The Shame That Keeps You Silent (And Why It's Not Yours to Carry)
Estimated Read Time: 7 minutes
You haven't told anyone the whole story. Maybe you've shared pieces, carefully edited versions that leave out the parts you're most ashamed of. The parts where you didn't fight back. Where you stayed. Where you went back. Where your body responded in ways you didn't want it to.
That shame sits in your chest like a stone. It tells you that what happened was your fault. That you're damaged now. That if people knew the truth, they'd judge you. Blame you. Confirm what you already suspect about yourself.
If this is you, I need you to hear something: the shame you're carrying isn't yours. It belongs to the person who hurt you. But somehow, you ended up holding it.
Why Shame Shows Up After Trauma
Shame is different from guilt. Guilt says "I did something bad." Shame says "I am bad."
After sexual assault or domestic violence, shame often becomes the primary feeling because your brain is trying to make sense of something senseless. If you can find a way that it was your fault, at least the world makes sense again. At least there's some logic. Some control.
"I shouldn't have been drinking." "I should have left sooner." "I should have fought harder." "I shouldn't have worn that." "I should have known better."
Your brain offers you these explanations because randomness and powerlessness are too terrifying. Taking the blame feels better than accepting that sometimes bad things happen to good people for no reason at all.
But here's the truth: what happened to you wasn't your fault. Not even a little bit. Not even the parts you're most ashamed of.
The Freeze Response (And Why You Didn't Fight Back)
One of the most common sources of shame after sexual assault is the freeze response. You didn't fight. You didn't scream. You couldn't move. Maybe you even complied.
And now you torture yourself with "why didn't I do something?"
Here's why: When your nervous system detects inescapable danger, it has three options. Fight, flight, or freeze. You don't choose which one happens. Your body chooses based on rapid calculations about which response gives you the best chance of survival.
Freeze is an ancient survival mechanism. It's the same response that makes an animal play dead when a predator attacks. It reduces harm. It helps you survive.
When fighting would have made things worse. When running wasn't possible. When compliance was the safest option. Your body chose freeze. Your body was trying to save your life.
You didn't "let it happen." You survived it using the resources available to you in that moment.
Why You Stayed (And Why That Doesn't Mean You Wanted It)
If you're carrying shame about staying in an abusive relationship or going back to someone who hurt you, please listen carefully.
Leaving an abusive relationship is not like leaving a bad restaurant. It's like trying to escape while someone is telling you that leaving will make things worse, that no one else will want you, that you're overreacting, that they'll change, that you're the problem.
Plus, statistically, the most dangerous time for a domestic violence victim is when they're trying to leave. Your fear wasn't irrational. Your hesitation wasn't weakness.
And if you went back? That doesn't mean you wanted the abuse. It means:
You hoped the person you loved would actually change this time
You had practical barriers (money, housing, children, immigration status)
You were trauma-bonded (your nervous system was literally addicted to the cycle)
You were isolated and didn't have support
You were exhausted from fighting and survival
The average person leaves an abusive relationship 7 times before leaving for good. Not because they're weak. Because leaving is monumentally hard and complicated.
The Body Betrayal Shame
This is the shame people almost never talk about: when your body responded during assault. When you froze but your body had an orgasm. When you felt arousal even though you didn't want what was happening. When your body seemed to cooperate.
This is perhaps the most isolating shame because you think it means you wanted it. It doesn't.
Physical arousal is a physiological response to stimulation. It's not consent. It's not desire. It's just your body doing what bodies do when certain areas are touched.
Orgasm during assault is actually a protective response, releasing endorphins that help you survive pain. Your body was trying to protect you, not betray you.
Whatever your body did or didn't do during assault, it was trying to help you survive. It wasn't evidence that you wanted what happened.
The Self-Compassion Break Practice
Shame thrives in harsh self-judgment. This practice interrupts that cycle by offering yourself the compassion you'd give someone you love.
When shame shows up, try this:
Put your hand on your heart. Feel the warmth of your hand on your chest.
Say to yourself (out loud if you can, silently if you need to):
"This is a moment of suffering. What happened to me was painful. I'm struggling right now, and that makes sense. Other people who've been through this struggle too. I'm not alone in this. May I be kind to myself in this moment. May I give myself the compassion I need."
These aren't magic words that make shame disappear. But they create a tiny space between you and the shame. A moment of gentleness instead of attack.
Do this every time the shame spiral starts. You're literally rewiring your brain's response to these memories.
The Externalizing Shame Exercise
Shame feels like it's part of you. This exercise helps you separate yourself from it.
Here's how:
Get a piece of paper and something to write with. Draw a simple outline of a body (stick figure is fine).
Now, using a different color or pen, draw where you feel shame in your body. Maybe it's a dark cloud in your chest. Maybe it's a heavy weight in your stomach. Maybe it's tightness in your throat.
Label it. "This is the shame."
Now draw yourself next to this body. You are separate from the shame. You contain it, but you are not it.
On your drawing of yourself, write: "I am a person who survived something terrible. The shame isn't mine."
This visual separation matters. You can have shame without being shame.
Rewriting the Story You Tell Yourself
Shame keeps you trapped in one version of events: the one where it was your fault, where you're broken, where you should have done something different.
This exercise doesn't change what happened. It changes the story you tell yourself about what happened.
Take one memory you carry shame about. Write down:
The shame story: "I'm stupid for trusting him. I should have known better. I let this happen."
Now write the truth story: "I trusted someone who seemed trustworthy. I made the best decisions I could with the information I had. I survived something I shouldn't have had to survive. I did nothing wrong."
Read the truth story out loud. Your brain might resist it. That's okay. It's been telling you the shame story for so long, the truth story sounds foreign.
But keep reading it. Daily if you need to. Your brain can learn a new story.
Shame-Resilience Through Connection
Shame researcher Brené Brown says shame needs three things to grow: secrecy, silence, and judgment. And it can't survive empathy.
This is why shame keeps you isolated. As long as you don't tell anyone, the shame can keep convincing you that you're uniquely awful. That what happened to you is uniquely shameful.
But when you share your story with someone who responds with empathy, the shame starts to lose its grip.
You don't have to share with everyone. You don't have to share the details. But sharing with one safe person, "This happened to me and I feel ashamed about it," can begin to break shame's power.
In therapy, this is often where the deepest healing happens. Not when you're given advice or told what to think. But when you share the thing you're most ashamed of and someone responds with, "Thank you for trusting me with this. What happened to you was not your fault. You're not broken."
The Parts That Still Feel True
Even as you work on releasing shame, some days it will still feel absolutely true that what happened was your fault.
This is normal. Healing isn't linear. You don't just decide shame is irrational and then never feel it again.
You'll have good days where you can hold the truth clearly: it wasn't your fault, you survived something terrible, you're not damaged.
And you'll have hard days where the shame comes back full force and you believe every harsh thing you've ever thought about yourself.
On those hard days, you don't have to believe the shame. You just have to not act on it. You just have to remember that this feeling will pass, that you've felt this way before and it wasn't true then either.
Shame Doesn't Get the Last Word
Shame wants you to stay small. Silent. Hidden. Convinced that you're unworthy of love, support, or healing.
But here's what shame doesn't want you to know: you survived. You're still here. And despite everything you've been through and everything you've been told about yourself, you're reading this right now, which means some part of you still believes healing is possible.
That part of you is right.
The shame you carry isn't yours to keep carrying. You can put it down. Not all at once. Not perfectly. But piece by piece, moment by moment, you can practice believing a different story about yourself.
You are not what happened to you. You are not the worst things that were done to you. You are not the shame you've been carrying.
You are a person who survived something that should never have happened. And you deserve to heal.
Struggling with shame after sexual assault or domestic violence? We provide trauma-informed therapy throughout Utah that addresses shame at its roots. You don't have to carry this alone. Schedule a free consultation to talk about shame-resilient healing.