We have been taking a look at some of the common cover ups for toxic shame. When someone is shame bound, there is a tendency to do certain things in order to cover over the pain that shame produces. Sometimes the cover ups make little sense to outsiders. However, for the person experiencing the pain, any relief seeking behavior will suffice. That is true even when an outsider would think that the behavior would be even more pain producing. Throughout the past five entries, we have examined...

There are many ways that people will try to cover up the feelings of being bad, tainted, worthless and embarrassed that seem to go hand in hand with shame. Here we continue our conversation about some of the ways shame bound people try to deal with the pain. Three are explored here and they include patronizing, caretaking and people pleasing.

Patronizing – To patronize is to support, protect and champion someone who is unequal in benefits, knowledge or power, but who...