When Shame and Self-contempt Show Up

Psychiatrist Curt Thompson, in his book entitled The Soul of Desire, writes, “Evil’s intention for our space and time is very different than the creation of beauty, and it is difficult to resist its attempts to get a foothold. Evil intends not only to cut us off from God and each other; it intends to annihilate beauty and tempts us to do the same in our response to shame and fear.”

In the work of engaging the story of your life, you will inevitably come across moments and memories that will provoke you toward feeling shame and self-contempt. This is especially true if you have experienced trauma. Even if you have not experienced trauma, this is true due to the reality of living in a broken and fallen world. The impact of shame and self-contempt is an indicator that everything is not as it is meant to be.

Shame and Self-Contempt Defined

What is shame? Shame is the painful emotional experience of humiliation and distress caused by the realization of “I’ve done something wrong.” Being ashamed is the internalization of this humiliation and distress, which changes the narrative from “I’ve done something wrong” to “I am bad for doing this.” In other words, to be ashamed is to internalize the humiliation as a means of coping with the emotional distress produced in or through the given situation.

Shame typically expresses itself through little sentences that we say about ourselves, such as, “I’m so stupid for doing that” or “I’m not attractive enough to date him or her.” Whether these resonate with you or not, the point is that we all have our own versions of these types of sentences that run through our minds. It is a way to cope with the emotional pain and helplessness that come from experiencing humiliation.

What is self-contempt? Self-contempt is the feeling that you are beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving of scorn or loathing for who you are or for your actions. To take it a step further, it’s like holding a knife up against a part of your heart because you believe it should not be there.

To revisit Curt Thompson’s quote, self-contempt is making an evil internal commitment to annihilate the beauty God has placed in you. When you operate in self-contempt, every action, thought, or feeling toward yourself and others carries an undertone of destruction. The goal of contempt is to use hatred as a tool for destruction. It is the desire to destroy.

How Shame Works

Returning on the topic of shame, Curt Thompson says, “Many of us suffer these states in the privacy of our own minds, hidden from the view of anyone who, if they knew, would surely shame us for being where we are.”

The reality of shame is not that it’s difficult to access. Instead, shame skillfully convinces us to stay hidden in our pain. Simultaneously, shame tells us that we will not receive kindness, but will instead incur further humiliation when we step out from under its wings. This results in an internal struggle. We are caught between the pain we’re experiencing by staying in our cycles of shame and the pain we perceive we’ll experience when we begin to step out of those cycles.

Dan Allender in his book, The Wounded Heart, describes shame as “…an interpersonal affect; it requires the presence of another, in fact or in imagination, for its blow to felt”. Because our shame is felt most severely when we are in the presence of another, it is exactly here that its tactics can be observed.

When engaging the story of your life with a counselor or even a close friend, shame is always at play and is often just beneath the surface. Shame most commonly presents itself in moments when we are invited to be vulnerable. Our most vulnerable parts are often the parts of us that we have committed the most energy to protecting.

More specifically, these are the places we have guarded to keep ourselves from experiencing that type of pain again. It is here that we find the places where we have been wounded in particular.

When we are invited to be vulnerable, we are given the opportunity to be known in our woundedness. This often directly confronts our subconscious notions of what it means to be weak, needy, and dependent. Because of the discomfort we experience from these emotions, it is here that many decide to clam up and continue presenting themselves as strong, independent, and capable. This solves nothing and ultimately prolongs the internal anguish of shame.

How Self-Contempt Works

Self-contempt, however, does not necessarily require another person to be present for it to affect our lives. To quote Allender again, “Contempt is best understood in its operation. Consider how you handle the loss of your car keys or cope with forgetting an important date. What are the words that you utter when you realize you’ve done something stupid or silly?”

To begin noticing the effect of self-contempt on our lives, we must first notice the phrases or sentences of self-talk that surface in these seemingly benign events.

As previously mentioned, self-contempt is the desire to destroy. Furthermore, it is the desire to destroy due to hatred for something or someone. When it comes to benign events like the ones mentioned above, they present us with the choice of whether or not we will agree to destroy.

Shame and Self-Contempt Together

We can think of shame and self-contempt as the two headline actors in a blockbuster horror film. One actor is fueled by hatred and anger, while the other relies on their ability to be invisible. Both are simultaneously determined and must work together to escape whatever monster is chasing them down.

In their respective roles, contempt commonly plays a protector for fear that shame will be overcome by the penetrating gaze of the monster. Contempt knows shame’s preference for paralysis, and must react accordingly to ensure the goal of escape is accomplished.

Dan Allender provides this powerful insight on the interplay of shame and self-contempt: “Legitimate shame has the power to expose sin. It pierces through the seemingly impenetrable masquerade of idolatry and cuts open the heart to reveal a person’s basis for life and hope. But the light is often found to be too bright and disturbing; therefore, fallen man quickly resorts to a shield that seems to deflect the intrusion of God: the power of contempt…

“The shamed person can turn his eyes away from the penetrating gaze and focus on the element in his own being that is the cause of the shame. Or he can attack his “enemy’s” eyes directly with the poison of his hatred, blinding those eyes so their power is nullified. The first option, self-contempt, and the second, other-centered contempt, though different in form, are similar in function.”

Do you see the partnership that shame and self-contempt have formed? Contempt is often the fuel of shame’s fire due to how emotionally unbearable and distressing shame can be. To take ourselves out of such distress and humiliation, we internally move toward the hatred we have for our own shame, using that hatred as a protective barrier against re-experiencing humiliation.

Overcoming Shame and Self-Contempt

If you are going to engage your stories of pain and heartache truthfully, then you must be willing to engage in your experiences of shame and self-contempt. Most importantly, you will need to face how each is affecting you. They did not show up by accident. And it is being curious about why and how they have shown up that will reveal the beauty of God that evil is attempting to destroy.

Jesus demonstrated for us the importance of confronting evil head-on. In our personal confrontations, battles, or wrestlings with shame and self-contempt, we must look to His example. I believe that Jesus’ example shows us that we cannot simply tolerate the presence of these things by ignoring them or by giving in to denial. Instead, what if the invitation of Jesus is to enter it – “it” being our stories of shame and self-contempt – to find life on the other side?

Next Steps

If you are ready to begin the work of engaging your story more truthfully, I would be honored to walk with you in that process. Please feel free to reach out to me via email. You can also visit Seattle Christian Counseling to find a counselor who would be the right fit for you.