(This is Part 2
in a three part series. Read Part 1 here.)
Beeep. Beeeeep. Beeeeep. I sat up in our
four-poster bed and pulled my blue phone off the bedside dresser, the black
numbers—12:00AM—flashed too bright
across the white screen: Why on earth is
my alarm going off now?
I threw the
phone back on the dresser and pulled cool sheets up to my chin. Beeeep. Beeeep. Beeeep.
I rolled over
again, fingers searching dresser-top for that stupid phone! Squinting at the
name flashing across blue screen, I hit the mute button. My sister. Why is she calling at midnight!?
Eyes blurry
with sleep, I gazed at blue screen until the beeping silenced. But when the
beeping started up a third time, I
realized: Something’s wrong!
Heart pounding
in my head, I hit the green button saying, “Hello?” my sister’s words flooded
fast: there was an email in her inbox saying a family member was about to
commit suicide.
What do we do?
Hands shaking
as adrenaline pumped, I prodded Jon awake. Together we sorted out
the fearful situation and responded the best we knew how. It was 3AM before we
turned off the lights and pulled up the bed sheets.
But I never
fell back asleep.
The next morning,
I opened the laptop and found an email from yet another family member in my
inbox. I wasn’t surprised at the words that popped off the computer screen: “Please
contact N______ and apologize for what you’ve
done and try to help N_____ before N____ does something drastic and you regret it for the rest of your life!” Somehow—in the mind
of this family member—I was to blame for the suicide attempts of a sibling I
hadn’t seen or talked to in over two years.
Shifting blame—it’s
one way dysfunctional families (and individuals) cover up the painful feeling
of shame.
Blame: The Shame Cover-up
For most people,
personal association with issues like mental illness, pathological lying,
abuse, eating disorders, and alcoholism is shameful. Families who struggle with
issues like these fear being labeled “crazy” or “messed up” and, therefore, unworthy
of friendship or value. So, out of fear of being deemed “unworthy/unacceptable,”
dysfunctional families work hard to keep the shameful issues hidden. If anyone dares
point out or talk openly about the issues, that’s when blaming starts: “We aren’t the ones with the problem—she (the person exposing the issues) is
the one who’s really messed up!”
"When we are feeling shame and fear, blame is never far behind. Sometimes we turn inward and blame ourselves. And other times we strike out and blame others. . . . When we try to get out from underneath the pain of shame and fear by blaming others, we often explode. We lash out at our child, our employee, our partner or maybe even the customer service person standing in front of us." (Brene Brown, PhD.* 23).
And the truth
is this: everyone—not just members of
dysfunctional families—feels shame.
Picture this
scenario: it’s mid-morning on a Saturday, the kids are playing nicely in the
basement (for once!), the hubby is relaxing on the couch with a book, so you
decide to pop on Facebook for “just a second!” In that second, you stumble
across Suzie Q’s pic of her newly decorated kitchen in her $500,000 home. Her
children sit primly at the kitchen table reading books while Suzie kneads bread
dough on her new granite counter tops in her size zero Lucky jeans, and the
caption below this blissful snapshot reads: “Just another average day!”
As you gaze at
Suszie’s pic, you begin to feel your postage stamp kitchen with thrift store
décor is simply not acceptable, your kids sure don’t read as much as they
should, and you remember that you still can’t fit into your size 8 jeans (never
mind that baby is only 4 months old!). And, suddenly, you feel ashamed of who
you are—your house, your kids, your body. But, rather than address the painful
feeling of shame, you snap the laptop
shut, yell at your hubby to get his “lazy butt off the couch,” and scream at
your kids to “stop wasting your time and do your homework for Monday!” As you
scream at hubby and kids, you indirectly blame them for your shameful feelings of inadequacy.
Sadly, I’ve
been guilty of similar episodes of blaming to cover up my own shame. Ashamed of
bad parenting decisions, hurtful words spoken in anger, a less-than-perfect
body, house, child, life—I have
lashed out at husband, children, and others. (See Part 1 of this series for an
example of this with my son, Micah, here..)
Denial: The Shame Cover-up
Another method
families (and individuals) use to cover up shame is outright denial of painful
issues: “Problems? What problems?” And to convince themselves “our family is
problem-free!” they gather for Christmas, Easter, and birthdays, smile at the
camera and post “happy” pictures to Facebook, as if the photo-façade somehow proves:
“We are the perfect family!”
In my dysfunctional family, denial is accomplished through
simply pretending (or purposely overlooking) the family history of various
forms of abuse, mental illness, pathological lying, adultery, fornication, porn
addiction, and so much more. The issues are never dealt with. They are simply
buried and “forgotten.” Family members frequently use phrases like this: “The
past is in the past. I don’t dwell on it. I live for the good in the present,”
which really means “the shame of the
past is too hard to bear, so I’m just going to pretend it didn’t happen.”
But if you
cover shame with denial, the dysfunction of the past never stops—the physical
abuse becomes emotional, the old lies give birth to new ones, and yet another
generation suffers with unresolved shame.
Biblical Origins of Shame, Blame, and
Denial
Covering shame
through blame and denial is nothing new—it’s the Garden Story repeated in the Now.
Adam and Eve felt guilt over their apple-stealing disobedience and this guilt
led to feeling naked—ashamed. Afraid of God discovering their disobedience and
shame, they hid. Then, when God found and confronted them, they refused to take
responsibility for their actions; instead, Eve blamed the serpent and Adam
blamed Eve.
"In an attempt to ward off shame’s
grip, often a person (or institution or nation) will project blame on another.
The perfect control model doesn’t work, life’s imperfections and insecurities
are disturbing, so blaming and scapegoating are enlisted, giving an illusion of
control." (Kathleen Curzie Gajdos PhD,
emphasis mine).
Control—the root motive for blame and
denial.
Adam and Eve
attempted to control God and cover up
their shameful disobedience by blaming the serpent and each other. And, just
like Adam and Eve, all of humanity is guilty of trying to control people and circumstances to avoid dealing with shame. We
surround ourselves with people who tell us we are “beautiful, amazing, and
right-about-everything.” We set up strict rules for our kids so they turn out
“great” and make us look good. But the sad reality is this: “the control model
doesn’t work.” Eventually your kids make poor choices, a good friend talks
about you behind your back, your husband betrays you or you betray your
husband, and deep down you feel unacceptable—shameful.
So, how do you truly overcome Shame and view
yourself as God sees you--worthy and acceptable in spite of your imperfections?
For me, the first step in dealing with shame was admitting
how shame characterized virtually every aspect of my upbringing and how I
repeated those family patterns in my own life. But simply seeing and
understanding shame in family/self was not enough to overcome the shame woven
deeply in my psyche.
Only through truly
embracing the power of the Gospel have I been able to address the deep roots of
shame.
Read Part 3 here.
*Brene Brown,
PhD. in her book I Thought It Was Just Me
(But it isn’t.)
*Kathleen Curzie
Gajdos PhD. in her article “Mind Matters—Guilt and Shame.”
