Systemic shame is something I’ve had to learn to name. I read it for the first time on the book Unlearning Shame by Devon Price.
It’s the internalized belief that if you’re struggling (financially, emotionally, professionally) it’s because something is wrong with you. Not with the systems you’re embedded in, not with the structures that were already in place before you arrived. Just you.
It’s socially engineered, but it doesn’t feel that way from the inside. From the inside it feels like a quiet, persistent verdict. Like you should have tried harder, made better choices, been more resilient. It keeps people isolated because shame doesn’t like company — it convinces you that your particular failure is too specific, too embarrassing, too yours to share.
Recognizing it doesn’t make it disappear. But naming it — calling it what it is — creates just enough distance to stop taking it so personally. (Also a lot of Psychotherapy help me a ton with this).