Home→Forums→Share Your Truth→trying to live with unrelenting shame (maybe I should kill myself)→Reply To: trying to live with unrelenting shame (maybe I should kill myself)
anita,
I want to start by saying I appreciate the research you have done, and now shared with me to help me better understand myself and my experiences. Here are some things I found interesting/relevant as I was reading:
1. “Your touch can lower the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in his body, leading to better sleep patterns in infancy and a tendency to be less fearful or inhibited later in life”
This fits that that perhaps I was not given this type of bonding touch. My mom herself companied to me that as a baby, I was a terrible sleeper, did not like to nap, and would wake them up throughout the night. I became extremely inhibited and fearful by the age of 5, and have been throughout my life.
2. “Many children who have not had ample physical and emotional attention are at higher risk for behavioral, emotional and social problems as they grow up…”
This reminds me of the reason I originally began this thread. I was feeling shame about my life long history of behavioral and social issues. This is relatively unspecific and simply put, but relevant.
3. Everything you have shared about being a “active” or “passive agent”, and the pattern of “learned helplessness”
These ideas are new to me. I can see in what you put together that I have displayed a pattern of learned helplessness. In some ways, I do feel it is true for me. Specifically around when you said “feeling that there is something terribly wrong with you for not taking the actions needed to be taken” … I did feel this way, I blamed myself and held myself as the one responsible for my misery I was in. I am not sure if that fits in. I will have to look more into learned helplessness. Perhaps I was in a state of thinking “I have caused this for myself and I want to change it, but I don’t know what I need or how I can get out of it”… That seems to fit. I may have some ideas, but many times I am still so unsure and lack the confidence to make any change with my ideas.
- This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by ninibee.