"Shame - Faced"
" Shame and addiction are Siamese twins. One rarely exists without the other. You cannot find an addict without shame - - - or a shameful person without an addiction. Shame and addiction are attached at the heart, sharing the same blood that keeps them alive. Where one leads, the other must follow. Both exist behind walls of denial, growing like cancer, sucking out life. And, both are destined to the same deadly spiral.
Shame's most important objective is to not be exposed. Most people who are 'shame - based' don't know it. They can't. It's slippery. Sometimes it comes on so slowly, you won't know when you started to feel this way. And, it is most often disguised as what it is not; irrational white rage, indifference, the overwhelming need to control, depression, confusion, flightiness, the obsession to use, numbness, panic, and the need to run. We will grasp whatever defense we can to survive slipping into the bottomless pit of shame.
Ironically, these very defenses saved us during our darkest moments. They may actually be the reasons we are alive today, and we can think of them as healthy reactions to very unhealthy circumstances. We can admire and respect ourselves for having them, before we lay them down and begin living a new life that no longer requires such reactions." - Stephanie E.
Man, it felt like I'd been exposed when I read this. It explains so much for me personally.