Internalized Shame Quotes

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

The Refinement of Shame. People are not ashamed to think something foul, but they are ashamed when they think these foul thoughts are attributed to them.

I was insecure and ashamed. Unless you're gay, being gay has never been looked at as being cool. And I wanted to be cool.

Why does shame and self-loathing become cruelty to the innocent ?

The worst guilt is to accept an undeserved guilt — and that is what you have been doing all your life.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can make me think I deserved it.

Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself.

I was a gay kid who didn't know I was a gay kid, which was really challenging because you think there is something wrong with you until you understand what it is.

I promote my own self-hatred.

When I was growing up as a young lesbian in the '50s, I looked in vain for books about my people. I did find some paperbacks with lurid covers in the local bus station, but they ended with the gay character's committing suicide, dying in a car crash, being sent to a mental hospital, or 'turning' heterosexual.

I was born fat and have always been, which was just fine and even healthy and cute until I turned ten or so. Puberty hit like a hurricane and brought a new set of rules. All of a sudden it was my fault I was chubby.

I think, a lot of times, where people see they're insufficient or lacking in certain areas, they feel they're being judged even when they're not. And they condemn themselves more than anyone else does.

As I was growing up, it was made clear that the fat me wasn't welcome, that a thin person was expected and awaited, and impatiently so.

I think the hardest thing to overcome is judging yourself and being your own worst critic so to speak.

I realized so much of my college years were spent not wanting to be gay. I just imagined how different it would be if I were going through that experience in 2016 as opposed to 1984.

I think cultures of conformity produce vast quantities of shame, both in people who simply can't conform and people who do conform, but underneath, they're not feeling conformist.

I don't want to see myself as this sad, disabled girl. I know that. I don't want other people to see me as that, either.

I believed what people said, that I don't deserve to be a leader because of the way I look. That I don't deserve to be popular, that I don't deserve to be loved. I'm not intelligent.

I've always been the biggest bully to myself.

Mirabelle is not affected by a man’s failures to approach her, as her own self-depreciating attitude never allows the idea that he would in the first place.

Think of all the women you know who will not allow themselves to be seen without makeup. I often wonder how they feel about themselves at night when they are climbing into bed with intimate partners. Are they overwhelmed with secret shame that someone sees them as they really are? Or do they sleep with rage that who they really are can be celebrated or cared for only in secret?

My white skin disgusts me. My passport disgusts me. They are the marks of an insufferable privilege bought at the price of others' agony. If I could peel myself inside out I would be glad. If I could become part of the oppressed I would be free.

I suppose for whatever reason I actively welcome being put down, something which perhaps goes back to my upbringing - that accusation of not being worthy which could be laid at one's door.

Being gay facilitated my capacity for shame. As a child, I carried around this thing that gradually became this big dark secret. When I came out in a newspaper interview at 30 I was expecting the reaction the following day to be like the climax of 'Dead Poets Society,' but actually no one really cared.

I just am trans. That's just the way it is. I knew this as a child. But I was told that because I expressed femininity in a boy's body, I needed to be silent about it. To be ashamed. That led to isolation, which then made it easier for me to be prey to a predator in my own home.