Therapy for Cultural Guilt and Shame
For Brown women who feel like they’re “bad daughters” for choosing themselves.
“That makes me feel bad, so that must mean I did something wrong.”
Is it bad? Or is it just:
Unfamiliar, strange, or different?
Something new for you to do?
A reflection of how much you’ve learned to abandon yourself?
You confronting your history of self-betrayal?
A reflection of how much you’ve been conditioned to feel bad about honoring yourself?
I’m going to hold your hand as I say this:
You’ve been conditoned to feel this way.
Your values can change over time because your beliefs about yourself and the world can change over time too. As your values change over time, you might start to feel guilty and ashamed for doing things differently, especially when your relatives have certain expectations of you and you don’t want to disappoint them. You might feel intense anxiety and have trouble taking your mind off things. You might feel sad when you and your family start to grow apart.
Guilt and shame are “hidden” emotions to a lot of clinical mental health disorders, such as depression, grief, anxiety, OCD, eating disorders and body-image issues. Since these emotions are conditioned emotions and imposed by other people, they can also be conditioned by traumatic events.
This is why I call myself “The Bad Indian Therapist”. When we’ve been taught that there’s only one (1) way to belong, and that we’re not belonging the “right” way, we can start to feel left out, sad, and disconnected from people. When we do feel connected to someone or to some place, we may start to feel anxious of losing this connection. We may feel like we have to work very hard to keep good things in our life so we’re afraid to make mistakes. What if you don’t have to work so hard to belong?
Interested in learning more about how guilt and shame are related to mental health? Visit my Depression, Anxiety, Body Image and Eating Disorders, and Trauma and PTSD pages to learn more about my approach.
Did this resonate with you? If you’re looking for a new therapist, I may just be the best fit for you. Click below and schedule your free intro call today.
