People have done entire course-corrections because they were shamed.
Not to mention, many abusers feel shame whether they are actually shamed or not, and are actively shame-avoidant.
People really struggle with nuance.
And then they mis-prescribe these ‘rules’ at each other. We hit a “shame is bad” period of social understanding, and we are mis-using that idea with respect to abusers.
Abusers should feel shame.
…it doesn’t mean they have to feel shame forever.
You are who you are as a result of your choices, and you can CHANGE who that is as a result of your choices moving forward.
But coercing people to act like you are different than you are (to act as if you are not abusive and unsafe) and that reality is something other than it is, is misguided, wrong, harmful, and circumvents the real mechanism of change.
I’ve had the unique experience of growing up going to my father’s A.A. meetings.
And what I observed over many years is that before any change can happen, someone has to want to change. And what often gets a person to that point is consequences and shame. The behavior has to no longer benefit them or make them feel good, instead it provokes deep pain.
That’s why people using or harming others often don’t change until they ‘hit rock bottom’.
I’m not prescribing shame, per se, I’m just saying that I’ve seen it work. And it is a crucial mechanism for some abusers to stop abusing, while for others, it causes deep avoidance. And you can’t tell ahead of time which one it’s going to be. It might even be the same person at different stages of their life!
And as someone who has been unsafe, I can tell you that it is only ‘shame’ if you are allergic to reality.
I think back to a time in college, when I was driving somewhere like a jackass, and a woman followed me to the office supply store and got out of her car screaming “This?! You were driving like that just to go to an office supply store?!” and I was completely taken aback. I’d learned to drive in Miami, and it never occurred to me that I was doing anything other than driving normally. (We were NOT in Miami.) She was incensed, and justifiably so. I actually apologized to her (which didn’t help, because she was in the fight of fight-or-flight) and her husband had to pull her away. I legitimately was sorry, and I may not have recognized how dangerously I was driving had her response not been so intense.
However, I’m not saying ANYONE should follow an unsafe driver to yell at them, that was extremely dangerous on her part.
I cannot emphasize ENOUGH how one should never do that. But, because it happened, it gave me an opportunity, if I was willing to take it.
There isn’t a system you can apply to make people change
…so ‘shaming’ abusers doesn’t ‘work’, but it does provide intense feedback and consequences that can be an opportunity for change if they are willing. And sometimes those seeds lay dormant for years, even decades, before they bear some kind of fruit.
Is it ‘shaming’ to hold someone accountable?
To name the behavior? For them to experience consequences for what they’ve done?
shame: (n.) a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.
There’s a reason abusers hide their abusing, and gaslight the victim into thinking they ‘deserve’ it: it’s because they would be humiliated if people knew the truth.
That’s not the fault of the truth.
(Note: that said, we should be careful with shame, and not excessive or egregious; like anything, we can take it too far – but that’s a different discussion – remember, there are many abusers who actually believe they are victims and would weaponize this concept to further abuse a victim)
This is expanded from a conversation I had with someone over a controversial post in another subreddit around this topic specifically. The poster was arguing that ‘shaming someone looking for help’ was wrong, bad, and counter-productive. And above all ‘it wasn’t respectful’.
I think you can have space for accountability AND space for change, and everyone who has abused others is going to experience shame in that process unless they can get very aligned with reality and accepting their actions.
I ended by saying essentially that people are there own karma, and that someone’s karma is often being the person who would do those things. We’re honestly lucky if we can feel shame, it means we have something of a conscience still. There still a chance to become a person we wouldn’t be ashamed to be.