Shoulds and Shame

In my experience,¹ therapists hate “should” statements.

I’ve been pondering the concept of shame lately, and how it is not very helpful.

For the sake of a common definition, let shame be a negative emotion (or collection of emotions) that hits you when you realize you are doing or thinking or being something that you shouldn’t. It can be triggered from the outside, by cruel words, a look of disgust, or laughter. It can be triggered from the inside, by habit, by a memory, or by analysis. The key thing about shame is that it relies on your ideas of what you should orshouldn’t do.

I will admit that there are some very bad things, directly harmful-to-other-people things, that I wouldn’t mind some individuals experiencing a little more shame over. But as a rule, shame pulls you backwards and slams you down instead of propelling you forwards, and that doesn’t benefit most people.

Shame doesn’t drive you to change what you’re doing; it drives you to fear doing anything at all. Especiallyanything you can’t predict the reception of with any degree of certainty, which is pretty much anything different from what you’ve been doing so far. It’s easier, says shame, to hate yourself for being the garbage person you are now than to try and be someone else and risk whatever new horror the world might dream up for you next.

But no-one is actually a garbage person.² Nobody is born thinking “I’m going to be evil,” we are born thinking “Ack this is super-bright and cold, also food please.” Everyone is shaped by forces both external and internal throughout our lives. I’m treading some dangerous ground here because I cannot and will not accept the philosophy of determinism,⁴ but I will say that the decisions we make (because I believe we do make decisions, even if they’re not reached entirely independently) are made based on the information we have accumulated up until this point in time.

If we don’t have the information that we can do or think or be something different, if all we have is the information that we have always done or thought or been this and this is bad, then we feel shame. Maybe we know that some people have it in them to live differently, but we don’t truly believe that we are like those people. We certainly don’t feel motivated to try and be like them, because what’s the point?

Well, maybe we should be trying, or maybe we should be asking ourselves whether how we are now is truly something to be ashamed of. Either way, the shame presses down like a candle snuffer asphyxiating the life out of a flame. Shame stops us from evaluating the situation rationally and compassionately.

Take the example of fat-shaming. There is a shockingly large contingent of people who think that shame is motivating, and that being deliberately, exaggeratedly cruel to obese people⁵ actually does them a favour. It does not.⁶ The goal here shouldn’t be to introduce or enhance shame in the lives of fat people. We should see, instead, the dual goals of increasing awareness that “healthy” doesn’t always look one way and increasing healthy behaviours across the entire population. 

Well, that’s what we should always look for, in my most humble opinion, with all shame. Increasing awareness that worthy, lovable, good, doesn’t always look one way, and changing the behaviours that we don’t want to see anymore instead of equating the behaviour with the self. 

Last thought. You don’t have to be ashamed of feeling shame, either. Our conscious thoughts can affect our emotions,⁷ but that doesn’t mean emotions don’t often just come up on their own, an unasked-for consequence of the reaction between your personal history and a new situation. You don’t need permission to feel how you feel. But if emotions aren’t decisions, what reason is there to feel shame about them? Even if the emotion is shame, which I’ve just said is unhelpful?

Maybe they just take you somewhere you don’t want to go, and that is a most excellent thing to discuss with a therapist. 

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¹ I think I’m on my fifth therapist? Not including two psychiatrists, the guy who ran the group therapy, and various guidance counsellors, etc., in high school. Wow, I’m a highly experienced consumer of mental health resources.

² Almost no-one.³

³ I waver on this, actually. Some very few highly influential people seem determined to prove themselves to be actual people. But My worldview seems to require that everyone is redeemable given the right circumstances.

⁴ Haha.

⁵ Or even people who just don’t look skinny enough.

⁶ This is just an article and not, you know, a study. I feel like this is more the “here’s what I think” style of blog and less the “meticulously researched” style of blog. But I wanted to point to a vaguely authoritative source to indicate that this particular bit of information came from somewhere other than my own imagination.

⁷ Giving us CBT.