I sit with a young woman. She exhales and looks at her shoes. “My grandfather molested me when I was six. My father first raped me when I was eleven. Abusive boyfriends took his place by the time I was thirteen. Alcohol, drugs, men. It’s been the story of my life.” She looks up at me flatly. “Nothing works. I hate myself. I am worthless.”
John got the call from Brian’s mother this morning. “He committed suicide last night.” John’s heart drops and he remembers their last session. “My kids would be better off without me,” he said. “My wife has moved on. She already has a boyfriend. She won’t even look me in the eye.” Brian made assurances that he would not commit suicide. But as he sat in his truck pulled off to the side of the road, looking at the home he had been forced to sell when he and his wife separated, his emotions probably churned inside of him. He might have remembered the first day they moved in, with all their hopes and aspirations. His thoughts may have drifted to teaching his kids how to ride their bikes, to a fight he and his wife had, to a piñata hung up on a mesquite tree for a birthday party. And in the end, he believed the world was a better place without him.
The American Psychological Association reports that suicide rates have increased 30 percent in the past two decades.1 In the age group of fifteen- to twenty-four-year-olds, the rate of increase is a staggering 56 percent.2
How can self-hatred be so pervasive in this age of self-positivity?
The rise of suicide rates has directly correlated with the rise of social media.3 John and I don’t think that is a coincidence. Never in the history of the world has there been a time when we all are more susceptible to the dangerous trap of comparison.
When we grew up, we compared ourselves with classmates and neighbors. Today, via social media, we compare ourselves to virtu- ally any acquaintance we’ve ever had. And that comparison is poi- sonous. No matter how great our lives might be, one glance on social media is sure to remind us that someone out there has a better life than we do. A discouraging day is compounded by social media, where we are sure to see friends in some exotic location.
The Voice of Shame
Many of us live with a voice that speaks words of despair into our ears: “I am a fraud.” “I am so messed up.” “I am stupid.” “I am pa- thetic.” “I am worthless.” And the you messages: “You suck.” “Every- one knows you’re an idiot.” “Who do you think you are?” “Everyone thinks you are such a loser.” “No one will ever want you.”
This shame attendant has been present since the relationship be- tween humans and God ruptured. One of the reasons we feel shame is because God has an enemy (and therefore we do too!). His name is Satan, and he’s the accuser and tempter of human beings. Shame is Satan’s most powerful tool to estrange us from God and to multiply the power of sin in our lives. When Adam and Eve rejected God’s authority in their lives and chose to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, what was their immediate response? Shame. Suddenly aware of their nakedness, they hid their bodies. Guilty of what they had done and ashamed of who they were, they hid from their Maker.
This is what shame does: It alienates us from one another and from God. While guilt is our response to what we have done, shame tells us that we are what we have done. Gripped with the fear of what we will see if we encounter ourselves, we hide from ourselves, others, and God.
The voice of shame records fragments of conversations with others that echo our worst fears about ourselves and plays them on a loop. John has told me horror stories of the many times he’s heard, in the chambers of his heart, the echo of an elder’s words at a church he pastored: “You are unfit for ministry.” The context of that statement is wiped out; John’s heart ignores how he’s changed since then. Instead, he feels the words aimed like a bony finger at his chest, accusing him, defeating him.
The voice of shame also takes even small events and attaches messages to them. We write a text message to a friend that is reciprocated with silence. “You aren’t worth his time,” the voice tells us. Yesterday John spoke to a group of pastors, and no one followed up with a text or email. “You should have declined the invitation to speak. Now they know you are an imposter.”
It happens in anticipation as well. Invited to speak to a group of pastors, I have heard the voice of shame speak to me: “You’re stupid. What do you have to offer these older, wiser men?” The voice speaks to us both as we write this book: “Who do you think you are? You’re not authors. No one will read this.”
Once Satan instigates shame, he hands us fraudulent tools to escape its imprisonment: comparison, comfort, and numbing.
“If you just compare yourselves to others who are worse, you will feel better,” he lies. “Console yourself with this bowl of ice cream,” he coos. “Ease your pain with this porn,” he entices. “Shut down so you don’t have to feel these bad feelings,” he whispers.
The shame attendant rubs his hands together when we cave to comparison, comfort, and numbing. Scrolling social media creates more fodder for shame, as does the bowl of ice cream, masturbation, and numbing. Shame wants us to stop, to freeze, to shrink.
Our flesh goes to great lengths to avoid pain and seek comfort. The danger and irony of shame language is that it arrogantly dismisses God. Shame plugs our ears from hearing the voice of God and refuses his truth about who we are.
Amplifying the voice of shame can feel as though we are acting in humility. But it is not humble to believe lies. It is not humble to reject what God says about us. It is sinful to deny God’s words over us; when we do, we position ourselves on the enemy’s battlefield in allegiance with him.
How do we break the cycle of shame? How do we fight the voice that tells us we are worthless?
Excerpt from Trading Faces by John and Angel Beeson.