Hiding Shame Based Interactions
How often people use shame to get other people to do what they want them to do. Shame is a gut-based reaction that can bypass the forebrain’s common sense and leave a person helpless to figure out what really caused it. You don’t just feel bad when this happens to you feel really bad and usually also guilty too. “Shame on you.”
Shame is often how the victim of abuse feels. This keeps them from getting angry at the abuser and why they often don’t talk about what happened either. Shame doesn’t go away. It stays. The only way it can disappear is if the victim tries to forget it.
When Is Reassurance Necessary?
This is why abuse victims often say that they don’t want to talk about it because they have tried to forget it and talking about it might bring it back. If there are witnesses, they might think they are crazy because they might remember something about what happened; but the victim won’t talk if they ask them what happened.
What if your memory is, “Don’t hit him; hit me.”? You know who the likely abuser was because you were there too. It makes you feel crazy as the witness as you are the only one who wants to or can remember it. “I don’t like to think about things like that anymore” is his response. “I try to forget things like that.” “I don’t want to bring it back.”
Feelings of shame can do that to a person. They might cause the person to feel the pain again both physical and emotional. If a person feels that they might be made to feel shame about something; they won’t tell anyone who might do that to them.
Prevent Child Abuse With the Truth
The cases of sexual abuse by famous people that have come to light have brought it back out in the open. I know I can now say that I am the victim of sexual abuse even though I might not elect to tell you the details because I didn’t do it. The abuser is the one who ought to feel ashamed, not me or anyone in one in the same situation. However, this still happens in countries or religions where they have things like Muslim Surhea law and the rape victim gets killed not the rapist.
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How Men And Women Differ On The Subject Of Sexual Harrassment
Men do what women consider to be gross things and some men go so far as to think that women are asking for it. Ugh (my comment as a woman). Ick! Men like to think that women think like them. It makes it easier for them to sexually harass women because then they can think that women are asking for it. This makes it easier for them to do things to or in front of women that are actually disgusting to most women.
I have been shown Play Boy center foldouts and asked to be present when a psychiatrist does a physical exam on male patients so I could do the mental exam. I was not a nurse or physician. I have been invited back to see a therapist that I had seen so I could let him know how I was doing. I opened the door and he had set up his office so that I could join him on the floor and make out. Where had I gone wrong or where had they gone wrong. I was shocked and didn’t know what to say. I am telling you this because I shouldn’t have felt ashamed and kept this quiet for many years. Where did these men come off by doing this? P.S. I was also groped on the Grey Hound bus by the guy seated next to me when I was trapped by him in the window seat.
Men can spend hours talking about women who they think have led men astray. Maybe it was the other way around. Women’s reputations have been tarnished this way. Men’s reputations are not tarnished this way, they are seemingly enhanced. If women fooled around as much as men think they do, they wouldn’t have time for anything else. Most women usually have so much to do involving working, taking care of the home, and caring for children, when would they have time? When could they sneak away to do this?
I think most of this goes on often only in men’s minds and they think that women must think like they do. If this is so, then they think they are justified in acting on it. If a man is running around on a woman, then he often thinks that she must want to do the same. This then justifies their wanting to do it more.
This does not forgive women who use their sexuality to entrap men and use them. This has led to men (especially in conservative circles) not wanting to be alone with women unless their husband is around or they are with a group. What do you think? I think most women will say that they would “like” to be with a certain movie star or music star, but often that is far as it goes.
Often women have trouble accepting their sexual attractiveness and they sometimes “dress down” and use little or no makeup because of this. This can spoil whatever appropriate sexual relations that they have with a man with the women not feeling sexually attractive or even sexually attracted to their partners. Women’s sexuality is often fragile and easily tainted this way. While many men have rehearsed the sexual act both in their minds and in actual self-stimulation. Having sexual thoughts seems to be more acceptable for men.
There is a form of child sexual abuse where a mother may flaunt her sexuality in front of her young son both by having open sexual relations with a man in front of him and by displaying her body to him by having little or no clothes on. This can lead to fondling of the child by tempting the boy to touch her and cuddle with her?!
Education is important. We need to know what is appropriate and not appropriate in the sexual realm. No education does not keep children and some grownups safe and sound. Ignorance is not bliss in many cases. When it is found inappropriate, the victims should know that they should speak up and to whom they can do it. When I was harassed above, I initially had no idea of what to do, I felt shamed, and I kept the secret to myself for a long time.
Notice there are no pictures illustrating this post. I do not want to promote anything by having what might be considered sexually explicit pictures.
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Shame The Great Manipulator, The Great Trap Of Unworthness
I was raised on shame. It was my claim to fame. I was not recognised for what I did well, but for those things I did not do so well. I was also convinced over time that I could not do them well and when that happened that people would give up on me. I thought there were only so many things in life that other people would approve of and that I was not capable of doing them well enough to make other people proud of me. I was recognised for what or where I could not meet up to other people’s standards and I felt like I was a great disappointment to my family so much so my relatives did not want other people to know that I was related to them.
I was so easily made to feel shameful that I was bullied, I was suicidal, and I was made to feel that I could never meet up to other people’s standards (of which there was only one set) and I would ultimately be rejected and thrown out on the street if that was possible. There was only one person to blame and that was me and I didn’t know any different.
Appropriate or Inappropriate? Wanted Or Unwanted?
Worse yet I realized that in sexually inappropriate situations the victim (that was me) was always the one who should feel ashamed and had something to hide instead of the reverse. Getting caught in a sexually compromising situation was something I should cover up, sneak out of, and pretend didn’t happen even though I now know it qualified as sexual abuse. It was something to be covered up and forgotten if possible.
Brene Brown with her doctorate in Social Work found that we have three shields that we can use as shields against shame. We can forget or not talk about what we see as a shameful situation. Men will tell you that they are not comfortable talking about certain things that happened to them as they were growing up or even later in life such as post-traumatic stress syndrome and even had pushed these things so far out of mind that they did not remember them.
Another shield against shame mentioned by Dr. Brown was appeasement. If someone is dissatisfied with you or something you have done, you try to make it up to them or make them so happy or satisfied in another way that they will forget that you did not or might not make them happy. Another word for this might be “brown nosing”.
Another possibility would be going towards or against the person or situation that makes you feel shameful and take it out aggressively toward them or it. This is the third shame shield mentioned by Dr. Brown. Could the liberal Democrats’ behaviour after the election of President Donald Trump be an example of this? Are they ashamed that their candidate did not win over such an unlikely candidate?
Sometimes our entire life can be motivated by shame and others can get what they want us to do by shaming us and can feel better about themselves by winning over us in this way. I have often felt that being a woman, especially a woman professional, made me a target for this sort of thing. If a woman can do it (what I did) it must be something easy to obtain and therefore not worth much. The step between someone with a Masters degree and a Ph.D. must be pretty easy if she can do it. I did not attend the graduation ceremonies when I received my doctorate (because it was not such a big deal)?
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Is It True That Only Those Who Do Good Can Feel Guilty?
Is it true that only those who do good can feel guilty? Does it follow that those who do bad do not feel guilty? On top of this, this propensity for those who do good to feel bad is often used against them. People who do good (or the Goodies) when told that they did something wrong or that they made a mistake, it petrifies them and hinders their ability to do good in the future? Are there a lot of people out there that don’t want people doing good and this is the best way to stop them because they have a conscience and are therefore fearful that they might hurt somebody? The Badies are out there making sure that they get what they want regardless of whether or not they hurt somebody.
The Goodies are fearful of being caught in a lie even if they didn’t know it was untrue until the Badies chastised them with it. Badies lie all the time and to protect themselves from being called liars call other people liars to put the spotlight on someone else. The best defence for them is a good offence. The Goodies can become so busy defending themselves that they forget to point out the Bad Guy’s mistakes.
How can this be helped? The Goodies must become aware of what is happening so they can turn the tables on the Badies. For example, “You call me a liar, when you lie all the time.” When attacked this way by the Badies, a Goody can say this is none of your business. A Bady attacked me once about my hair cut. She loudly stated in a room full of family, “Who cut your hair?” I replied by saying, “Who asked you?” I had decided to not fall for her bait and to put the spotlight on her. It did shut her up and the family members went on with their catching up. Goodies can be too polite and these manipulators can count on this.
Badies not only lie, but they are good rationalizers. and can invent or find reasons why they are not guilty and should not be picked on. It is important to recognise that if a Badie asks noisy questions and is not being polite that a Goody does not have to be polite either!
We all have boundaries and Badies especially like to cross them. For example, within the nuclear family, certain issues are usually kept quiet and not shared with others especially when the Badies are just being noisy and want to lay these problems out in public so they can often give you bad advice and perhaps cause a spectacle. People are not entitled to know your secrets. These people can be very noisy. I had one who looked up our friend’s phone number and called them inquiring about us. Our friends had never met and were shocked and surprised when she called them up out of the blue.
The only boundaries Badies respect are their own and they are inclined to keep secrets. They can be very outgoing and social when things are going good and disappear when things are going badly for them. They can be very secretive that way and you can never get to know the whole person even when you find something that tells on them. It may be a good idea at the time to use a Goodies address, but then something like information about bad checks pops up in the mail or on the phone.
Badies make a bushel barrow of mistakes themselves and they can go far in and trying to cover up past mistakes which are often not found out about until that person leaves the scene. They make up their own rules to benefit themselves like when a person (friend, neighbour, relative) dies that they will naturally inherit from him or her and even ask for that inheritance early. See the story of the Prodigal Son” in the Bible. They can walk all over a Goody when they are alive and when they are in the grave, they don’t stop. An inheritance can be a windfall for someone but the will usually makes sure that all the bills are paid if there is money there to do it. Doesn’t it make sense that the person, often a Goody, who helps the most, inherits the most, even if he or she doesn’t think he or she deserves it.
Guilt is the primary tool of the Badies and they often think to themselves that if I get people to look at another person who is doing “wrong” they won’t see what I am doing wrong. Don’t look at me; look at him. If these defensive maneuvers work, then they can get off Scott free. When they judge others, they are usually revealing what others could condemn them for. “Judge not that ye may not be judged; condemn not that ye not be condemned.” It is written in the Bible. For example, it is likely that the marital partner that desires to commit adultery condemns his or her partner for adultery either while desiring to do it himself or herself or while secretly actually indulging in adultery himself or herself.
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First Shack Ups, Now Hook Ups
Hookups (having sex with someone you don’t know and might never see again just to have a sexual climax or orgasm.)
First shack ups, now hookups, distancing ourselves, avoiding any real connections. How can you lose someone when you never really had them? Avoiding feeling close to someone with whom you perform an intimate act seems to be worse than two people moving in together without any commitment.
Hookups seem like pornography. How can you mechanically have sex without caring about the other person or feeling close to him or her and have a real life emotional experience? Sex without responsibility still has consequences. Sexual diseases and pregnancies can be the unwanted consequences.
Society seems to want to have life without any responsibilities, any form of commitment. Respect, honor, responsibility all seem to be avoided in this way. Yet these are the things that make life real. With these things come pain, courage, glory, and honor. These real experiences help us learn how to cope with life especially when we experience a loss possibly through no fault of our own.
My best learning experiences often occurred when I thought I was going to fail and initially did not know what to do next. I had to do something out of the box in order to get out of the box. I had to give some of myself, something that I didn’t know I had, and risk failure and disappointment. For me, being intelligent could not always ensure I could win the competition.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained?
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Why Children Are Easy To Use And Abuse
- Children believe what they are told because they don’t know anything else.
- Children think that almost everything is fun.
- Children usually don’t refuse an invitation to do something they think might be fun.
- Children are easily frightened.
- Children can go with someone they don’t know if they think that he or she is removing them from possible danger.
- When children are kept sheltered, this might make them more vulnerable.
- Ignorance is not always bliss.
- When an adult tells children something that they don’t know they usually believe the adult.
- Children, when faced with a new request, might not know it is wrong
- Children are naive and are easily shamed if they do something that was wrong but didn’t know it.
- Children learn early that if they do something they later found out was wrong, they don’t tell to avoid punishment.
- Children can be forced to repeat something they feel is wrong because they think they might be physically punished, their parents might get hurt, or no one would believe them.
- Children can also block memories from their minds because they are too painful.
- Often children often don’t know any better.
- Children are gullible.
Prevent Child Abuse With the Truth
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Do You Respect Yourself As Much As You Respect Other people?
When someone is rude inappropriate or disrespectful to you, are you too embarrassed to speak up for yourself or are you afraid that the other person might get angry at you? Some people count on you doing this so they can keep on doing what upsets you either to you or others. Sometimes we feel “we got it wrong” and if we said something we might be made to look foolish.
From the female point of view, some men think that they can grope a woman or cop a feel and the women won’t act like anything is wrong. Somehow taking the blame on themselves, not putting it on the offender. The offender sometimes says, “You liked it. I can tell.” They believe women somehow are inviting them to do this and they are just doing what the women want them to do but are afraid to say.
Should I list the men who have done this to me? Also, some sexual talk, pictures, videos, and movies are off-putting to some women rather than arousing. But we don’t want to rain on a man’s parade and let him do it and even watch, I would say sometimes uneasily, ourselves.
Has woman’s lib gone too far? Are women thinking that under the new era, that women should be more sexually active and cooperative when they are not comfortable doing it? Is groping by your male seatmate in the back seat of a car while another couple makes out in the front seat satisfying or uncomfortable and maybe even embarrassing?
The woman’s idea of a sexual relationship is that it involves at least mutual affection, mutual sexual attraction, comfort, and privacy. Some women up the amp even more and want the penthouse suite so to speak, etc.
Women can be very cautious about expressing their wants and desires sexually and it may be something they have not had practice doing. Men like to express their dominance in a sexual relationship for bragging rights to other men (that’s a no-no) and the secure feeling that they are right about what their opinions are about what makes for great sex (for him) and they won’t take no for an answer.
Another true story, I had a professor like that and it was difficult for my office manager friend to keep him in secretaries he was so disgusting and predatory. Yet, the rest of the office (mainly men) thought he was a great guy. He was actually inconsiderate and self-engrossed.
Did he try something on me, yes, and I did not consider him attractive or available (he was married and had a family) even though I was divorced at the time. During that time there, I met a much younger man with whom I was comfortable with and who was attractive in a cozy comfortable way. I wasn’t a cold fish, the professor was not my cup of tea and he was nasty to women and I didn’t like him or like to be around him.
True story, I was in a small crowded attic room with this professor and other students. Several students and this professor were smoking. My eyes started to water. I am not a smoker. He told me to take my contact lens out if the smoke was bothering me and that day, I was wearing glasses. I said nothing.
How much is allowed to go on; because we don’t speak up. I once told my guiding pastor that it did not seem polite to start a ruckus in church but some people deserved ton be confronted. I was not denying them Jesus but doing what Jesus did with his disciples when they were not doing the right thing, They were ordinary men who sometimes got off in the wrong direction and Jesus knew what they were doing or were going to do and told them that.
What have I got to lose if I do this (speak up in public), maybe just self-respect. Don’t let others “buffalo” you into accepting something from that them that you feel is wrong and should be stopped because somebody is or will or could be hurt. We even though we are innocent bystanders sometimes have to confront the problem we see happening in front of our eyes even if it doesn’t involve us directly.
Once a man (I’ll call him a young man because he has a lot of growing up to do, was “high” in front and was very self-satisfied about how he was when he was high and even proud of himself. I do like and love the guy but he can be exasperating sometimes. I confronted him about being high (he thinks I am a nerd and don”t notice when he is high) and his “false” self-confidence and narcissistic attitude was really phony and annoying.
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Why Do We Avoid Calling Child Sexual Abuse Rape?
(No pictures were used in the context of this discussion of whether or not child abuse is actually rape; because any pictures used of children might be considered sexualized.)
In thinking about Child Sexual Abuse , I realized that we hardly ever talk about it as childhood rape. When a man has anal sex with a boy, what is he really doing? It surely is rape. When a man manipulates a girl’s sexual parts into to have an orgasm, is this really rape? When a woman initiates intercourse with a boy or adolescent male, isn’t she raping him? Having a girl touch her sexual parts (whether her own or the girl’s) in order to achieve sexual excitement and/or orgasm, do we consider that rape of a child by a woman.
For purposes of discussion here is the new FBI definition of rape: (https://www.fbi.gov/…/new-rape–definitio…) The new FBI Summary definition of Rape is: “Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” But how about rape by proxy?
My definition of rape for the purpose of this discussion consists of using an innocent victim in order to achieve orgasm or high levels of sexual arousal. If the child’s sexual feelings are aroused and/or the child actually comes to orgasm, the child is not considered old enough to give consent. Also, what adds to the heinousness of this behavior is that it is kept secret and hidden to avoid detection and create undeserved guilt in the child or adolescent. The latter is often why the victim often suffers in silence. Also, does the child or adolescent know what he or she is actually doing or that he or she is not responsible for this illicit behavior?
Could child pornography also be considered as rape by proxy? The offender self-stimulates himself or herself to orgasm using what is essentially an unwilling victim. When we don’t call it rape, we make it seem less harmful. It involves an adult using a child to come to orgasm without his or her consent. How are the children treated when these pictures are taken? If the children are encouraged to see the filming as a game, what happens when the children learn what they were used for?
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Are Private Parts Not Private Anymore?
Remember when you were not supposed to share your private parts with anyone, but a parent, or with someone else usually a medical person when your parents were present. Later you were told you could choose to share them when you were an adult; but not with someone you didn’t want to share them with.
Now we can view others’ private parts anywhere on the street, in magazines, on the internet, and in advertisements. It is hard to say, “No, I don’t want to look at that, I don’t want to see you that way, and if you are going to do that either you must leave or I will leave myself.”
It is still alright to feel icky and to refuse to view things that you don’t like. As a long-time psychologist, I thought I had seen everything and nothing surprised me or offended me. If viewing something does not have to be done in the line of duty, I still can say it is inappropriate and switch channels or walk away or if it is my space, tell someone to leave and possibly not to return.
Appropriate or Inappropriate? Wanted Or Unwanted?
Private parts are your personal possessions and they are there for your satisfaction and enjoyment. This can be spoiled when someone tries to use another person’s private parts for their satisfaction and enjoyment only and will say anything or do anything to make it happen.
Feelings can become detached from the event and the victim may not remember what happened. This is a form of self-defense and possibly a form of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). This makes it difficult for the victim to bring up from inside him or herself what happened in order to digest it properly. This also can interfere with a person’s appropriate sexual development.
The victim has a large price to pay. What about the offender? Usually as long as he or she can do it, he or she will do it to more and more victims and in worse and worse ways. It could be called an addiction. It usually has to do with what an offender needs to do to get sexually excited and to reach orgasm. Like alcoholics need more and more alcohol, the offender takes more and more risks and does more and more damaging things to his or her victims. The frequency and intensity of the abuse also can increase.
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Be Careful Around Those With A History Of Sexual Abuse
(Here is the place to put a graphic picture of sexual abuse; but that might be considered child pornography.)
I am talking about the abuser, not the victim. The chances are extremely high they will offend again and probably had committed other offenses before they got caught. Also offenses tend to escalate over time as it takes more and more of a thrill to “get off”. Some people protect and support offenders because they think they deserve a chance and they would like to believe that the offenders have reformed.
It takes extreme vigilance to protect potential victims from these offenders. You and any other responsible adult who know about the offender should attempt to shadow the offender and keep them from being alone with potential victims. To do this, you have to think like an offender.
The sexual abuse often reflects the offenders’ full time commitment to getting access to potential victims and to collect information that would help them do this. A sexual offender never says to a responsible caretaker I will watch your child for you while you go to the grocery store and while you are there, I will get your child to undress and play a “fun” game with me from which I will get sexual pleasure.
Should you believe me? Yes! I have conducted interviews with many victims of sexual abuse, often by play therapy and by using drawings, One thing I have been careful not to do is implant an idea in a child’s mind where one didn’t exist and to try not to commit further trauma. The child may be frightened and somehow feel guilty. These are ways that the abuser knows to keep the victim from talking about the abuse with anyone.
When abuse occurs, children do many things in an attempt to help them handle it. They may learn not to trust their feelings and/or intuition. They might put a lot of it out of their mind as it is too hot to handle. But the unconscious usually retains the memories of sexual abuse somewhere and also the feelings associated with it. It is like a splinter. It may hurt a little if you leave it alone but it might hurt a lot when you take it out. Then the pain can go away.
Possible consequences of sexual abuse are confusion about sexual identity, decreased or even absent libido, and a sense of inferiority that never goes away. Don’t wait for someone else to do something about it! The sexual abuser counts on this.
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