The Story Shame Tells Makes Sense

We would be wise not to underestimate shame’s ability to tell a rollicking good tale. It weaves words like broken, wrecked, flawed, contaminated, dirty, alone, or unlovable so majestically into our narratives that we often do not recognise its subtle influence.

You would think we would immediately reject these destructive adjectives as untrue or ridiculous, but shame is incredibly persuasive.

When we tell our story of mistreatment, especially for the first time, we are likely to experience an extremely uncomfortable feeling of exposure. If the person we’re sharing with reacts negatively to our vulnerability we are left feeling humiliated and rejected. This feeling is shame. Its destructive adjectives enter our lives alongside convincing “proof” that what it is telling us makes sense.

In my previous post, The Power of Story, I wrote about how we base our identities around the stories we believe about ourselves. From birth to death, we attempt to knit together a coherent narrative of our lives to understand who we are, how our world works, and what our purpose is. The events that cause our deepest wounds often resist being integrated in any meaningful way into our identity narrative. Shame’s negative adjectives can then subtly thread their way through our story, providing plausible but painful explanations of why we have suffered or continue to suffer, and why this leaves us unworthy of love and belonging.

Over time, shame embeds itself into our identity. We don’t just feel like we are broken or unloveable, we come to believe we are these things. We are left convinced—both through the feeling of exposure whenever we share our story and through people’s poor reactions to what we say—that others will not want to be associated with us if they knew our secret self.

But in our ongoing silence, shame flourishes.