TRAUMA AND SHAME: Powerful post at After Abortion–excerpts from Aphrodite Matsakis’s Trust After Trauma: A Guide to Relationships for Survivors and Those Who Love Them. Quotes from the book: “A first and deepest level of shame originates when you are abused or ordered about, even if you have no choice but to accept it. This is the shame of being denigrated. The resulting humiliation is so deep that it requires a great deal of therapy to alleviate it. Not only sexual assault survivors, but survivors of other kinds of trauma also experience the shame and humiliation of being exploited.

“A second level of shame is caused by having to violate one’s ethical code, which may be required in order to survive. In other words, to be traumatized, you have to be trapped in a situation where there is no way out or where all the ways out are very difficult or morally undesirable.

“Even in captivity, a person can retain some pride if he/she can act according to internal moral standards. Too often, however, the perpetrator, whether it be an abusive relative or a corrupt superior, demands that the victim betray his/her moral standards. At this point, the victim ceases to be a victim and becomes an unwilling accomplice to the abuse, a perpetrator; thus compounding the guilt, shame, and confusion.”

whole post here