth. Growth is an amazing process for a child, figuring out in healthy circumstances what they like, and what they are good at. It’s a beautiful, wondrous process and the abusive parent who casts the child into the scapegoat role can only be threatened by this.

Being told you are selfish, you never can measure up to others, and everything you do is wrong, paves the way for the abandonment of our emotions and core self. We essentially co-opt the abusive words and in shame’s effort to protect us, turn them on ourselves for sometimes decades after we are out of that terrorizing situation.

This toxicity and intense trapped emotions are turned on oneself and that is what we bring into our adulthood

Basically, when a child is the dumping ground of criticism, judgment, and harsh treatment, they still have all the emotions rise up in response to it, such as anger, sadness, and grief, but there is nowhere for it to go as it isn’t safe to express it. This toxicity and intense trapped emotions are turned on oneself and that is what we bring into our adulthood.

The child adapts to this behavior and it becomes easier to believe all the bad stuff they say, and shame tells us they are right and tries to keep us small and silent, which is its purpose. As an adult, it’s the only way we’ve known how to treat ourselves: those neural pathways were mapped young and shame turned toxic long ago.

From there, the need to contort and sacrifice ourselves to fit the dysfunction and self-hatred is second nature. This is the codependent piece for individuals who have been scapegoated.

I remember when I was about six years old and I loved to write short stories, I told my mother that I wanted to grow up to become a writer. Her response was to laugh cruelly and say that I would never be able to do it, I wasn’t smart enough. She then brought it up, ridiculing me, in front of my abusive father and brother, who jumped on it and got a good laugh at my expense. I started to cry at the dinner table and they sent me to my room saying if I couldn’t control myself I wasn’t allowed to eat.

Then to further the cycle of abuse and dysfunction, this was brought up every so often over the years, resurrected to perpetuate my role of inconsequence and chronic disrespect in the family.

This may seem like a one-off situation, but for the child who is systematically scapegoated at every turn, this is their normalized experience.

So much of the time, we will repeat what we don’t resolve internally

In adult relationships, subconsciously we will draw to ourselves the people that are going to give us an opportunity to help us heal our family of origin issues. (This part really stinks, as we can come out of our dysfunctional childhood with the hope of better relationships, but it doesn’t always happen.) So much of the time, we will repeat what we don’t resolve internally: those feelings of always needing to fix it if someone is upset with our behavior (codependency characteristic) and right away feeling like there is something wrong with us, and we aren’t good enough (which is the toxic shame of course.)

To do this work, we learn how to hold these thoughts, feelings, and behaviors up to the light and see the fallacy of them.

Did I go on to write after being scapegoated and ridiculed for a childhood dream? Yes. Did it take some work to not believe their opinions of me?

Yes.

Because at the end of the day, what I know to be true is when someone is treating another human being that way, it’s actually about their shame. It doesn’t feel good, but being able to dissolve those broken beliefs about ourselves and melt that conditioning into “that’s their stuff,” is incredibly healing. Learning how to believe in ourselves is rife with self-compassion, healthy shame, and working towards interdependent relationships.

We don’t do this work to change other people: we do this work to remove our need for them to change.

The codependency characteristics are adaptive ways for us to survive the trauma of abuse and dysfunction. We couldn’t have done it any differently.

I hope you are taking good care of all your parts today, especially those with toxic shame. You deserve healing and nurturing. You are enough.

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Jennifer Kindera

As a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach Supervisor and Certified Healing Shame Practitioner, my focus at Jennifer Kindera Coaching is to help clients navigate their potential traumas which may be holding them back from living life to their fullest capacity. Trauma recovery coaching and healing shame takes time, but with an honest, inclusive, and compassionate space for the unfolding of your life journey, you can work to unravel the binds of trauma and shame to promote your capacity for healing and growth.

www.jenniferkindera.com

It seems that you can’t go anywhere these days without hearing people label self-absorbed behavior as “narcissism.” Understanding that grouping behavioral characteristics that can be measured on a spectrum is particularly helpful, as articles that tout a checklist with a one-size-fits-all can often be confusing and misleading. It can keep us in conflict with what is healthy and what isn’t, and with codependent characteristics, it can potentially keep us in denial.

Shame plays an enormous role in the self-absorbed, un-compassionate, emotionally unavailable person who ziplines down neural pathways that are arrogantly self-serving

There are a lot of theories on how narcissistic characteristics manifest in people, and with all of my training and work in the arena of shame, it’s glaringly obvious to me that shame plays an enormous role in the self-absorbed, un-compassionate, emotionally unavailable person who ziplines down neural pathways that are arrogantly self-serving (not to be confused with valuing and putting oneself first, as we can’t pour from an empty cup to take care of ourselves and help others).

Dysfunctional family roles abound within intergenerational trauma and the multi-generational transmission of shame. As the family rules and mottos get passed from generation to generation, we are groomed to fulfill our role, and because shame rises up to protect us, biologically we can’t help it: shame is going to keep us small and silent in order for us to be accepted, fed, clothed, and safe.

Birth order can play a part, and what is interesting as well, is dysfunctional family roles are often thought to be mostly in families where addiction is present. Since we know that addiction is rooted in childhood trauma, we can see how dysfunctional family roles come into play even without addiction in the family system.

The eight dysfunctional family roles that I routinely witness with clients and experienced some growing up are:

1) The Golden Child: the child who can do nothing wrong, is overtly lauded, and is used to shame the other roles within the family system. The child is raised with a bloated sense of self and entitlement. When, as an adult, the world doesn’t treat them this way, their sense of self-identity is threatened. They are looking for external validation of who they are. The typical Shame Reaction for the GC is ‘attack other,’ which I’ll talk more about later in the article.

2) The Hero: the child who proves to the world that the family is acceptable as well as worthy of love and belonging. If a child is praised for accomplishments outside of the family, it is seen to reflect well on the family system at large.

3)  The Mascot: the child who takes the sting out of any potential shaming, the diffuser of conflict within the family system, this child can turn the focus off of the others, a lot of the time with humor to deflect attention before a disagreement/conflict can turn ugly.

4)  The IP (Identified Patient): the child who is frequently the family system’s answer to problems, the blame receptacle. A lot of the time, if the family seeks mental health support, they will label this person as the reason why. This child is shamed consistently and chronically. When the family system gets to the point where they admit defeat in being able to “fix” the IP, where nothing this person does is “right,” they have transitioned into thrusting this child into the family’s Scapegoat aka Black Sheep.

5) The Scapegoat/Black Sheep: the child who is different, who doesn’t fit in, in some or many ways: physically, emotionally, in their interests or hobbies, even down to what they like, or what their dreams are. Shame arises out of differences. One thing I hear as a consistent refrain with clients who were conditioned to this dysfunctional family role is that playing along was vital, but they grew up feeling like they could never be themselves. So much of the time, they have no idea who they are. They were groomed to believe themselves as the cause of the family system’s issues because this was constantly reiterated.

6) The Lost Child: the child who stays small and silent and hopes to be unnoticed in their drive to “stay out of trouble” and out of the hot seat. It creates the dynamic of withdrawing in their shame. Shame’s purpose is to keep us small and silent, and The Lost Child’s role fulfills that in the letter.

7) The Caretaker & Enabler: the child that contorts to fit the dysfunction in their shame story and gives the world the falsified view of normalcy. The caretaker and enabler show the world that the family fits in, while behind the scenes this child is constantly assuming responsibility for the other members’ thoughts, feelings, and actions. Shame is ever-present, as it’s driving the actions to “make” the family appear acceptable, so the child will not be shunned or exiled.

8)  The Parentified & Adultified Child: caretaking on a whole different level, the child learns quickly they are responsible for the emotional needs of the adults in their lives, to the point of having to take on the role of spouse to a primary parent. For example, this can be the family where the mother is telling the five-year-old son that he is the “man of the family.”

Why do we adapt to these roles? Emotional and nervous system safety.

How do we try to stay safe in an unsafe environment?

The brain’s primary job is to keep the body safe

The answer is Shame, the master emotion, whose evolutionary purpose is to keep us safe; and the brain’s primary job is to keep the body safe. Shame is this protector, meant to make us fit in, keep us small and silent so that we don’t put ourselves out there if there is any risk of unsafety. If we act outside of our groomed role, we are taking the risk of being cast out or ignored, and we won’t survive.

As the master emotion that binds with other primary emotions, shame is the great protector and is rising up unconsciously all the time. We can’t control this. Our emotions are like data, from body to brain; we have physical responses, descriptors of how we feel. It’s amazing information, and we can hear people talk about their emotions in everyday phrases, such as, “butterflies in my tummy…” or “my heart feels broken…” or “he stabbed me in the back,” just to name a few attempts to describe how an emotion feels in the body.

Our relationship with the emotion of shame is incredibly complex, as it’s also tied in with the nervous system. Shame is a primary emotion and the nervous system freezes. When shame rises up, we often experience an intellectual freeze, lose our words, and definitely feel it in our bodies, and we can feel more shame for reacting this way, as we will blame ourselves for these bodily sensations and subsequent behaviors. The complete irony is that it’s unconscious and we can’t control it.

Each of the dysfunctional family roles described above is rooted in shame, starting as the shame passed on from parent to child.

In any of the roles where the child is exemplified as special over the other children, more shame is present, as the roles thrust on them make them feel like they can never measure up; these roles are steeped in shame, externally and internally.

Obviously, the role that aligns most closely with narcissistic traits and characteristics is The Golden Child. Within the family dynamic, the GC is often praised to shame the other children’s roles, to “get them in line,” or ‘Why can’t you be more like your sister?” Conditioned in the family system and based on perceptions of the parent, the GC gets both emotional harm concurrent with adoration.

The GC grows up doing no wrong and not having to acknowledge their mistakes. When children carry this dysfunctional, misshapen, fragile sense of self into the adult world where, on the job, in friendships, and in intimate relationships, they can’t get the same level of adoration and entitlement enacted, we can see extreme responses as they attempt to create the adoration/entitlement supply that feeds the emptiness of their soul. The narcissistic person (remember a spectrum) is filled with attachment wounding, as they were treated differently in childhood as well. And, as we know, shame comes out of differences.

The person with narcissistic patterns and characteristics have manifestations of a deep-rooted, insidious belief that they are “better” than others

The person with narcissistic patterns and characteristics have manifestations of a deep-rooted, insidious belief that they are “better” than others, but deep down there may be doubt if they could honestly view their mistakes in life, so external reinforcement is necessary. Their self-worth is contingent on receiving the same kind of praise as the GC got during childhood. When the world doesn’t bow down to those demands, the narcissist will escalate to fill that supply in whatever way can fill the void. We will then see love-bombing, gaslighting, chaos, and anger, just to name a few.

To keep ourselves out of the intense emotion of shame, we will go into what is called a Shame Reaction. There are four primary ones: Deny, Withdraw, Attack Self, and Attack Other. With narcissistic characteristics, we will often see the Attack Other shame reaction in individuals. The purpose of this is to discharge their own shame, blame, and hurt onto someone else, and can be done covertly and/or overtly. A hallmark sign of internalized shame is contempt, which is a huge symptom in narcissistic behavior and a great way for them to stay out of the painful emotion of shame. Well, great for them, not for those on the receiving end.

Shame is the opposite side of the coin from codependency, but it is also the opposite of narcissism.

I hope you are taking good care of all your parts today, especially those with toxic shame. You deserve healing and nurturing. You are enough.

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Jennifer Kindera

As a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach Supervisor and Certified Healing Shame Practitioner, my focus at Jennifer Kindera Coaching is to help clients navigate their potential traumas which may be holding them back from living life to their fullest capacity. Trauma recovery coaching and healing shame takes time, but with an honest, inclusive, and compassionate space for the unfolding of your life journey, you can work to unravel the binds of trauma and shame to promote your capacity for healing and growth.

www.jenniferkindera.com