Why do people who feel deep shame often act shamelessly? What drives someone to develop behaviors that seem to contradict their inner feelings?
Understanding shameless behavior helps unlock the complex relationship between shame and our coping mechanisms. When we feel ashamed, we might develop strategies to either fix perceived flaws or shift our uncomfortable feelings onto others.
Keep reading to discover how perfectionism, power-seeking, and blame-shifting all connect to our deeper struggles with shame.
Shameless Behavior
John Bradshaw contends that internalized shame causes us to develop behaviors that make us feel shameless. Shameless behavior is a strategy that allows us to either a) feel we’re “correcting” our sources of shame, or b) rid ourselves of the shame by “transferring” it to other people. There are many forms of shamelessness.
(Shortform note: Bradshaw’s definition of shameless behavior differs from how society commonly defines shamelessness. Shamelessness typically describes the act of brazenly engaging in unacceptable behavior without concern for the consequences or your public image—in other words, doing something bad and feeling no guilt for it.)
Bradshaw writes that many shameless behaviors stem from the effort to be impenetrable—a form of “correcting” our shame. Perfectionism is one example of this—if we’re perfect, we don’t have to worry about not being enough, and we can avoid shame. Another example is striving for power—if we’re more powerful than others, they can’t shame us. These behaviors often lead to the tendency to brag or remind others of our superiority—this ensures that everyone sees us as impenetrable and is distracted from anything that might be shameful about us.
Shamelessness as an attempt to correct shame may also manifest as being obsessively “moral” and “good.” For example, you might compulsively put others before yourself to cancel out shameful feelings of selfishness, or you might try to gain moral superiority over others.
(Shortform note: In Complex PTSD, Walker explains that these two forms of shame, what he calls perfectionism and virulent shame, are trauma responses to the abuse (or abandonment) people endured. However, Walker notes that these behaviors aren’t just responses to childhood trauma but to recurring trauma in general. Further, these two responses are likely to result from experiences of victim-blaming—when the abuser makes the victim believe they’re being rightfully punished rather than wrongfully abused.)
Finally, shamelessness as an attempt to transfer shame to others often comes in the form of anger, blame, and acting out toward others. For instance, if we’re having shameful thoughts or feelings, we may offload them by accusing others of having those thoughts and feelings even if they don’t. For example, if we’re annoyed at someone, we might convince ourselves that they’re annoyed at us. Another form of shamelessness is outwardly accusing or getting angry at others for exhibiting thoughts, feelings, or behaviors we’re ashamed of.
(Shortform note: While Bradshaw positions this form of shamelessness as one of the many products of shame, Brené Brown puts a much heavier emphasis on it. In I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t), Brown explains that this phenomenon—anger and blame—is one of the big three effects of shame that makes it toxic. She explains that anger and blame not only make us miserable but perpetuate our shame by disabling our ability to connect with others. According to Brown, connection is one of the big three elements of both living a fulfilled life and healing shame.)
