By Samantha S Hall
Recently, Dan Oestreich wrote an enlightening post called Leadership and Shame. Shame happens to be one of the most destructive core issues we have in society. In one of the books I’m currently reading, Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, she recounts a visit the Dalai Lama had with a small group of teachers and psychologists in the US and Europe. The topics they were covering had to do with emotions and health. Then they brought up the topic of self-hatred and the Dalai Lama didn’t understand what it was.
Tara Brach further wrote:
‘While all humans feel ashamed of weakness and afraid of rejection, our Western culture is a breeding ground for the kind of shame and self-hatred the Dalai Lama couldn’t comprehend.’
Much of this is due to living in a chronic, shame-based culture where many families don’t have the tools and skills necessary to genuinely connect and acknowledge legitimate needs. Validate them. Let alone meet them for one another in healthy ways. As a result, we become disconnected from our true selves and legitimate needs. This turns into a vicious shame-based identity and destructive cycle where people experience feelings of shame for having needs and learn how to shame others for having needs in return.
Shame based systems breed shame based people.
One of the most insidious offshoots of shame is what has been labeled co-dependency. It is a term used to describe the behaviors of people who learned to cope within a shame-based system. This system can include varying degrees of dysfunction, addiction, and abuse. The behaviors and roles created as a result of having to survive and function in these type of systems is an attempt to bring balance by compensating for the dysfunction.
Co-dependency was first introduced as a reaction formation of the people who lived with those struggling with alcoholism. Since then, we can see the same patterns in ANY type of dysfunctional system. From families, to churches, to business organizations.
One of the best books that I’ve read on the subject is Codependent No More by Melody Beattie. In fact, in the past 15 or 20 years or so I’ve been through two copies. I read the first copy so many times that eventually the pages started falling out.
My Attempts to Balance a Dysfunctional System
My own co-dependent tendencies were a result of growing up in an abusive home.
- Having to walk on eggshells most of the time, I quickly learned to ‘check the mood temperature’ of the adults I lived with.
- I learned ways to try to prevent and control anger and bad moods due to fear of punishment and abuse. Which only worked for brief periods or not at all.
- I learned to take care of their feelings and emotional needs since I was often sought for comfort when there was a fight between the adults.
- In many ways, I was trained to be a surrogate parent and spouse to either one or the other of my caretakers, depending on who it was and what need they were trying to meet through me. (cross generational bonding)
- And as a result of an extreme fear of punishment and violent abuse, I learned how to be a people pleaser. I tried to be the perfect child, the perfect student, to be as self-sufficient and need free as possible in order to prevent abuse and to finally ‘earn’ the love and approval of my family.
The Karpman Drama Triangle
As I learned more about the nature of co-dependency, I became acquainted with what is called the Karpman Drama Triangle. This triangle gives us a quick illustration of what happens in co-dependent relationships. It has been a great help in becoming more conscious of the ways this can play out in our relationships. By becoming more familiar with how this cycle works, we can either catch ourselves in the act and do what we need to do to re-center. Or to prevent ourselves from getting caught up in this vicious cycle with others to begin with.
Basically, there are three roles that people will take on and occupy at an given point on the triangle. These roles are rescuer, persecutor, and victim.
If one person is taking on the role of the rescuer, then there is obviously a real or ‘imagined’ victim. The person they are trying to rescue. If the rescue is successful, the rescuer is happy for as long as the one rescued stays in line, or in other words, under the control of the rescuer. If the rescuer is unsuccessful in their attempts to rescue, they will generally jump to the persecutor role. Now they will blame the person they so generously tried to help.
‘After all I did for you!’
It doesn’t matter if the other person didn’t ask for it, request it, or seek it out. If someone is deeply entrenched in co-dependency, they will consider any unsolicited help they provide to others as an act of love, sincere benevolence, and generosity and be down-right offended if someone doesn’t LET them perform the rescue. Or tries to resist it if they are already familiar with the signs of co-dependency (they can smell it and see it) and know that it wouldn’t be a healthy kind of ‘help’ to receive. Even if they may have a legitimate need.
As this cycle plays out, the drama peaks at the point where the person perceived as the ‘victim’ either reacts and persecutes the rescuer in return because they don’t like being controlled. Or simply by having or needing some boundaries. Any action on the part of the perceived victim will be taken as an ‘attack’ by the rescuer/persecutor even if the person has either withdrawn from the others persecutions and punishments, or declared a boundary.
As in, ‘No. That’s NOT the kind of ‘help’ I need…thank you very much.’
The rescuer/persecutor will then jump to the final point on the triangle and now take on the victim role. Thus, completing the cycle.
This drama can be played out endlessly by one or both parties involved until one person either leaves the relationship and the other finds another person to rescue. Or the person becomes aware that there is a problem with co-dependency and deals with it. That said, these behaviors are not something that instantly go away overnight. It takes a great deal of conscious awareness and diligent effort in multiple areas in order to be able to function in a more interdependent manner that doesn’t sabotage self and others.
Characteristics of Co-dependency
There are far too many behavioral characteristics to list here so I will only cover a few. Also, please note that you more then likely will have at least SOME co-dependent tendencies due to living in a predominantly shame-based culture. If you find that you might just be co-dependent, the last thing I would want you to feel is shame. Understand these tendencies stem from BEING shamed in the first place. Love, acceptance, compassion, and self-care are in order. Not additional shaming to heap on top of it all. That will only make it worse. However, unless the web of codependency is untangled, toxic shame and the compensating behaviors will persist and it’s not healthy for anyone.
- Difficulty identifying what you are feeling
- Minimize and/or deny feelings
- Consider yourself to be completely unselfish and altruistic
- Lack empathy for the legitimate feelings and needs of others
- Project own feelings and negative traits onto others
- May exhibit passive aggressive tendencies
- Value the approval of others more then your own approval
- Feel unlovable
- Unable to admit you’ve made a mistake
- Cannot directly ask for what you need or desire
- Feel superior to others.
- Say what you think others want to hear instead of what you really think and feel
- Say yes when you mean no. Say no when you mean yes.
- Believe most people are incapable of taking care of themselves without your help
- Use blame and shame to manipulate and control people
- Pretend to agree with others to get what you want
- May use sex as a weapon; either to manipulate or withhold to punish
- Suppress your own needs and feelings to avoid feeling vulnerable.
- May believe that displays of emotion are a sign of weakness.
- May withhold appreciation
Are You Co-Dependent or Interdependent?
For additional information on characteristics of co-dependency in contrast to interdependency, I found a helpful chart on Webster University.
The shift from codependent to interdependent relationships is not something we should expect to happen instantly or overnight. Some of these behaviors are deeply ingrained habits and patterns that may be operating on autopilot. Many of these tendencies will more then likely be unconscious and remain that way until the spotlight of awareness is shined on them.
In interdependent relationships, we don’t neglect to help others, yet we do so from a much more healthier place. We are more able to help without enabling destructive behaviors in others. We will have more discernment on the difference between meeting legitimate needs and enabling dysfunction. And more importantly, helping one another is about empowerment without the need for power and control tactics. Or the need to keep others in a dependent or one down positions.
It’s a far more healthy system of relating which provides the right kind of soil needed to nourish genuine love.
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Questions for Reflection:
- How would you describe your relationships at this time? Are they more co-dependent or interdependent?
- If you struggle with codependent behaviors, which role do you take on most of the time in your relationships?
- Can you see yourself and the people you relate with carrying out the drama in the Karpman triangle?
- If you often take on the role of the rescuer, are you trying to help people who have requested it? Or do you try to push your help onto others because you know you can fix them if the would only do what you want?
- Do you punish people in various ways for not doing what you want or think they should be doing? If so, how do you punish them?
- How difficult is it for you to admit a mistake? How do you generally feel when this happens?
- How easy or difficult is it for you to assertively ask for what you want or need in your relationships?
- Do you say what you mean and mean what you say? Or do you expect other people to guess and read your mind?
- How do you respond to people who may not want or need your help?
- Are you able to see others as equals or do you secretly feel superior to them?
- Do you believe displaying emotions is a sign of weakness?
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Additional Related Resources:
The Vulnerability Dilemma by Samantha Hall
Organizational Arson by Scott Mabry
Humanity in the Holocaust by Nic Askew (short Soul Biographies film)
How to Give a Fishing Lesson by Nic Askew
Leadership and Shame by Dan Oestreich
Leadership Peopleskills: Leading and Inspiring Through Shame? by Kate Nasser
Reflective Love by Blair Glaser
Learn how to create an emotional anchor to feel less vulnerable – A post by LaRae Quy
In Praise of Shame! (an exploration of both healthy and unhealthy shame) by J. Vincent Nix, Phd.
What It Is Now by Crack Your Egg
this is the most beautiful article on shame.
we can find ourselves over and over again in your words and wisdom.
Thanks so much for the clarity and completeness on which you cover the topic.
We all feel shame but sometimes we are not in touch with that is shame.
thanks from my heart to yours for sharing such important information.
your words are beyond meaningful.
Lolly Daskal
Lead From Within
Thank you for joining on this journey and exploration of shame and codependency with me Lolly. One of the most liberating feelings we can all have and experience once we recognize it for what it is…is to understand that we don’t HAVE to accept shame anymore. We no longer HAVE to carry the shame passed on to us from one generation to the next. In a huge way, I believe that is the ‘good news’. The idea that we don’t HAVE to accept shame in the first place. (we simply didn’t KNOW that we had a choice when we were small)
We have the choice now. It may not instantly change every aspect of our lives overnight. Yet just the ‘knowing’ that …wow….shame is not mine to CARRY anymore….is like a small crack and space opening up in our hearts and minds that allow that little ray of light in. And as we grow, (and untangle the web), then more light is let in and begins to shine brighter and brighter on those dark places. Seeking them out…accepting them….then integrating it so it no longer leaves a ‘wake’. Just ‘information’.
One of my favorite quotes by Carl Jung is this one:
‘My destiny is to create more consciousness. The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.’
I wholeheartedly believe that this is part of my purpose in life. To shine the light on these things so it creates more ‘awakening’. And in each of our own unique ways based on the journey of our experiences and the ground we’ve covered in life, all people have the ‘gifts’ that can transform and integrate both the dark and light. Inside and out.
Thanks again for taking the time to share here and for all the support in sharing my post today! Much gratitude and love.
~Samantha
Thank you for posting on this great topic. So many great reminders here that helped increase my awareness about some of my own patterns and unhealthy relationships. It’s easy to slip into this kind of thinking acting without realizing what is happening until we are in deep and suddenly realize we’ve built our own prison. Connects to all the relationships in our lives. Well done!
You’re so welcome my friend. I’m so thankful for all that you share in your own posts that help me along as well. : )
You are so right. It’s very easy to get tangled up in the drama triangle, even if we’ve already done some major work in these areas. Simply due to it being so pervasive in our society. I have yet to meet or know anyone that didn’t struggle with codependency to some degree. So each person we encounter has the potential to re-trigger the cycle simply because we don’t know the internal landscape of a person based on what we may initially see externally. It takes some time ‘relating’ together sometimes before we realize…ok…I see what’s happening now. And then we can work proactively on our own behalf to do what we need to do to re-center ourselves again.
And yes, this connects to ALL of our relationships in life. These behaviors don’t stay at home when people leave to go to work! haha If someone has the tendency to say yes when they mean no, or any behavior related to codependency, it will be a problem in every area and relationship of their life until it brought to consciousness and addressed.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share Scott. I appreciate you my friend!
So beautiful, Samantha. Your exploration is very rich and done with so much insight, authenticity and personal connection. Shame’s power to drive co-dependency, once seen and pulled out of the box, can only recede with time. This post is a source of healing energy and a power of its own. Congratulations for putting the pieces together and sharing your journey and learning so helpfully and with such radiance!
All the best
Dan
I’m honored Dan. I have you to thank for inspiring me to write this post. Your own work/writings deeply resonate with me and the work in my own life that it’s so WONDERFUL how it can help in the process of ‘co-creation’. The ways in which each one of us in our sharing…just the act…can help catalyze something inside of someone else to create a new work…a new writing…new art. Interdepedence at it’s finest! : )
Yes, shame is the driving force behind codependent behaviors and once the cat is let out of the bag….good things can happen. We begin the process of becoming a little more lighter…freer. And to be free from such bondage is our work and our practice. It is my work and practice that I offer to the world.
Thanks again Dan. I’m so grateful that we’ve been able to connect. It’s a privilege to journey with you my friend.
~Samantha
Samantha,
This post is so rich and overflowing. You offer much wisdom on the nature of shame, traumatic roles and replays in relationship and co-dependency.
And you bring your own vulnerability and experience.
I will be digesting it for a long time.
Thank you.
Blair
Thank you so much Blair. I appreciate you and all that you bring to the world in your own work to help people. I was moved and truly loved the recent post you wrote on Reflective Love. Actually, that would be another great post to add as an additional resource! I will do so just as soon as I post this comment! : )
Much gratitude for you taking the time to share my friend. xo
~Samantha
This is a beautifully written post and you’ve done so much work on pulling the strings together to weave a clear picture of how harmful shame and co-dependency can be on mental (and physical) health. It’s part of the human condition to dwell on the negatives instead of the positives…negativity is like Velcro and Positivity is like Teflon…so we have to consciously remind ourselves to take control and search out ways to do it.
Thank you so much LaRae. I appreciate you taking the time to read and share here. : )
One of the reasons I share the posts that I do is to not only shed light for those that may not have had the experiences to such an extent as I have, but mainly for those who have. Doing the work of facing abuse is a proactive effort of not only facing the truth of the traumas (validation), but to also sift through all of the negative programming and false beliefs that were originally created in abusive environments. This doesn’t happen all at once. More in layers as new experiences in life occur revealing yet another layer of healing that needs to take place or yet another re-enactment and replication of the past. ‘A lesson repeats itself until it is learned.’
Creating new beliefs to replace a damaging one also takes time. Saying an affirmation or restating a new belief won’t take hold if it’s being used as a band-aid over years of negative programming. Even with the embracing of more empowering beliefs, it does not instantly stop the physical reactions and cellular memories of past abuse. (such as is experienced in post traumatic stress)
Abuse touches the being of a person at every level: mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual. And all parts of ourselves integrate through recovery in layers. And only when the mind is ready. (as I’m sure you know how the mind will protect people if something is not yet ready to be faced)
In my experience and the experiences of many people who have faced horrific abuse and trauma, the recovery process isn’t about getting ‘stuck’ on whether something is positive or negative. That creates too much resistance since abuse forces people to severely minimize and deny what is happening. People have to pretend they don’t hurt in order to cover for other people and in order to make others happy. Emotions are not good, bad, right, wrong. They simply ARE. So recovering from abuse is about VALIDATING the reality of the pain and damage that was experienced. Not covering it up anymore.
Example: a depressed person is generally suffering from anger turned inward because they didn’t learn a safe way to express the emotion. Depression is basically anger turned against oneself. When society keeps teaching that anger is ‘bad’, it has no safe outlet in day to day life. So it gets blocked. The less people have faced their own so called ‘negative’ emotions, the more they try to control and prevent others from expressing genuine emotions/feelings.
When you see a chronically depressed person finally get angry? That’s actually a POSITIVE step in the right direction! haha It might initially freak people out to witness it since they aren’t used to seeing the person be anything but despondent or a ‘pleaser’ yet the energy of angry is actually GOOD for the recovery of a depressed person. It’s no longer being blocked, stuffed, repressed, or denied. If the anger is effectively ‘released’, then it can become simply an emotion that changes like the weather. Moving through us and out of us just like any other emotion.
When someone gets hit by a car, no one is concerned about making the victim think good thoughts or minimizing their pain when the are lying there on the ground with broken bones and hemorrhaging to death. Because people can visually SEE the damage.
With issues of abuse, the damage can’t always be seen on the outside and so it is far too easily invalidated and dismissed. People are still hemorrhaging but in ways other people can’t see. Validation helps a person to feel what they are actually feeling (their TRUE response to the abuse) instead of having to worry about being ‘happy’ for other people because it’ makes them uncomfortable. This is why I’m not a big fan of some of the positive psychology ‘stuff’ that floats around because it doesn’t help hurting people get better. It actually makes it worse.
Anyway, off my soapbox my friend! You and I already had the discussion on anger recently together so I know you understand where I’m coming from so my ‘sharing’ is more for any of my readers who are in the midst of recovery or just starting to heal so they know it’s OK to feel what they are feeling right now. : )
I appreciate you LaRae. Thanks again for sharing!
~Samantha
Samantha,
You have opened my eyes to the links between shame and co-dependency. Two things really stand out to me 1) The Dalai Lama’s response. What if we could break the cycle and have shame be a foreign concept to our children and our children’s children. 2) The role of the rescuer in the cycle of co-dependency. When we believe that others need saving all of the time, it’s really more about us than them. When we hold others as naturally creative, resourceful and whole we can break the cycle.
So much to reflect on here! I’m bookmarking so I can read it again.
Appreciate your tremendous insights that are deepened by your powerful vulnerability. Deeply touched.
Thank you so much Alli. I appreciate your insights/perspectives and love your blog! The last few posts have really resonated with me personally. Wonderful and some even FUN perspectives. I enjoy your writings. : )
You wrote:
‘What if we could break the cycle and have shame be a foreign concept to our children and our children’s children.’
YES! I could write a HUGE post on this topic alone…. No child should be subjected to messages of shame or the idea that they are somehow flawed and ‘broken’. Frankly, it’s psychological and emotional abuse. (in some cases, done in ignorance if it’s tied to a religion and I passed the same message along to my oldest daughter at one time…I have since recanted! With great apology!)
Loved your second point as well. That’s just it. All of us at some point need legitimate help. Yet when it gets tied to unhealthy beliefs/concepts, it twists the purity and sincerity of simply giving and helping each other out. There’s a huge sense of dire urgency when people have the wrong motives. The helping winds up having less to do for the one needing help then it does to satisfy an unhealthy ‘need’ in the one doing the giving. Basically, it’s self-centered and not other-centered giving even though on the surface it can pass off as LOOKING so selfless. In reality, it isn’t.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights on this. Looking forward to learning more from you on your own blog! : )
[…] few days ago Samantha S Hall posted about Shame and how destructive it can be. I value Samantha’s connection (established through Twitter) and find that we share several […]
As promised, Samantha, a link to my post in response. I did get up extra early today to do this.. it was something about which I just couldn’t stop thinking! http://nixhome.com/blog/in-praise-of-shame/
Thanks again for connecting shame and co-dependency, publicly, so I could have this developmental experience. I am grateful!
Vincent, your post is absolutely AWESOME! I just finished commenting on yours (awaiting your moderation…grins) It blew me away! LOVE IT!
I’m definitely going to be adding the link to your post as an additional resource at the end of this one. You’ll be able to spot it above (at the end of the post) under ‘Additional Related Resources’.
I’m so happy that my post was able to act as a catalyst to your own developmental experience. A few of us are experiencing a bit of a chain reaction here! haha I wrote this post after reading Dan Oestreich’s post on shame. LaRae Quy has written a post with a wonderful exercise on how to create an emotional anchor when feeling vulnerable. Now your post!
It’s all good! : )
Thanks again my friend.
Thanks Samantha! I am honored by your comments and I feel good about many things today! 🙂
I just commented this morning on Dan’s post too. I hadn’t read it until I posted my own sets of comments on my blog and in response to yours.
Yep, you are a catalyst dear friend! I truly appreciate you! Now I’ll have to search out LaRae’s post 🙂
Ritebakatcha!
Dan has some wonderfully insightful material. I look forward to each post he writes, they are so good. : )
I appreciate you too my friend! I LOVED your post. Look forward to seeing more of yours in the future as well.
Well-written, Samantha. This article will be a great resource for many days and months ahead. Great questions to think through and tap our inner honesty and enhance our self-awareness. All of this helps us to continue to grow and become better humans…. Thanks, Jon
Thank you so much Jon. This is one of those areas of ‘life long growth and learning’ for many of us. I appreciate you taking the time to ‘stop by’ and comment my friend! : )
[…] and Shame” on August 14th, I noticed other related articles appeared. Samatha S. Hall posted “Co-dependency and Relationships,” regarding the way shame translates into problematic coping mechanisms. Kate Nasser published […]
[…] We either have to go dwell in a cave somewhere in isolation. Or we learn to hide the parts of ourselves that have been rejected. We create and don a multitude of masks to adjust to the people and environments we live and work in. I don’t mean to imply that adjusting to certain levels of appropriate behavior in order to get along well with others is at issue here. I’m referring to having to deny the very essence of our true selves that makes us who we are at our core. Or the parts of us that were shamed for having legitimate needs and feelings. […]
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[…] Codependency and Relationships by Samantha Hall […]
[…] is very much a part of our ‘great emancipation‘ into adulthood. It is the threshold we all must learn to […]