America’s Toxic Shame Exposed

As a psychiatric nurse, something recently came to me over my morning coffee:  we as citizens are part of one giant dysfunctional family, part of which is either ignoring our country’s problems or pretending they don’t exist. The mechanism for this is denial, and in dysfunctional families, denial is a powerful force. Denial exerts enough influence for abusive family members to force their version of reality upon others with fear of reprisal. The reprisal might be withdrawing affection, instituting punishment to those who do not agree or accept and comply with the fantasy. It becomes much easier for the family members to agree.

The term for this phenomenon is “gaslighting”, derived from a British film in 1944 in which Ingrid Bergman plays a traumatized wife whose husband is trying to convince her she is insane. “Gaslighting” came to represent the behavior in which a person challenges the memories and perceptions of someone. In extreme denial, controlling people often believe their own press and many adult children of dysfunctional parenting will tell you the mantra in the homes they grew up in was “that never happened!”

In today’s America, we are truly turning into one giant dysfunctional family, being toxically shamed by media and by government agencies.   How many recent scandals—Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS, NSA–have been hushed, pushed under the carpet—and when we ask for answers, we’re told we’re crazy for even mentioning it?

We citizens are also being publicly shamed into believing we are guilty of the right to protect ourselves and defend our very lives. Our public servants, elected, or usurped, have decided we don’t need pesky things like guns, or privacy to keep ourselves safe and we’re ridiculed for speaking out about it.  They tell us we have NSA, DHS, and TSA to decide on our safety because apparently we can’t possibly keep ourselves safe.

One other tactic in dysfunctional families is to isolate the members. The entire purpose of the Trayvon Martin psychological assault via government injection into the trial was specifically to divide the races and create shame. Only then could dissent and discord with the version of reality that played out be encouraged. The dynamics have worked because the American brethren who derive benefits from the chaos and riots and threats believe they have succeeded when they put perfectly innocent ‘Crazy A** Crackas’ on the defensive for having done no wrong. This is what is being perpetuated–by the White House–this very moment.

In the dysfunctional family, someone must pay a price for having a different mindset.  In the book, Healing the Shame that Binds, author John Bradshaw writes that at the root of dysfunction is shame.  Bradshaw wrote the following poem that I believe it is very appropriate now, as “shame” is the very tactic used by the Obama administration against us. We are targeted and blamed for our feelings, thoughts and rights. It is toxic when a government directs its actions against innocent private citizens who do not go along with their version of ‘reality’, encouraging the worst punishment directed at the ones who refuse to say the elephant is not in the room.