Shame

No one is perfect, that’s for sure. It’s normal to make mistakes, it’s common to disagree with people, and there’s no way you can satisfy everyone’s expectations of you. And that’s more than OK—it’s a natural part of life.

When you do something wrong, a common consequence is feeling guilty. Guilt is an emotion associated with regretful behaviors, decisions, and actions. If you struggle with guilt, you may overly fixate on past wrongdoings, sometimes to the point of panic or depression.

But if processed well, guilt can be motivating and energizing. It can teach you what not to do in the future, and it can even inspire big life changes (like dedicating more time to helping others).

Sometimes, people feel shame about certain parts of themselves and their identities, usually things they can’t help but still carry negative associations. These associations are called stigma: a set of negative assumptions about certain people or identities.

Exposure to stigma over time is damaging. If you are told over and over that who you are is wrong or bad, it makes sense that you would carry that feeling with you.

Trauma is also a source of shame for many. Bullying, abuse, neglect, and violence undoubtedly create emotional wounds. Trauma has a strange tendency to cause people to blame themselves for bad things that happened to them, even when they weren’t their fault.

The legacy of discriminatory attitudes and practices toward the LGBTQ+ community has created an immense amount of shame for LGBTQ+ people.

A helpful way to think about the connection between shame and anti-LGBTQ+ stigma is the minority stress framework. The experience of shame can be explained as a result of the combination of distal factors (things like hatred, prejudice, rejection), proximal factors (internalized homophobia, transphobia, and similar stigma) and resilience factors (like pride, community, and cultural celebration).

Though much progress has been made to destigmatize both mental health conditions and LGBTQ+ identity, conversion therapy is still widely practiced in many states. The assumption that being yourself is a disease continues to create unwarranted shame for LGBTQ+ folks.

Now that you know more about shame, you can begin to cope with and heal from it. You deserve some relief from these feelings; no one deserves to feel like a bad person, day in and day out.