Shame is a painful emotion caused by recognizing guilt, shortcomings or impropriety, and the basis for narcissistic, over-nurturing, and needy behaviors.
It’s SO important to recognize these to understand the dynamics and how you may be caught by the cycle of shame in toxic relationships with partners and parents.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS EPISODE: (originally published Dec 7, 2020)
- What happens when you were shamed as a child
- Early choices you make in response to being shamed
- How shame affects your attachment style in adult relationships
- Two responses to deep shame…poles apart
- The difference between shame and guilt
- Who will be attracted to #narcissists and other #Hijackals
- Who #narcissists and other #hijackals are attracted to and why
- Projection: how it works in the shame cycle
Things happen when you’re little and you don’t realize what’s becoming part of you. Being shamed at an early age by the people who were supposed to protect you makes a huge impact on you!
#Narcissists take shape then, and so do many people who are attracted to them–or at least, taken in by them.
This is NEED-TO-KNOW information. It can help you understand decisions you need to make that will change the quality of your life.
Big hugs!
Rhoberta
Want clarity, insights, strategies, and support from me, Dr. Rhoberta Shaler? We can talk: Introductory session for new clients, $97
RAW TRANSCRIPT – sorry, there will be grammatical and punctuation challenges in this text. It’s direct from speech by AI.
And tonight, we’re going to be talking about a very important topic. And that is the topic of the shame of it all. narcissistic, nurturing or needy. And there are different responses to shame. It’s important for us to recognize them within ourselves. And it helps us understand other people. Because shaming is very insidious. It goes to the deepest parts of you when it happens. And it causes different responses in different people. So I wanted to help with the understanding of that. And to go deeply into the causes of it.
And what it exacerbates what it brings out for us what it is that not only is our response to it, but where did our response to it come from? And how do we feel it within ourselves. So this is tonight’s topic. And if you enjoy save your sanity podcast, I invite you to become a Patreon. That’s a way that you can make a pledge for a monthly donation to support the work of it. If you find value here, you found some answers or you found some inspiration, please consider going to patreon.com slash save your sanity and help out with that and show your appreciation. So let’s talk about this deeply. You know where you can always find me for relationship help calm? Should you want to talk to me directly by the way. And if you do want to talk to me directly, or you have an issue, go to be a client calm and use my new client offer when full hour session for only $97 for new clients. So let’s talk about the shame of it all. Now, what does shame really mean?
Well, it’s important for us to understand it because shame is a painful emotion, definitely a painful emotion that’s caused by the consciousness of guilt, or shortcomings, or impropriety, you’ve done something that you’re you really are humiliated by. So shame gets right to the core of who we are gets into our deepest being. And it’s important for us to recognize, maybe we were ashamed when we were children.
Maybe it was inadvertent, maybe you nobody meant to it was just the way they spoke or what they did. Or maybe they really did mean to maybe they were mean, maybe they were discounting or degrading or diminishing or demeaning. And they shamed you on purpose. This goes right to the core of your being no matter who you are. But yes, I said earlier, we have different responses to it. So we want to have a look at what that is all about.
And as we look as we look at them, think about if you’ve felt you had to work hard to get attention, or you had emotionally absent parents or neglectful parents, are you experienced emotional neglect? Maybe you could never do anything right? These things cause a core shaming that your deepest part is who you are is not good enough. The difference between guilt and shame is that guilt is I made a mistake. And shame is I am a mistake.
And you can just feel that, can’t you?
But shame I am a mistake. That is a deep core wound, and it creates attachment problems. Now I’ve done several episodes on attachment with Dr. Gary Salur with Jennifer layer with other people. So wherever you like to get your podcast, go to save your sanity podcast, do a search. You can do it right on my website, save your sanity. podcast.com do a search on shame and you can listen to all the episodes there. It’ll help you understand attachment. And what happens if you’re shamed and how that creates an attachment style, often the first two years of life that you will carry through and it will color all of your relationships.
So it’s important to know about that.
So when you’ve been shamed as a child, you have two ways to go. Yes, there are grades in between but two basic book hands on how you might go, when you could get very tough and refuse to be shamed. just refuse you will not take it in, you will not hear of it. Everything is someone else’s fault. And the other way is constantly trying to be good enough trying to make people happy, trying to get people to like you trying to, to ward off any further shame.
And these two responses create very differing ways of being in the world.
And you can see that one would lead to a more narcissistic tendency, I refuse to be shamed. Everything is your fault, nothing can be my fault, because I am so wounded so deeply, that I cannot tolerate the idea of it. And the other end of the spectrum being, I expect to be shamed, and I’ll do everything I can not to be shamed. I will walk as far as you want me to jump as high as you want me to do, what do I need to do to please you, and of course, everything in between. So there are these two ways. So we have two things we can do.
We can have compassion, which is a good thing to do a healthy thing to do, as long as it’s in balance between the compassion you have for other people is well balanced with the compassion you have for yourself. Now you can see that there’s an issue there, because if we tip in favor of other people all the time, we get out of that healthy balance. And then we get over into that second response of constantly trying to be good enough, constantly trying to overdo so we become the over givers of the world. And that is not a healthy place to be either. And much of that can come from our shame.
So there’s there’s an article by Dr. Joseph burgo. And he said that the core defenses against shame, are narcissistic flight, blaming an indignant rage, and contempt. Or these are the things that we see in the Hijackals that I talk about so much. They have a narcissistic flight. They want to run away from the problem. They’re blaming, and they go into a rage, and they have contempt for other humans. So we see that frequently. So what do we have then to do what we have to responses, because we’re deeply shamed. And that becomes a narcissistic thing that we’re looking always for validation and for admiration and someone to fill our cup. Well, that’ll never work. Because it’s an unfillable hole, you didn’t create that hole and you can’t fill it for somebody else. so deeply shaved, people then can either go in the direction, respond by looking for validation and adoration and going in the narcissistic direction, or they can go in the needy direction, the needing the approval of others being more codependent Lee minded, and they become what I call Hijackal bait. They’re the very people that Hijackals like to look for, because they know that they will do what they want them to do. And they can be demanding and that the needier person will try to do all that. Now there who’s in the middle? There’s a big question there. So let’s just talk about that, who’s in the middle, are nurturers healthy nurturers who think that there’s going to be quality reciprocity and mutuality in the relationship, like I talked about in Episode 115. They’re expecting equality, reciprocity and mutuality, they get into the relationship, and they’re willing to nurture they’re willing to go the extra mile, they’re willing to give the benefit of the doubt. But slowly, but surely, they get pulled along. So they’re giving more and more and more and more and more, and it never comes out in the wash. It never becomes equal, it never finds balance. So who’s in the middle are those nurturers who were there to provide healthy nurturance and slowly got taken down the road of doing too much over giving, and that’s an important thing for us to know.
One of the things that happens for sure, is that shame and blame are kind of a chicken and egg dance. If you get blamed too often, you may feel shamed and when you get shamed too often, if you’re narcissistic, then you look for someone else to blame.
And that’s a problem. Definitely a problem. And you may have experienced that in your relationship.
So what do you do? Well, what people do is they look for protection.
And so they, they look for some armor against all of this. And armor does two things simultaneously, it repels the shame and blame that you don’t want. And it repels the love and acceptance and validation that you do want. And so if you put on the armor, you can’t have it all.
You’re going to keep away the shame and blame. But it makes people not want to give you the validation. And then you can’t feel love if you’re armored, because nothing is can come in in that level. So which protection wins, you know,
I looked at the Oxford Oxford languages dictionary, and it defined armored is covered with a metal tough layer as a defense against attack.
So Narcississts become armored by their shame.
And that becomes that tough metal layer that keeps them defended against attack, they hope. And they will do the rest to keep defending themselves against attack. Now, in the DSM five it was talking about and that’s of course, where we find the ways that we diagnose particular patterns of behavior. But it defines narcissism as a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, with the need for admiration and a lack of empathy, a need for admiration and a lack of empathy.
The last episode that I did last week was about empathy.
Our narcissistic folks incapable or unwilling to express empathy. And that’s important for us to understand too. So I invite you to listen to that. I think it was Episode 168. So you could find that if you want to learn more about it. Now narcissism is shame based. And it’s important for us to know, so we can become when we are shamed within become armored, which is the narcissistic tendency, or we can become more breakable, which is the needy tendency.
And these are basic things that are important for us to understand the distinctions, because Hijackals defend against shame. And people who are needy, except the shame and the blame, they take it on. And they believe it’s who they are they but if they believe the press that they’re being shamed by, whereas Narcissus don’t believe it. They won’t take it in because they had it when they were too young. And they have created an armor against it.
So who will be attracted to Hijackals to these people with narcissistic sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies? Well, these are going to be the people who are the over givers, the ones who are willing to go the extra mile, and the ones who are giving the benefit of the doubt. And they keep giving that and giving that in hopes that finally, the Hijackal will feel I’m on your side, and they will become stable and no longer be so so difficult to get along with because they will finally feel loved and taken care of. And they will understand that they’re loved. But that doesn’t happen. That doesn’t happen because Hijackals have an unfillable hole. So who else is going to be attracted to them? Well, people with unbalanced compassion, people have more compassion for others than they have for themselves. Now one of the one of the things I’d like to take out of the English language is this phrase, give till it hurts. Because this causes a cycle that produces the kinds of effects that we’re talking about today.
If you’re constantly giving and giving and giving and giving and giving pretty soon you have nothing left.
If everyone were doing that, what kind of a world would we be in?
We must balance compassion for others with self compassion, then we always have our cup full and we have something to give from. We’re not depleting ourselves. And that’s very important. That’s what balance is all about. So who else is attracted to Hijackals people who strive to nurture they they live for nurturing they live for helping they live for taking care of people
They think that it will ingratiate them to the people. Or maybe they don’t even hope for that. They are just over givers ready for love.
And unfortunately, some people who are attracted to Hijackals of course, we’re not talking about the love bombing phase when Hijackals are absolutely wonderful, and they give you everything they’ve got you think. And they do and say everything perfectly, and they seem to know you inside and out.
But they are also attracted to people who after the love bombing phase, will make do with crumbs in a relationship there, they take the littlest bits that Hijackals will offer them, and they try to make it into enough.
And they get very excited when the Hijackal has a tender moment and thinks, oh, there’s a breakthrough. Oh, the person I fell in love with his returning. And then the Hijackal spins that into getting you on their side, and then they squash you like a bug again. And they they think they like people who think that all they deserve is crumbs, because they’re pre groomed for Hijackals. So if you were raised in a situation where you were shamed, and maybe you’ve responded by really trying to be the nicest person on earth, unfortunately, that sets you up for being very attractive to Hijackals. And then you’re wondering, I did everything right, I was kind, I was considerate, I was compromising, I was accommodating. And yet, it didn’t work, there was always more that needed to be taken always more that needed to be given.
And never could get it right. Never, never never. And that’s the Hijackals game to keep you shamed. You’re never good enough. And if you had a background when you were young, I’ve never been good enough never quite getting it right.
You’re a Hijackals dream.
Because they don’t have to even work at tearing you down nearly as much. So it’s very important. And who are Hijackals are attracted to
is people who are groomed to accept shame. Their backgrounds have already set them up to accept shame.
And the good news about that is all of these things can be changed in you. If you’re hearing that and saying, well, maybe I was groomed to accept shame, great moment is a great moment for you because that light bulb went on and it doesn’t have to ever go off if I was grown to accept shame. Let’s let that stop right now. Let’s do some work. Remember, go to be a client calm if you want to talk about that. Because you can do some work on that you can change that entirely. And you can empower yourself in order to recognize that you never deserved to be shamed not in the first place when you were small, and definitely not by a partner or parent or a sibling, or anybody for that matter. So you might be a person, like I said, is willing to go the extra mile give the benefit of the doubt.
But there’s another category that Hijackals like.
Hijackals like strong people. I mean, some Hijackals like strong people, because they’re a challenge. And what they want to do there is they want to seduce you into telling them your darkest fears, your deepest secrets, the things you’re not so proud about. The thing is that you wish you were but you’re not. And they seem to be vastly interested in that. But then what they’re going to do is they’re looking for in that strong person, they’re looking to get in the inside, so they can find your vulnerabilities and begin to shame you. To start you second guessing yourself to start questioning your sanity towards giving an over giving to the Hijackal. And then they hold you in that balance of control.
I know it’s all very sad and very unhappy.
But this is what happens and we need to know about it. So that we can take action to change these things. So very, very important. Because you may be armored, or you may be breakable, and those are two ends of the spectrum. And if you happen to be breakable or you didn’t think you were that you were perfectly independent and content before you met and then you have slowly been bashed, slowly been degraded slowly being eroded, then you may find yourself strangely in the breakable category. And you didn’t think that that was even possible for you.
And that definitely happens. So Hijackals defend against shameful experiences preemptively. You may not even in the slightest intend to give them the idea that there is anything wrong with them. Almost before you open your mouth, they’re already defending themselves and making you wrong. Have you noticed that they are not going to have anything that shames them? And if you say something like, you know, I would prefer that, that you spoke to me this way. to them. That’s almost a mortal shaming wound. Because how dare you? How dare you say anything is wrong with me, because they cannot tolerate it. Now, it’s not your fault that they behave that way. And you can’t fix them, you didn’t break them, you can’t fix them. So yes, there are things you can do to empower yourself in the relationship. There are strategies you can try. I help my clients with that all the time. But not because it’s going to change the Hijackals behavior, is because it’s going to start to equalize the situation to the degree it can be equalized. And that will allow you to take back your power and make good and better decisions, healthier decisions for you and your children.
And that’s very important, because they are going to defend against shameful experiences preemptively. readily in any situation, they’re going to also do it unnecessarily, but they are going to do it.
And I was reading this quote from Dr. Mark SAS love, and he says about narcissism. He says the entire personality structure is organized around defending against shameful experiences, contacts contact with the shame experience is rigidly held at arm’s length. For the most part, this is not a conscious choice, but a way of being the narcissist has learned to withdraw from contact with their feelings of inadequacy. So you can see how they are going to quickly and preemptively guard against shame.
But one thing that they will do with that shame, is they will project it on you.
Now, when we’re talking about projection, what we’re talking about is, it’s an unconscious taking the person’s unwanted fears and traits and emotions that they don’t like, and then attributing them to someone else.
So a Hijackal, all the things they don’t like about themselves or things they fear about themselves, all the emotions they don’t like, they will project them on you. And they will say you feel like that you’re doing that. So if they’re cheating, or they’re afraid, they’re going to be caught, they will accuse you of cheating. That’s projection. So what they’re they’re doing, they will say you’re doing. And it’s like, their their accusations are pretty much confessions, if you look at it that way, because they start accusing you of something, you can be pretty sure that’s what they’re doing.
And that’s what their fears are.
So you can look at it as when they project and tell you this is what you think or this is what you feel, or this is what you’re doing. It is a projection of what they are doing. And it’s important to recognize that because then you can come to balance and you’re thinking about it more quickly. Because you won’t take it on like, Oh my goodness, you just told me what you’re most afraid of. And you told me, I’m afraid of it. Or you told me what you’re doing. And you told me I’m doing it. And then you can start to see how that works out. And so you don’t take it on, you don’t get shamed by it. You don’t get concerned by it. You just observe it. And that’s really important.
So understanding how the Hijackals shame of armor can help you understand what you’re blamed and shamed for by them. And likely so important to note. It likely has nothing to do with you.
It’s all internal to them. It’s what’s going on within them what they’re figuring out what they’re thinking through what they’re afraid of. That’s all internal to them. And then it comes out and they deliver it in a way that makes it sound like it’s about you. But it actually isn’t it’s about things
Can you get your head around that? Because that’s important to really get. If you can start seeing that what they’re saying is about themselves, then you can stop taking it on and being concerned to defend yourself. And you can observe it and become that gray rock. Hmm. Interesting. Didn’t know that, huh?
Right, you can just observe.
And you’re taking it on. And if you do that, you will be running as fast as you can on eggshells. Because there is no we’re good to go from that. So you don’t want to take it on, then it can trigger all the abuses you’ve ever had in your life ever experienced. All the old responses, all the old things, the accusations, all the nasty things people have you ever said about you or accused you out? You know, if you come from a Hijackal family, and then you find yourself in a Hijackal romantic relationship. It’s because it’s so familiar. You don’t like it, but it’s familiar at very deep levels. And that’s a pattern to change. Once you recognize that that is the case. Now that’s a pattern to change. You don’t want to be in that situation.
Do you know when when it’s spelled out like that, you can clearly see that if something was happening in your early life, and you are still responding to it in a way that is somewhat conscious, and it becomes more conscious. Now you can then take it and run with it, you could get some help, you can do that we can always talk. And if you’ve if you find yourself nurturing, and then it turns into over nurturing, and you become an over giver.
I just made a graphic of this because I think this is interesting. Over givers are Undertaker’s and that is emotional suicide. And it’s really important for you to notice. So if you’ve become an over giver, because you’re a good person, and you keep going the extra mile, and the person never changes, never reciprocates never moves back to somewhere equal. Notice that notice that and say, Ah, this is not okay with me. I am not going to chase after the something that is not coming my way any longer. I’m going to empower myself not to do that anymore. And I am not going to run after this looking for breadcrumbs. You know, just just a crumb from your table, Sir, will be enough. Or just Just give me a little attention, ma’am. And it’ll be a No, no, go. You want to be in an equal reciprocal mutual relationship.
That’s what you deserve. That’s what everyone deserves. And if someone is unwilling or unable to give it to you notice that you can have compassion for it. But don’t enable it any longer. don’t condone that behavior any longer.
See it for what it is. And then start making some healthy decisions for yourself. Because Hijackals can turn nurturers into needy people.
If you were in the beginning, just trying to help them just trying to love them, just trying to nurture and lead them, try to reassure them, reassure them, encourage them. After a while you’re saying well give me something back, give me something back, give me something back and you keep giving it and now you become needy.
And then they’ve got you where they want you because they have control.
And nobody likes to be controlled. Nobody wants to be controlled by another person. You know that you don’t like it, I don’t like it. Nobody wants that. You want to be in an equitable, reciprocal mutual relationship.
And you don’t want to be in this cycle of abuse. You don’t want to be in this cycle of shame. So if that happened to you when you were young, then notice that you can change that now.
If somebody in your life fits into that category of Hijackal please realize that they’re not going to change. You know, yes, maybe 1% maybe 2% of people with narcissistic tendencies are wise enough to say I see I have narcissistic tendencies. It’s pushing people away and I don’t want to do this anymore, and they get help. Maybe they’ll be generous and say six 7%.
But when you’ve been deeply shamed as a child and your response has been to armor yourself against anything, and demand validation and admiration
That’s the role that you’ve chosen. But you don’t need to be the one in the supporting role to that to you. So it’s very important to understand the place of shame, and whether you are projecting it.
Which is not likely if you’re not the Hijackal. But if you are have turned into someone who was nurturing and is turned into a needy person, you are going to do something about that. And if you’re uncertain about whether you’re in a Hijackal relationship, just go to my free checklists at toxic relationship checklist calm. Or if you can go to my website and and for relationship help and just click on the free checklists. That’ll also solve that problem for you. Find out first where you stand. While you’re there, you can download my free eBook how to spot a Hijackal. Then you can also use that URL be a client calm to come and have a new client one hour consultation with me. But you can see how important it is that
all of these pieces of shaming and blaming and over giving and under giving all of these things, they can become something that really requires your attention because they are taking so much of your energy and you are getting negative life experiences as a result of it. And shame can be at the core of that. So let’s talk soon. I hope that you will treat yourself extremely well. Treat yourself as though you matter, because you do and I look forward to talking with you again soon. Take care.
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