invisible abuse or undercover abuse generates two of the most toxic feelings that exist, which is guilt and shame, you think that no one can believe you of all the damage you are receiving or have received, because somehow your feelings of guilt and shame are increased exponentially over time, but you have to differentiate very well between guilt and shame because many times we confuse it, because they are two judgments, but they are different. for example, guilt is a judgment about something i've done that i consider inappropriate at the time and that gives me an unpleasant feeling in my body and emotionally as well. this emotion and sensation in order to integrate it in an adaptive way and to be able to process it, what it asks for is to assume responsibility for what we have done with its reparation and a decision making. but shame, is not a judgment about something that we've done, it is a more intense and lasting judgment because it is the feeling of displeasure that we feel for being who we are, for feeling less humans than the rest of humans. and that invites us to want to run away, to disappear, to take refuge in a cave because it makes us feel exposed and weak.


if one of your beliefs is that you are invisible from the rest of the world, then i invite you to connect it with this shame and see how low self-esteem and emotional codependency are intimately connected to the feeling of toxic shame that you now feel. this toxic shame is one of the countless consequences of having shared a part of our life with a perverse narcissist. it is a feeling of inferiority, of inhumanity, of being worthless, of being damaged and not being good enough to exist. when we lose our freedom, when we feel trapped in our learned helplessness and we let ourselves be rescued by our abuser or even ask them for help, the feeling of shame bursts into our life because of this lack of value that we are giving ourselves. and when this shame comes, we usually do something that is very strange, and that is to silence it; we push it deep inside us and this prevents us from moving forward because by doing this you also take your self-esteem with you. then, in some way you follow this pattern of silencing, that everything is fine, reinforcing this evil pattern of avoidance and dissociation; reinforcing in this way also the traumatic bond, because this toxic shame in some way is preventing us from walking away from this person because we can't stand it any more, but if we don't say it, it doesn't exist. i say this because shame is an emotion that we feel in the body just like trauma, which is only caused by a representation, a projection and that understanding is fundamental. shame is one of the most marked factors of anti-resilience, that is, it's a feeling that makes it difficult for us to put our own tools into action in order to be resilient. shame is one of the most powerful feelings that prevents us from recovering and continuing in our life and personal development in an optimal way. no wonder it takes so much to heal from narcissistic abuse.


after a trauma, human beings set in motion the resilience factors that we have in order to be able to manage what is happening and to be able to continue with our lives in the best possible way, but there are three anti-resilience factors, which are shame, social isolation and dissociation, which is that blockage that we experience in order to survive what is happening. these three factors are found in the invisible abuse, in the consequences and in the causes of the maintenance of this perverse narcissistic abuse. these three factors are like big stones in the road that prevent us from moving forward after having been there experiencing a traumatic event. i also want to remember that the victims of invisible abuse suffer what is called traumatic accumulation. furthermore, invisible abuse invites you to abandon your personal integrity of your own free will, it invites you to separate yourself from your own authenticity, that is, that you are the one who decides to abandon yourself. when you become aware of this, you experience in your body a feeling of absolute repentance because at that moment you realize that you have given that person a very powerful tool that will allow them to continually point out your weaknesses, and your defects, every day. they will play with them, they will instrumentalize them to manipulate you, extort you and get what they want from you. this makes shame and guilt connect strongly with the traumatic bond, we feel shame because we realize that the first person to betray themselves here has been oneself. we feel shame for feeling helpless, for feeling useless. we feel shame when we realize that we have been programmed from a very young age to feel ashamed, we feel shame for having had to hide our wound, for having had to always put on that mask of laughter, that everything is fine. we feel shame for having been the first to cover up the abuse we have received, for being the first to justify that abuse, for turning it around, because we have fallen so many times. we feel shame for not knowing how to set limits and the worst thing is that we repress that shame so that we can continue in that relationship, in that pattern continuously. because we have chosen to dissociate the pain and interiorize the shame, but no matter how much we repress it mentally, the body will not do it because it registers everything. trying to maintain any kind of relationship or contact with the perverse narcissist, even from this zero-limit contact, also causes us to continue repressing shame.


in shame, it is the person themselves who put themselves in a situation of social isolation and de-socialization, and this "tragic land" is a mechanism that prevents resilience from being set in motion in us. hiding so that people do not see what is happening is blocking your ability to heal. the shame of narcissistic abuse is transformed into a double condemnation. the first is the contempt and abuse that you have received, and the second is that you keep all this abuse to yourself; all this aggression is interiorized, hidden in order to normalize the situation, thus abandoning your personal integrity, betraying your essence and your self-esteem. we feel bad when we feel that shame and that feeling translates into guilt; then here you begin to dialogue with yourself and you have a totally distorted representation of yourself. you feel much smaller because you've felt so badly treated, but when you want to talk about this with someone, you think you're going to give them an image of yourself as a victim, as a weakness, and that makes you feel ashamed, that's why you're not going to say it, that's why you're going to keep covering up the abuse you're receiving. look at this dynamic, and there's only one type of personality that doesn't know shame, and you know what it is. the perverse narcissists, because in their universe, there's no one but themselves. selfishness is such that only what they feel or think is important, the only important thing is that their pleasure can be satiated. the others are like pieces of a board that they use to feed themselves, like shadows. therefore, they allow themselves to destroy the life of others and they do not feel shame because they are incapable of entering into that mental field of the other, because the other simply does not exist for the perverse narcissist.


and that said, how do i get rid of toxic shame?


we begin to free ourselves from toxic shame when we get our head out of the hole, when we begin to come out of our cave, when we begin to come out of there, from where we are anchored there. we begin to free ourselves from shame when we decide to start walking in the real world, when we decide to take responsibility for our life, when we decide to take action and make decisions, actions, when we decide to look at ourselves, when we decide to pay attention to ourselves, when we take the courage to explain our history to people we trust to give credibility to what we are living, and to put a name to things. if you hide because you feel protected, because you escape from the eyes of others, from that judgment that makes you uncomfortable and because the pattern of your shell dictates it, you will not solve anything. in fact, in a way you tone up that problem because you can't trigger any process of resilience in this way.


and what is it that keeps us from getting our heads out of the hole? fear.


fear is the chain that binds us to shame, it's what leads us to hurt ourselves continuously day after day, it's what leads us to continue in that same pattern of bonding with abusive people. when you decide to get your head out of the hole, it's because you're willing to abandon yourself to your authenticity, to your genuineness and to your fears. because you decide to undress before life, it is because you are willing to leave your comfort zone, that false security that you have been building since you were a child. because perhaps when you were a child, instead of receiving love and care from your parents, what you received were fears disguised as toxic protectionism, the one that anchors you to depend on others because inside you you say you are worthless, and that alone you cannot live in this life. and that fear is represented within you through that internal dialogue and we need to break with that dialogue based on fear precisely, to connect with our true essence, with the true self. this will make you aware of who you are and what you've come here to do because you will have broken away from the denial that you had forced yourself to install in yourself in order to survive, and when you break the traumatic bond, you free yourself from a great deal of fear, giving rise to the possibility of reinventing yourself from your true essence; and when you feel like showing the world what you are, it's because you have lost your fears and it's because you have freed yourself from all the shame that has accompanied you all your life. because the shame, was what was conditioning you to disconnect from yourself and from others. when this happens, you will feel in full confidence and security, and that inner strength will open the doors to a truly wonderful path full of challenges, because in that moment of connection with yourself you will have realized that you are beginning to be able to create your own reality, and when you connect with yourself again, you will reconnect with those people you left behind and who for you were very important, sources of self-love and respect. this will give you strength to just decide to leave behind those people who have despised and abused you, because you will have realized one very important thing: your attraction to abusive and narcissistic people, lay precisely in that shame that has accompanied you so long since your childhood, which translated into a label of that you were broken, you were defective or you were bad. and you would be with perverse narcissists because since they too are broken, and since they too are defective, in your mind of insecurity, you would say to yourself that at least they would love you. because in our internal dialogue we told ourselves that we didn't deserve another kind of love, a healthier one, for example. because that toxic shame makes us live in the belief that life has to go badly for us, because we don't deserve to be loved, because we are a failure.


now that you have reviewed your past and have realized that who you have to forgive is precisely yourself, from that feeling of self-pity and acceptance, you will feel stronger to become aware of your beliefs and the emotional anchors to those patterns that kept you from being yourself. then you can decide to take the last necessary step just for healing when you become aware of how that shame works, you may decide to get your head out of that hole, that hole that has been protecting all your life, but has ceased to be functional today, and then decide to look where you have to look, where your fears point. that is when we realize that fears have always pointed to one thing; to a path, the path of truth, the path of your truth that connects you with that authenticity that makes you unique, but that decision only depends on you, to progressively move towards your valuable objectives always guided by that magnetized internal compass of your honesty and self-esteem.