#shame

If you have realistic ideals and can generally live up to them, your self-esteem will not be threatened. If your ideals are exaggerated and you cannot reach them, your good feelings from successes may be short lived, and you may feel that you are never good enough. The continued hope for the impossible, the expectation that you will or can be unconditionally loved and adored, is not facing reality but rather holding onto an idealized image of yourself and an idealized version of what others can provide. If this is the case, your sense of self may be threatened by shame and its resulting depression, or by feelings of inadequacy for not living up to your unrealistic ideals. A better understanding of shame may help you recognize your tendency to hide what you feel from yourself and others. ↗

— Mary C. Lamia

#ideals #self-esteem #shame #unconditional-love #love

I was convinced I was worth less than my straight peers. I was at best inauthentic, and the longer I went without amending that dishonesty, the more ashamed I felt. ↗

— James McGreevey

#ashamed #best #convinced #dishonesty #felt

I think Ellenor is embarrassed and ashamed and has devoted all of her energy to the law and to helping other people get justice because it's too difficult for her to face her own struggle for justice. ↗

— Camryn Manheim

#because #devoted #difficult #embarrassed #energy

Everybody kind of understands, Oh yeah you take drugs and it does something to your brain and then you can't stop. It's easier to describe that shame, that horrible feeling of not being able to control your own life. ↗

— Aimee Mann

#being #brain #control #describe #does

This was not guilt: guilt is what you feel when you have done something wrong. What I felt was shame: I was what was wrong. ↗

— Atul Gawande

#shame #science

I vowed that I would never tell anyone of my shame. They say that when you kept a secret, it eats you up inside, but I felt it was better that way. I wanted to appear strong in front of my children and my family. I didn't want anybody to know. And I would maintain my persona as Jenni, the Rivera Rebel who had never lost a fight. But deep down inside I knew I had lost a piece of myself that I would never recover. My soul had been shattered, but to the outside world I did just as I had been taught since I was a little girl; I kept my head up and continued forward. It is, after all, the Rivera way. ↗

— Jenni Rivera

#rape #shame #strength #survivor #family

Posing the question: does the god of love use underarm deodorant, vaginal spray and fluoride toothpaste? ↗

— Harlan Ellison

#liberation #sex #sexuality #shame #love

Soul, if you want to learn secrets,
 your heart must forget about shame
 and dignity. You are God's lover,
 yet you worry what people are saying. ↗

— Rumi

#identity #love #rumi #shame #love

Oh! that look of love!" continued he, between his teeth, as he bolted himself into his own private room. "And that cursed lie; which showed some terrible shame in the background, to be kept from the light in which I thought she lived perpetually! Oh, Margaret, Margaret! Mother, how you have tortured me! Oh! Margaret, could you not have loved me? I am but uncouth and hard, but I would never have led you into any falsehood for me. ↗

— Elizabeth Gaskell

#deception #dishonor #falsehood #love #shame

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. ↗

— Charles Dickens

#tears #rain