The Creature
One thought on “The Creature”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
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The ‘creature’ and the biological underlying ‘reasons’ for it are fascinating to me. I find myself trying to figure out what it is and how it came to be.
I have read articles about shame and how this emotion affects children in their early years. Shame is toxic to a child’s emotional well-being.
The emotion of shame is described as a primary emotion that creates an intense and painful feeling of inadequacy or humiliation in the sense of being accepted by others in a social context. It creates an internal fear of being seen by others as unworthy or unlovable. This sense of being exposed in a negative way creates an instinctive reaction of wanting to shrink or hide the exposed ‘self’.
A child’s ‘normal’ instinctive emotional reaction to feeling shame may include:
– finding it difficult to accept responsibility for their own behaviour (i.e. feeling accountable)
– finding it difficult to accept feedback about their behaviour (i.e. sensitive to criticism)
Feeling shame can also manifest in feelings of paranoia, anxiety and depression. The emotional manifestations include: fear, loneliness, doubt, anger, sadness, self-pity, jealousy, anxiety, and dissociation.
Another important aspect is that a baby is not born feeling the emotion of shame. Shame occurs in the context of being with other people. To feel shame, it is necessary to have a ‘shamer’.
I think it’s interesting to think about this when it comes to narcissism. If a child in their formative years feels shame more often than he or she feels acceptance and love, then this will have an effect on the way his or her emotions manifest. It will affect how children perceive themselves and others.