Shame and Austism

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I relate to this.

In fact today, while journalling to process, I wrote for the first time that among the emotions I have felt after receiving a diagnosis, I felt shame. This was the first time I named this and it was a bit freeing to do so.

For me, my shame comes from the type of scenario you mention in the beginning if the blog post about being the source of pain for everyone around you. And, in particular, in being a parent. I do my absolute best every single day, but I always feel that I am still sometimes just too broken to possibly be a good parent.

...those are the worst of the emotions and it does seem that acceptance of self plays a huge role in combatting the shame.

For data's sake, I am diagnosed with Asperger's and I meet the criteria for alexithymia. I also believe I experience heightened emotions, but that I struggle to understand and name them.

Thanks for talking about this important topic.

I really relate to your blog post also. I think a lot of it relates to early life experiences by family and peers.

I came across this blog post through WP , and it also rings true.
what is autism?

my case is this:

i was told that when i was a baby, i was considered to be abnormal in many respects. when people picked me up, they often dropped me soon after because i did not provide the correct muscular resistance to facilitate their hold. most babies participate muscularly in being held, but i was like a sack of potatoes. they said that i was always slipping through their arms because through any hole in their grasp i would fall.

i guess that was the first manifestation of my impaired ability to reciprocate. i never smiled at faces that smiled at me. i did not even look at them apparently. if people pretended to cry to my face, i was similarly disinterested. once a doctor arranged a test where all my family would try to attract my attention, and then when they got it, they were told to all look with a startled expression simultaneously in a direction away from the center of the room to see whether i would look in the same direction that they looked, and i failed.

for the first few years, i looked at the finger of a pointer like a dog, rather than in the direction it was pointing. the wiggling of their eyebrows to try to communicate that i should look in the direction they were pointing was probably perceived by me as a random expression they pulled while wanting to show me their finger.

anyway i was diagnosed as simply "autistic" when i was 3, and i went to a few main stream schools to begin with because i was not intellectually incapable of completing the work. after a while however .....(8 years went by).......... i was settled into an institution for behaviourally challenged children. it was there that i met my first dedicated psychiatrist.

i had at least one consultation with her everyday (the institution was "live in" co-ed), and she developed a keen interest in me, and i also was interested in her. after about a year of consultations and tests, she explained to me much about myself that i would never have had the insight to even consider let alone discover.

she also had to "break it" to my parents in one particular consultation when my parents were there.

she said i have a severely diminished propensity for higher order emotions. i have no sense of pride or shame (emotional opposites i believe).
i also can not feel the lesser emotion of guilt (an active ingredient for shame) or "accomplished-ness" (an active ingredient in pride).

if i do something that causes another being misfortune, then i do feel displaced and eager to correct the problem, but if i am prevented from doing so, then i divorce my mind from the matter without further thought.

i am kind and considerate even though i have no higher order emotions.
that is because i do know what is fair. i know every living thing deserves to be let live it's (only) life without interference, but it does not take "shame" or "guilt" or "pride" or "virtuousness (in a self aggrandizing way)" to know what i know.
i can also sail on and leave a disaster without looking back if i have no further ability to affect it's outcome.

when i was hospitalized at that institution, i also spoke with my psychiatrist about freudian psychology, and i am bemused that the credibility rating of freud has plummeted to a level where his ideas are lampooned.
everyone who is "hip" knows that freud got it all wrong. it is unfashionable to resurrect any of his ideas except to parody them in some gauche manner these days.

anyway, i was impressed with the simplicity of the initial three subsections of the psyche. it seemed so intuitive. i could understand myself within the framework of the psychoanalytic structure.

ID: satisfaction instinct and drive for equilibrium. the ID is driven fundamentally by the "death" instinct. the ID generates desires, and whilst those desires are "alive", they are an irritant that displaces one from the equilibrium of complete satisfaction. every event in every life of every person has an element of desire woven into it.
if it were not the case then the whole human race would fall down dead with no desire to go on, but ironically, that is what everyone is seeking on a basal level.

EGO: the sentient mind that is in judgement of the logic that permits the satisfaction (or nullification) of idiopathic desires.

SUPEREGO: an external voice that carries authority that judges your actions (as i have learned).
often it is formed by parental attitudes or other authoritarian directives. some people may idealize their popular peers within their superego, and so they become victims of the void of outward appreciation that surrounds popular people.


my psychiatrist said that i had little presence in the "superego" sphere.

sorry this is so long. i am waiting for a video to render.

Thank you for this thread and the interesting blog - I do like your writing - I found myself agreeing and saying out loud, "I do that!"

As a youngster I realised pretty early on that I was different from the people I was surrounded by and found that to be both baffling and distressing in equal measure. I set about learning everything I could about people and how to behave in a normal way; this was no easy task in the dark ages of the early 70's before the WWW brought all the worlds knowlege and baseness into our homes. I guess I looked at myself as one of my obssessions and wanted to know everything there is. I rapidly discovered that much of the knowlege I sought was actually not written down anywhere and when I enquired with people why things were done in such a way or suchlike, then the reply I got was "It just is, it's always been like that!" coupled with a look that emphasised how weird/stupid/ignorant I was. I wish I could say I learned a lot from the experience, but in all honesty all I did learn was how to act in a way that didn't ruffle too many feathers. It was all a lie I guess, masks, lights and mirrors.

The shame I felt at being myself has never really gone all these decades later. I can still remember the social faux pas's and the fallout from those situations. I have done a lot of work over the years to try and rid myself of these particular demons, but to limited success. I have people around me who love me for who I am, but I don't recognise the person they describe when I look in the mirror - I wish I did, because he sounds like a pretty good bloke.

Norbert Elias wrote some interesting work about this topic with his 'civilising process'. I am by no means an expert on this, so I quote Peter Leithart, "Modes of behaviour which in the Middle Ages were not felt to be in the least distasteful have increasingly become surrounded by feelings of distaste. The standard of delicacy finds expression in corresponding social prohibition. These taboos, so far as can be ascertained, are nothing other than ritualized or institutionalized feelings of displeasure, distaste, disgust, fear or shame, feelings which have been socially nurtured under quite specific conditions and which are constantly reproduced, not solely but mainly because they have become institutionally firmly embedded in a particular ritual, in particular forms of conduct."

What if you don't know those changes are happening, don't know how to conduct yourself, or you simply ignore them as being irrelevant? Shame and repugnance for being different or being perceived as less than the normal accepted ways of society and how to behave in it.

Another part of his work looked at the unplanned consequences of planned actions e.g. be careful what you wish for. I became such an 'expert' at human behaviour that I noticed that everybody was doing it wrong! Everybody picks and choses the 'rules' they wish to follow so I had to educate them on how they should behave correctly; that went down well. The irony of an Aspie trying to teach NT's how to behave properly isn't lost on me, my cheeks are red as I type.

I like the story about the man who is found running up and down the road with a sword shouting and waving his fists at the heavens. When he is detained and questioned by a Psychiatrist he tells them he is frightening away the dragons that plague the area. When it is pointed out that there are no dragons, he replies, "Thank you, I work very hard at it!"

[quote="b9"

i am kind and considerate even though i have no higher order emotions.
that is because i do know what is fair. i know every living thing deserves to be let live it's (only) life without interference, but it does not take "shame" or "guilt" or "pride" or "virtuousness (in a self aggrandizing way)" to know what i know.
i can also sail on and leave a disaster without looking back if i have no further ability to affect it's outcome..[/quote]

Thanks for your story. Your description here is interesting, because I also relate to it. I have an instinctively strong sense of fairness. I am very passionate about it, and when I note situations of injustice, either on a personal level or in society, I can get very upset and am driven to change it. If I can't change it, I sit on it until I can. I never forget about it, though sometimes I can be persuaded or rationalize it.

And yet, I do have those "higher order emotions". (I don't particularly like that term and M revisiting the urge to research it and then debate it using evolutionary psychology.. But only because the word "higher" indicates some judgmentalism and hierarchy I find unhelpful. I realize it was their term, not yours. It's that fairness drive kicking in on your behalf hehe.)

Incidentally, I relate much more to Jung. Every time I try to understand what Freud was trying to say, I read it and the words simply make no sense to me. I try, I really do. But Jung? Everything I've ever read about Jung makes me go YES. This. I wonder if all these different psychological models aren't trying to describe humanity, but are merely describing the subset of humanity of the scientist making the model ;)