Why Do I Feel So Full Of Shame? Even When I Am Not Guilty?

Shame is often a lie that speaks to us from deep inside

Have you struggled with crippling shame? Do you constantly fear social rejection? Have you been cancelled by your community? Do you lie awake at night wondering if you deserve to be outed as a fraud? Do you wonder if you are the worst sinner in the world and unforgivable? Read on, and I hope this article will be of some help to you.

Before Christmas I had the privilege of sitting down for an interview with my friend P.J. Smyth. Many of you have watched that video, it is already one of my most-viewed ever. I do understand that especially because of the holiday season that then quickly came on us some of you either didn’t get time to watch or listen, or felt that with the celebrations it was just a subject you wanted to get into at that time.

But I am more and more convinced that is a subject that none of us should avoid. Unless perhaps you are a survivor of abuse and at this stage of your journey you know that engaging with these themes will be too costly or too triggering.

Why not catch up on the full interview now Christmas is just a fading memory.

For too long both Western culture and our churches have mishandled a cluster of deeply intertwined, and at times painful realities: guilt, shame, conviction, condemnation, confession, humiliation, forgiveness, reconciliation, justice, compassion, punishment, cancelling, repentance, restoration,

In both the culture and in many churches for too long victims or survivors of abuse were badly failed. The case involving P.J. Smyth’s father and the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury is just one of many examples. Victims were silenced, not believed, criticized, and in some cases even excommunicated from their churches.

Even when the stories told by brave survivors were believed they were often minimized and the actions seem to have been all too often to quietly move the abusers on, especially if they were in any form of ministry or leadership in the church.

An often used excuse was the disgrace that would come to the name of Christ and His Church if such secrets became known. And so many leaders found ways to avoid having abusers face the shame and signifiant consequences that bringing their deeds into the light would bring.

The real shame that uncovering this silence has caused has been much greater, and in any case there is One who is watching it all and He has promised He will avenge.

Fortunately things have largely moved on from how they used to be, and there is now more of a culture of listening to and believing the harrowing stories people tell. It is expected, required, and in many cases legally compelled that the authorities be involved rather than churches attempt to deal with this themselves.

But whilst all the complex issues I listed earlier clearly do apply very strongly to abuse, they also apply much more broadly than that. To at least some extent they affect every one of us, and taint every one of our relationships. I therefore want to address in this article the broader area that includes all of us, without being insensitive to the more specific area of abuse itself.

Let’s look for a moment at the interplay between several of these related concepts. We must start with a distinction between guilt and shame, as we will see that distinction then plays out across all the rest.

Here is a lightly edited transcript of the section of my interview with PJ Smyth where we discussed shame and guilt:

PJ There’s an affirmation that one survivor can give to another survivor that I think is quite unique. It’s a confirmation that you’re not crazy. It’s a confirmation that the shame that you experience and you’re trying to shed, you’re not alone in that, because shame is a very slippery thing.

It’s, it’s irrational, it’s illogical. And really, only another survivor can understand that through their own experience.

Adrian A lot of people when they hear that word shame associated with somebody who’s been a victim or a survivor of these terrible abuses, say that you shouldn’t feel ashamed.

And so I think maybe people just need to understand a little bit about the difference. And you, you make that distinction quite nicely in your book. I’ll let you sort of speak about that in a moment.

But one of the slightly different ways I’ve heard that expressed is that guilt is about what you’ve done and regret. Shame is much deeper than that. It’s about your identity.

So yes, shame can be affected by what you’ve done and said, and your own aspects, but it can also be hugely affected by what other people have done and said to you or about you, because it’s about your core identity. And so shame, in a sense is almost deeper than guilt. Am I explaining that well?

PJ You’re explaining it better than I could explain it. It’s about identity. And what happens is our identity, particularly if you’re subjected to something that you feel shame about over time, it leaks into your identity centre.

And again, there’s no rational reason for that, but it does. And that’s almost always because there are no counter voices, because shame tells you essentially two things, it tells you that you are in some way flawed or broken. Whether that’s true or not, that’s, that’s what shame tells you. And then secondly, it tells you if other people know about that, they’re going to reject you.

So shame is very, very clever. It tells you you’re broken. And it tells you don’t tell anybody else about it. Because by not telling anyone else about it, the voice of shame is the only voice that you hear. And so, your identity gradually, gradually over time, begins to think, yes, there’s something to what shame is telling me.

And then conversely, when you do share your shame, and that’s what we did as a family, that’s why we agreed to participate in this documentary is because we thought that our laundry is already very public and very dirty. And we are now to shed the shame by association and to shed the shame illogical though it is that we have in our identity, we are going to have to trust others with our dirty stuff, and see if we’re met with affirmation, and love and acceptance, or if we’re met with rejection. And I’m thrilled to say 99 out of 100 people have met us with love and affirmation. And that that is a shame shedding moment for us as a family.

WATCH or READ the rest.