It’s bad enough when the genesis of shame is others, but it can be even more insidious when the source of shame is the self. This can result in severe depression, withdrawal, and even suicide. It can even be embraced to the extent that the person fights off those attempting to counteract and heal their shame. The term “hugging your cactus” seems quite on target. What can Creator tell us?

We certainly agree with your analysis here, that surrendering to feelings of shame, and even embracing that as a state of being that is believed to be deserved, is creating a prison of one's own making that can be more formidable a lockup than what any perpetrator might do. We have commented many times about healing and healing needs, that it is you yourself who has the greatest power to harm you, and this is why it is so dangerous to give in to negative self-perceptions and then self-talk to reinforce doubts about the self, and self-judgment followed by condemnation all too often, and then a true state of misery having to live as oneself when perceived as a faulty being, deserving to feel ashamed. That is a trap that requires extensive divine-level healing to undo, and this is the most frequent reason people seek a therapist because they are trapped in their own negativity, like quicksand, and cannot escape on their own. It is important to realize that self-condemnation is one of the most dangerous of slippery slopes. It usually begins at the hands of another and even from infancy people begin learning the most painful of lessons, that those around them may not be always kind, trustworthy, loving, and reliable but instead might be unpredictable, arbitrary in their actions, neglectful, or even punitive and, in extreme cases, savage in mistreating a tender spirit just getting started in life. That leaves scars and deep inner wounds that will govern feelings, thoughts, and actions, often for the duration of the lifetime and beyond, because unhealed trauma goes on record, for all of time, and will remain as a painful experience you will be reminded of again and again by the Law of Karma bringing it back around, in some form or another, with the intent to remind you of unfinished business, and will act as an incentive to do healing work on it to remedy the problem. It becomes your responsibility to rebalance anything making you depart from divine alignment or anything you do to others making them depart from divine alignment. So being a perpetrator acting against oneself is as great a fault as hurting another and healing will be needed to set things right.