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To understand what people do when bad things happen to them when they are little, you have to know what shame is. Shame is kind of like guilt. Guilt is what we feel when we do something wrong. Shame feels kind of like guilt but has more to do with who we are. And we can feel shame about things that are not wrong, but just are about not being perfect. Shame is a feeling that comes in different sizes. A little bit of shame feels like embarrassment, like when you fall down and maybe your classmates giggle because you're clumsy. This is a good shame because it makes us want to try to be less clumsy so we won't be so embarrassed (and we also don't fall down and hurt ourselves as much). Shame can be good for us, like guilt is good for us, but it is very, very uncomfortable. When we feel it we want to get rid of it as fast as we can. So another example of shame is when we recognize that we are a sinner needing God's forgiveness. This is another example of a good feeling of shame because it makes us want to come to God and ask Him to forgive our sins and we want Jesus to come into our heart to help make us a better person one day at a time.

There is another kind of shame that isn't healthy. We call that kind of shame toxic shame. This is a special kind of shame that children sometimes feel when bad things happen. The bad things can be stuff like earthquakes and tornadoes, or it can be someone doing something bad to the child. A little child wants to think that everyone around them is good and that the world is a safe and happy place, so when bad things happen to a child, the child sometimes thinks it happened because she was bad. The child will sometimes sit and try to figure out how she can make herself perfect so that bad things won't happen any more. When a child has bad things happen to her and she doesn't get to see a therapist (a therapist or counselor is like a doctor for healing feelings and memories) then the toxic shame hangs around and gives her problems as an adult. Some of those problems are things like thinking you don't deserve to have good things, being afraid of things or people, thinking you are stupid when you're really smart, and so on.

Sometimes the bad things are so bad, or so many, that the child will make herself forget they happen. She does this by walling off the bad memories and feelings in a part of her mind where she can't get to them. She doesn't always do this on purpose; it just happens. The problem is, the bad feelings that go with the memories don't always get walled off with the memories. So then when the child grows up she can be very confused and feel crazy because there are all these bad feelings and no reason (that she remembers) for them.

Sometimes when bad things happen a child will pretend to be somewhere else. This is like "spacing out" during class where you don't hear what the teacher is saying any more and maybe get in trouble for it.

Another thing that a little child will do when bad things happen is she will sometimes pretend that the bad things are happening to someone else. So she will make up other people like characters in a play and pretend that the bad things happened to them instead.

Now all these things that a child does when bad things happen, like forgetting, spacing out and pretending it happened to someone else are called "coping" and they are normal. The problem is, if the child doesn't get to see a counselor these things she does to cope become habits. When she grows up to become a woman and maybe a mother, she still does these things and she can't stop without the help of a counselor.

The woman might keep on blaming all bad things that happen on herself because of the toxic shame. She might not remember that bad things happened to her when she was a child. She might forget stuff a lot. She might "space out" a lot. And she might act like the different characters too. And she may get in these weird moods where she thinks the bad things are still happening today. Sometimes when she feels a lot of toxic shame she may "punish herself" for the toxic shame that she still feels. So she might hurt herself in some way. Some people will whip themselves with a belt. Other people will make little cuts on their arms, things like that.

Some people do all of these things: blame themselves for bad things, forget things, space out, act like different characters and punish themselves.

All these things might look like she's crazy, but she isn't! She may look psychotic or schizophrenic or manic-depressive or any of those fancy names for crazy, but she isn't. She is just a very complicated person who had some bad things happen to her when she was a child. It is normal to grow up kind of complicated when bad things happen to a child.

The good news is, people can and do get over it so they don't have to do those odd things to cope any more. But the bad news is, when someone gets complicated like this, it takes a long time to heal from it, usually several years of counseling.

How does someone heal then?

Well, she has to see a therapist who helps her remember what happened and understand that it wasn't her fault. The therapist also helps her let out all the feelings of fear, hurt, anger, and toxic shame that have been bottled up inside her all these years.

To heal she also has to spend a lot of time with girlfriends who are willing to learn and understand what she is going through. She needs a lot of time to talk alone with her friends. She also has to spend a lot of time alone in her room writing in her journal or diary. And because the toxic shame feeling makes her think she will get in trouble for telling the truth about what happened or for writing about her characters, it is really, really important that she know that no one else, not even her husband if she's married, is going to read what she writes in her journal. It's also really important that you not talk to anyone about the odd things that she does except with people she tells you that you can. The reason for this is that other people may become frightened and think that she is crazy when she isn't no matter how hard you try to explain it to them. Some people are just plain thick headed, and unfortunately, some people like to gossip. (It's called gossip when people repeat things without permission, whether or not it's true. It's called slander when people lie about people.) There is one very important exception to talking about someone else without their permission, and that's when someone does something to you that hurts or makes you feel funny. You are supposed to tell someone you can trust about those things so they can help make those things stop happening. A good person to talk to about those things is a counselor.

P.S. Bad things sometimes happen to little boys too and they usually react the same way.

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