Childhood traumas can range from having faced extreme violence and neglect to having reckoned with feelings of not belonging, being unwanted, or feeling chronically misunderstood. You may have grown up in an environment where your curiosity and enthusiasm were constantly devalued. Perhaps you were brought up in a family where your parents had unresolved traumas of their own, which impaired their ability to attend to your emotional needs. Or, you may have faced vicious sexual or physical attacks. In all such situations, it is common to develop defenses around your most vulnerable feelings.
When childhood trauma continues over time and remains unresolved a form of post-traumatic stress can result called Complex PTSD (C-PTSD). This has significant consequences on mental and emotional health. It is understandable to experience feelings of helplessness and shame in complex PTSD.
“In order to heal, most people with C-PTSD must confront hopeless thoughts, painful emotions, and intolerable sensations. Navigating this territory requires careful guidance. It is all too common to get stuck in avoidance patterns, fall in a pit of despair, or become imprisoned by the negative thoughts. You can find freedom from shame and helplessness. This process requires gentleness, acceptance, and persistence.”
-Dr. Arielle Schwartz
When there is no way to stop abuse, end a situation of domestic violence, or convince a parent to stop drinking, a child feels powerless. Persistent childhood trauma is characterized by a state of “learned helplessness.” This term was initially introduced to describe how animals that were repeatedly exposed to an unavoidable shock would make no attempt to escape, even when given an opportunity to exit. Psychologist and researcher from the University of Pennsylvania Dr. Martin Seligman later extended an understanding of learned helplessness to people who feel and behave in a helpless manner when they have no control over a threatening situation.
When you have been raised by untrustworthy caregivers, it is common to generalize your experience—you may feel as though no one can be trusted or that the world is completely dangerous. As you heal from C-PTSD, it’s important to recognize that you are safe now and have choices now. You are no longer stuck in the powerlessness of your past.
Shame is characterized by the belief, “I am bad.” This emotion is based upon a distorted sense of yourself as being unworthy, damaged, or a failure. Why is shame so pervasive? Young children are completely dependent upon caregivers for a sense of safety and connection in the world. If you had an abusive caregiver, you faced a critical conflict: your biological drive to seek closeness from the very source of the terror you were trying to escape. Adults who were abused or neglected as children will often blame themselves. This can lead to persistent feelings of guilt and shame. EMDR therapist and author Dr. Jim Knipe proposes that this self-blame is a direct link to childhood logic—children will develop a fantasy that they are bad kids relying upon good parents to avoid confronting the terrifying reality that they are good kids relying upon bad parents.
When parents are frightening, abusive, or unavailable, children can feel confused about who is at fault. When children witness something bad, they feel bad. Inaccurate and judgmental thoughts such as the following ones perpetuate shame in complex PTSD:
Furthermore, shame is often hidden underneath perfectionism. As a child, you may have internalized the belief that you had to act perfect because your parents couldn’t handle your authentic feelings. Or perhaps you believed acting “good” would stop the bad things from happening. In either situation, you may have had to hide your true feelings to avoid rocking the boat. Perfectionism is maintained by critical self-talk that attempts to push down painful feelings. When the inner critic berates you for being lazy, stupid, or useless, you are again confronted with shame.
Once you are aware of the messages you are telling yourself, you can do something about them and you can begin to turn toward your pain with self-compassion. Let’s take a closer look at four practices that can free you from shame:
I invite you to explore how shame shows up in your life. What thoughts or sensations accompany shame for you? What helps you overcome or heal from shame? In closing, I want to remind you that healing shame in complex PTSD most often requires working with a compassionate therapist; one who can help you navigate the pitfalls and help you find freedom from shame.
Connect to this post? This was an excerpt from my book, The Complex PTSD Workbook, now available on Amazon! Click here to check it out and increase your toolbox for healing. Whether you are a client or a therapist this book will offer a guided approach to trauma recovery.
Dr. Arielle Schwartz is a licensed clinical psychologist, wife, and mother in Boulder, CO. She offers trainings for therapists, maintains a private practice, and has passions for the outdoors, yoga, and writing. Dr. Schwartz is the author of The Complex PTSD Workbook: A Mind-Body Approach to Regaining Emotional Control and Becoming Whole. She is the developer of Resilience-Informed Therapy which applies research on trauma recovery to form a strength-based, trauma treatment model that includes Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), somatic (body-centered) psychology and time-tested relational psychotherapy. Like Dr. Arielle Schwartz on Facebook, follow her on Linkedin and sign up for email updates to stay up to date with all her posts.
Arielle Schwartz, PhD, is a psychologist, internationally sought-out teacher, yoga instructor, and leading voice in the healing of PTSD and complex trauma. She is the author of five books, including The Complex PTSD Workbook, EMDR Therapy and Somatic Psychology, and The Post Traumatic Growth Guidebook.
Dr. Schwartz is an accomplished teacher who guides therapists in the application of EMDR, somatic psychology, parts work therapy, and mindfulness-based interventions for the treatment of trauma and complex PTSD. She guides you through a personal journey of healing in her Sounds True audio program, Trauma Recovery.
She has a depth of understanding, passion, kindness, compassion, joy, and a succinct way of speaking about very complex topics. She is the founder of the Center for Resilience Informed Therapy in Boulder, Colorado where she maintains a private practice providing psychotherapy, supervision, and consultation. Dr. Schwartz believes that that the journey of trauma recovery is an awakening of the spiritual heart.
