I hear you I have loads of feeling of shame too....very common with sexual abuse and other kinds of abuse....toxic shame that is their not our but someone we were burden with it.

Very hard to get rid of...I would like to hear how others have done it.
I struggle very hard with this feeling of shame.

Talking about it is the first line of releasing the shame, etc. The more discussed out loud, the more the shame will get back on the one with whom it really lies.

You've made a huge leap of progress, in my book, in being able to share with your counsellor that which causes you much shame. I went through this process in the early 90's. Telling my therapist what caused me deep shame only triggered in me a strong shame reaction. I had no choice but to live through it - but it helps to remind myself that the shame ISN'T DESERVED, it belongs to the abusers. Also, to remind myself that I am pure in spirit at all times, and these feelings are built AROUND my pure spirit, in the area of image. In time, my shame has all but faded - I had to do lots and lots more therapy along the way, and talk to others I trusted.
I guess the main thing I want to tell you is, that the shame doesn't belong to you. You were only ever an innocent little child.

Syndrome brings up a very good point, you have taken the first step to releasing the shame! The more we open up to others with our authentic truth the easier it gets... This is not an easy thing to do at first though, it is shame filled, embarrassing, and scary to think of what others judgements and reactions will be... The only way to make it get easier to to do it when it is still really hard and the. Do it again, and again!!! Write your truth, speak your truth.... And eventually you will see that the gift of truth is not just a gift for you, but that it can be a gift that we give others too!!!
I have several examples of this to draw from, of how speaking my shameful embarrassing truth to people has helped the other person at the same time as it was helping me!!! The best and most tangible example of this is one of my employers, he is a 73 year old veitnam vet and the sweetest most soft spoken person I have met! I was triggered at work one day, I work at an in home daycare with 6 babies under 3 years old... One of the oldest girls who is now 3, I seriously suspect incest with her and I feel like it is her father that is the pervert, just total intuition maybe mixed in with my own personal experience and trauma!!! But anyways I was taking to him about my fears for this child's safety and that I wanted to talk with the mother... The. I just came out and said it, I was super nervous and felt like it maybe not the right thing to do or say to this nice old man, but I did, I said, I am a child sexual abuse survivor and my daughter is too, she has been raped by my then 13 hear old brother... He was really shocked by the words coming out of my mouth, and with the look. On my face every self doubt suicidal self harming thought came rising to the surface and I felt like I might just drop dead on the spot!!! Then be spoke, ever so quietly,'he said to me... This happend to me too, when I was 8 years old a teenage girl was babysitting me and she made me do things to her like that! And I have NEVER told anyone, so please don't tell Mandy (his wife (they have been together 50 years!!!) becaus she doesn't even know!!! I was the first and so far the only person that this man had eer disclosed his sexual abuse to!!! And he would not have ever done that unless I had been a big awkward voice of truth!!! It was incredibly healing for me and I felt like it had been that way for him too!!! Truth is a gift that we can share with the world! Like I said, there are so many examples like this that I have to prove that theory!!! The best thing is to feel confident with my truth!!! I have had to tell so many people and hear my truth over and over, I still feel raw and cut up and exposed when I am talking truth... And sometimes I still feel intense shame and guilt for maybe opening up to the wrong person, but them I am proved wrong because that person doesn't judge me, and our relationship continues... It is very healing to speak your authentic truth!!! I am so proud of you for taking this hard and awkward first step towards freeing your emotions from the prion they have inhabited all these years, the truh will set you free!!!

Ah, yes, that dreadful duo, shame and guilt.
You are extremely brave, loum and each of your victory is one for every survivor.
my biggest shame was to confide to my therapist how I had been duped by my father's brain washing;. was so dissociated that i was ashamed of my naivity instead of my abuser's sadism.
I also displaced that feeling of shame by "fixating" it on my hairy legs.My mother would not let me go to the beauty parlour when i was a teen ager and I developed OCD.My husband until recently displaced the shame of having been sexually abused by his father and step mother by feeling shame for his hands which he mutilated.
Thanks to our therapists, we are now putting the shame where it belongs, on our abusers.

I'm feeling OK, but last night not very good. I started writing in my journal and that started a debate with all my parts about my father including the suicidal part and the self injuring part. At least I was able to not hurt myself. It was very tiring though.

Thank you for all the support.

The suicidal self injuring part is there because of the PTSD... The brain got wired to feel that way when you where triggered by this stuff... In a really scientific sense... The brain will get stuck on one side or heme sphere so say you where traumatized and you experienced this trauma and the related method for coping with it would all be processed on only the right side of the brain... I do not know how to get out of that one sided brain symptom of PTSD without going through some reconditioning to bring the brains focus from one side to the other side of the brain while you are experiencing a trigger... There are a few different ways to do this that I know of but am sure there should be more that the two I will offer... EMDR and tapping.:. I have only tried EMDR, but a client of mine suggested I try tapping as it was similar but you didn't have to focus on the trauma so much.... I tried the EMDR and found it to help me because I located the very first moment in my life of the trigger that caused the self harm suicidal me to come out and scare everyone away!!! I just wanted to offer up that you are completely normal to have been traumatized in the way you where to feel like that sometimes!!! You are so worth living for!!! You are a hero to stand up to your past, put it down on paper... Hammer it out here, you are making good choices for yor self and your soul!!! You will survive this unfortunate symptom and overcome it!!! Seek out safe counselor that connects with you... If you are not 100% about the one you have then reaserch ones that are trained to do EMDR and and skilled psychotherapists who could prescribe and do talk therapy who have experience with CSA!!!

The therapist I have is wonderful and CSA is one of her specialties. The memories are not what is bothering me now. It's the conflict over my father. The rational adult part that it is the truth. A child part is saying no my father would not hurt me, he loved me and was just showing his love. I have another part that is saying that he had it hard and didn't know any better, he did the best he did. The rational adult is saying that doesn't matter, what he did was unthinkable. The self injuring parts are trying to protect me from those conflicted feelings. There is a part that is saying that I am bad and caused him to do those things. The rational adult is saying you were a very young child and didn't deserve what he did. Another part is saying you shouldn't betray him like this. The rational part is saying he betrayed you.

That is a part of the internal conflict.

Lou it sounds like you are experiencing the full gamut of emotions through separate alters.Parts in denial.Parts that are programmed with Stockholm syndrome.Introjects that blame and shame.It's good to read you also have that logical side helping them and you process.

Kids depend on the love from their parents for survival. I created a fantasy family that was not at all what my family is really like. It took me a long time to break away and shed the notion of my fantasy family. It was also a very painful process.

The good news is that it gets easier. I still get a little confused sometimes but not like before. I think that sometimes these awful memories and the awareness that the abuse was damaging need to be integrated before things can become clearer.

My father couldn't have done anything to hurt me. I must have been too sensitive. I was useless for a boy. I should never have been born.

Try and explain to little Loum that it was not his fault.
yes, his father must have been very loving at times but he was also a very sick man, probably abused himself by his father, and he used little Loum to swithch off his unbearable pain, like he would have used any other child if little Loum had not been born.
There was notning you could have done to prevent this.Your voice is now very important to this community of survivors who can help others to come forward.

Your child self is worthy of your love, the "love" that your father did not give you!!! If you where to have a son, then look into that little sensitive child's eyes, could you do what your father did to you to another child? Would you call that love??? Most often when an adult is sexually interactive with a child it is not out of love that they perform these horrendous acts, it is the need to feel power and control!!! You may have something when you say that your father did not know how to do things differently! That is probably true! But that does not make what he did an act of love, for love means that one person has care and compassion for another person... I would think that you can agree that what your father did was not care or compassion! He did not care how it would effect you!!! It is a hard thing to realize but I. A powerf way freeing to realize that your fathers actions towards you where not love!!! That is not the right way to give your love to your child!!! You could have done nothing to prevent this or to make it happen, as a infant your parents are your only hope of survival so we do the completely natural thing which is to believe that the type of care that is given to us is given out of love... This is not always the case... I realize now that my mother was a sociopath and although she is very good at pretending to love, her brain can not actually process or feel that emotion... So she can act loving while doing something so opposite of love that it would make your head spin!!! This is not entirely her fault as she is a sociopath... But she is a human being on this earth with free will just like your father, and she used her free will to hurt another (me) and your father used his free will to hurt you and call it "love"... They are the ones to blame for this type of deseption!!! And as your adult parts know, this was his fault... But it goes beyond fault and blame... What we need is to hold them accountable!!! They devistated their own child!!! If you have a hard time finding the compassion and unconditional love that your inner child so desperately deserves then try and picture your child self as if you where in fact your own child, look at yourself as a boy like you where looking at your own son... And then Comfort yourself the way you would comfort your son if they had to have suffered without Appropriate love, true loving care and compassion are hard to give yourself but it would be easily given to another innocent child in the exact situation that you where brought up in!!! So allow yourself the same compassion that you can find for others here on this site give yourself all the compassion a child who has suffered at the hands of their own father all the love that child will never Recieve from the parentals!!! Be your own parent and love your child self as if you where given That precious gift of life to love and care for!!!

I'm better this morning. Night time is very difficult for me. That is when the nightmares come. This internal conflict has been very exhausting and it's easy for another part to take control. At least I haven't been hurting myself, although the urge is very strong at times.