Gaslighting victims feel so much more alone and self-doubting when they find themselves among a sea of folks who view the disturbed character differently.
In many ways, character is like a psychological immune system, giving us the resources to be less vulnerable to the forces that might otherwise hurt or corrupt us.
Affirmation dependency is overly relying on external sources for validation of one’s worth. You develop it by not properly understanding what your worth genuinely is and where it stems from.
Shame can be certainly be a bad thing. And some shame is truly toxic. But in our days of rampant character dysfunction, shamelessness is a much bigger problem than too much shame. The most disturbed characters among us are the most shameless.