Thursday, 30 August 2018

"Victim" and "Survivor" as Labels

In her book Beyond Survival: Living Well is the Best Revenge, Yvonne Dolan talks about stages in healing from abuse, the first being as a "Victim", the second as a "Survivor", and the third "Being your Authentic Self". She points out that people who have experienced abuse can become stuck when they label themselves as "Victim" and "Survivor", and encourages them to keep moving on into the third stage, so that life can be lived and enjoyed more fully.

This is not to say that being a victim or survivor is not valid, but it is better not to use these as labels that stick. She names tasks that need to occur in each of the three stages.


Victim Stage

Tasks in this stage include:
  • facing the reality of the bad things that have happened
  • tapping into feelings that go with this and letting out (expressing) these feelings
  • knowing that it is not your fault (let go of self-blame and shame)
  • finding the courage to tell someone else what happened (to overcome isolation, fear and shame)


Survivor Stage

Tasks include:
  • beginning to see that the bad things are in the past and that you have lived beyond them
  • asking yourself "how did I do this?" and "how was I able to survive this?"
  • identifying the things that allowed you to survive, including internal strengths, external resources, positive personality characteristics (these may have already existed before the trauma, or been developed after it)
  • being able to function productively again in everyday life


Being your Authentic Self

Our Authentic Self is a Sanctuary deep within us where we can heal our wounds, delight in being alive and feel safe and solid in the storms of life.
Tasks include:
  • seeing survivor-hood as a significant aspect of self but not your total self, and celebrating it
  • stopping seeing life through the window of survivor-hood
  • giving up the labels of "Victim" and "Survivor"
  • creating a rewarding and satisfying life for yourself now
  • beginning to live according to the person you really are deep inside
  • having hopes and dreams becoming stronger than past expereinces
  • enjoying life to the fullest
  • reaching towards your potential
  • expressing yourself in personally and rewarding creative ways
  • expressing all the gifts you were born with
  • trusting your own knowledge and abilities
  • feeling more secure with yourself
  • being less willing to squander your time and energy on relationships or situations that are abusive or toxic for you


Healing is not linear

Whilst it may be helpful to talk about stages of healing, in fact, healing from abuse does not occur in neat stages, and we may find ourselves oscillating between them. Things like guilt, unhelpful comments from others, triggers and reminders, and needing to go back into survival mode where we need to keep our guard up, may send us temporarily back into victim mode, even although we have moved on. However re-labelling ourselves as a "Victim" is unhelpful and limiting.

Similarly, aspects of our authentic selves may be present in other areas of our lives even when we are engaged in victim or survivor related tasks. This may be e.g. when we are able to laugh at ourselves and our mistakes, when we have the courage to leave uncomfortable situations, and/ or when we trust in ourselves and our abilities.


A great resource

Yvonne's book is currently available as One Small Step: Moving Beyond Trauma and Therapy to a Life of Joy:

https://www.booktopia.com.au/one-small-step-yvonne-m-dolan/prod9780595125357.html

It is full of exercises to help us connect with our authentic selves.

Remember: I survived what happened to me but its not who I am now. 

It's part of me but not all of who I am.




Thursday, 23 August 2018

Labels

Assigning labels to people can dehumanise them (we are all more complex than this and need to be seen in the context of our life stories). Labels can create barriers and exclusions.



Diagnostic labels

Lucy Maddox in her book "Blueprint: how our childhood makes us who we are" describes diagnosis as a blunt old tool for describing the subtleties of what is happening for someone and says that it is highly subjective, pointing out that even  DSM lists are debated in meetings by Psychiatrists. She further says that it is more useful to see things like depression and psychosis as spectrums or continuums with degrees of intensity of e.g. sadness or hearing voices, and whether or not they interfere with a person's functioning.

She writes that although labels can be powerful as levers for extra support they also remain powerful in their capacity to stigmatise and shame and are very difficult to remove once they are assigned.

More information on her book can be found here:


Pervasive Labelling Disorder

David Levy has written a tongue-in-cheek article about those who are addicted to labelling others, and this can be found at:




Labelling theory

Labelling theory arises from Sociology and proposes that people will behave in accordance with how others label them. It arose in the 1960s and 1970s, and key theorists were Emile Durkheim, George Herbert Mead and Howard Becker. There was a particular focus on crime and deviance, and they theorised that once a person is labelled deviant, they are likely to see themselves as deviant and act accordingly.

A good overview of this theory can be found on this YouTube clip: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do6_KgRslDc



Self-labels

Sabine Beecher in her book "Happiness it's up to you" talks about self labels being illogical, self-destructive and all-pervasive. She says that calling ourselves names e.g. "failure" or "stupid" can make us feel that the whole of us is a "failure" or "stupid", that we will be like this forever and that there is no way out. She also points out that,conversely, labels cannot turn us into that label and uses the example that quacking like a duck does not turn us into a duck. 

She sees labels as opinions not facts and that they are usually about one thing we have done -- they are not about us as a whole person, and to free ourselves up from them we need to turn them into facts i.e. say exactly what happened -- no more and no less. She suggests doing an exercise where we write down the labels we use on ourselves, change these to straight facts and then write what we are going to do about the fact (e.g. the label "stupid" might have been applied after the fact "I spilt the milk" and what we are going to do is to "wipe it up and be more careful in future").

Further, she points out that good labels can be just as destructive as bad, as they can make us go up and down on the scales of worth, leaving us feeling insecure and anxious, and we need instead to aim for self-acceptance. She says that others can put labels on us too, but these will only hurt if we turn them into self-labels and, with these labels we can seek their real meaning (e.g. someone labelling us as "too sensitive" may really mean "I can't handle your feelings").

Her excellent book used to be able to be obtained from her website (however I got a message saying it was closed for maintenance when I tried today):

Sabine Beecher Happiness it's up to you:easy steps to self-acceptance and good relationships Boolarong Press, Australia, 2008 (reprint) ISBN 0 646 33230 9.


Remember: labels are judgements

Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we are supposed to be, and embracing who we are.  Brene Brown (berryintention.com)




Wednesday, 15 August 2018

Shame: the hidden emotion

Shame may often be hidden behind other emotions like anger, depression, anxiety and/or low self-worth. It is an emotion that thrives on secrecy.


What is shame

Adi Jaffe defines shame as "the feeling that there's something wrong with you. It's not about having done something wrong (that's guilt), no, shame arises from the core belief that you are simply not good enough". (Adi Jaffe How to overcome shame and build self-confidence)

Gershen Kaufman writes that "shame is the most disturbing experience individuals ever have about themselves; no other emotion feels more deeply disturbing because in the moment of shame the self feels wounded from within". (Jane Bolton What we get wrong about shame)



The difference between guilt and shame

A very useful table outlining the differences can be found at:

What causes it

Shame is often the result of being harmed (physically or emotionally) by someone else (especially as a child, a time when we are most vulnerable), or going through traumatic experiences where we felt threatened. Sometimes we may have taken on the shame of the person who has mistreated us, even although we did not cause this mistreatment. We may have been told to blame ourselves for abuse or think that we should have done something to prevent or stop it, even although it was not our fault and we did not have the power to protect ourselves. Our sense of self may have been attacked or we may have been given negative messages about ourselves, even although this was more about the inadequacy if the other person.

We may feel ashamed of not being able to overcome problems and needing to reach out for help, although there is nothing shameful about our pain and reactions. If we've been shamed as a child and been given negative messages about ourselves, then this may be how we see ourselves now.


The shame continuum

Shame can range in intensity from fleeting feelings of embarrassment all the way up to chronic humiliation, where we feel flawed and inferior as a whole person. It may be related to one event or only one area of our lives, or may be more pervasive.

       l__________________________________________________________l
Embarrassment                                                                                   Chronic humiliation


How to overcome shame

Firstly we need to recognise and externalise the shame and its sources, by finding the courage to be open and honest about it and the influence that it has had on our lives (including the messages and self-labels that we carry as a result).

Then we need to seek and listen to other more helpful voices that give us positive messages about ourselves and allow these, and other strategies,  to grow self-acceptance. We may need to seek and accept help from others if this is too difficult for us.

An excellent program based on Shame-resilience can be found at:

Today I will learn to reject shame. Shame is an overwhelming sense that who I am is not good enough. I realise that I am good enough and that my imperfections are part of being human. I let go of shame. www.thoughtsfornow.com 

If we share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding shame can't survive. Brene Brown