Quotes About Shame

This book is a memoir - not of specific life events, but of the processes of dissociation, and of re-enlivening emotions that are shameful to admit or even to feel. It is an account of the altered states that trauma induces, which make it possible to survive a life-threatening event but impair the capacity to feel fear, and worse still, impair the ability to love.

That man penetrated me with his shame. Shame, I realize now, is an infectious disease. Shame can be sexually transmitted.

the purpose of the word "slut" is: controlling women through shame and humiliation. Women's bodies are always the ones that are being vied over for control—whether it's rape, reproductive rights, or violence against women, it's our bodies that are the battleground, not men's.

Hence to be separate means to be helpless, unable to grasp the world—things and people—actively; it means that the world can invade me without my ability to react. Thus, sepa-rateness is the source of intense anxiety. Beyond that, it arouses shame and the feeling of guilt.

I wanted to say something, but I could not. It is difficult to find words when one really has something to say. And even if one knows the right words, then one is ashamed to say them. All these words belong to other, earlier centuries. Our time has not the words yet to express its feelings. We can only be offhand—anything else rings false.

My rage outweighs my shame, as always happens when one is really ashamed and knows he ought to be.

There behind me on the stretchers my comrades are now lying and still they call. It is peace, yet they must die. But I, I am trembling with joy and am not ashamed. —And that is odd. Because none can ever wholly feel what another suffers—is that the reason why wars perpetually recur? 2

Sonderbar, dachte Ravic, daß Blutsauger so gern moralisch werden. Dieser alte Gauner mit der Rosette der Ehrenlegion im Knopfloch wirft mir vor, daß ich ihn ausnütze, anstatt sich zu schämen. Und er glaubt es sogar noch.

You do, Bob. You have the requirements for it. A certain simplicity is necessary for love. You have it. Keep it. It is a gift of God. Never to be gotten again once it is lost." "Don't take it to heart too much, though, Baby," said Lenz with a grin. "It's no shame to be born stupid. Only to die stupid.

He wrote, "It is so humiliating to me to shake hands with known and confessed murderers.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

At what cost do we purchase the assurance that we are heroic? No doubt, one of the reasons Becker has never found a mass audience is because he shames us with the knowledge of how easily we will shed blood to purchase the assurance of our own righteousness.

Becker has never found a mass audience is because he shames us with the knowledge of how easily we will shed blood to purchase the assurance of our own righteousness.

I obscenity in the milk of my shame.

To show his nervousness was not shameful; only to admit it.

Tell him I think writing is lousy, Bill said. Go on, tell him. Tell him I'm ashamed of being a writer.

more than shame he felt cold, hollow fear in him. The fear was still there like a cold slimy hollow in all the emptiness where once his confidence had been and it made him feel sick. It was still there with him now. It

We still went under the system, then, that praise to the face was open disgrace.

To blame others is an act of cowardice. We blame in an attempt to hide our shame. This is not the way of the warrior. The warrior understands that to blame is not simply an abdication of responsibility but a relinquishing of power. You cannot change what you do not take responsibility for.

Once divorce carried all the stigma. Now, choosing to stay when you can leave is the new shame.

Often, when one partner insists that they don't yet feel acknowledged, even as the one who hurt them insists they feel terrible, it is because the response is still more shame than guilt, and therefore self-focused.

This is the challenge of sexual intimacy, of bringing home the erotic. It is the most fearsome of all intimacies because it is all-encompassing. It reaches the deepest places inside us, and involves disclosing aspects of ourselves that are invariably bound up with shame and guilt. It is scary, a whole new kind of nakedness, far more revealing than the sight of our nude bodies.

The shift from shame to guilt is crucial. Shame is a state of self-absorption, while guilt is an empathic, relational response, inspired by the hurt you have caused another. We know from trauma that healing begins when perpetrators acknowledge their wrongdoing.

Often, when one partner insists that they don't yet feel acknowledged, even as the one who hurt them insists they feel terrible, it is because the response is still more shame than guilt, and therefore self-focused. In the aftermath of betrayal, authentic guilt, leading to remorse, is an essential repair tool. A sincere apology signals a care for and commitment to the relationship, a sharing of the burden of suffering