Shedding Shame

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When I was young my anger was already raging. I was a mere cub wanting to roar who had yet to find her voice. Instead, I yelped and fumbled trying to find my will… to live.

Over time I learned to control what wanted to erupt from within me. I practiced with yelling and then screaming, but it still fell upon ears that didn`t hear. Even my own ears couldn`t hear what came from within.

I walked away; ok I ran… each and every time it felt the same. Love hurts, assaults and inflicts with lies of trust and tenderness. It takes, it wants, and it demands.

I tried forgetting by forgiving only forgiving isn`t forgetting, you never forget what you buried so deep inside yourself.

Letting go of the weight and responsibility of their actions took years. Years to free myself of the bondage I contracted myself into; for better or worse, till death do us part.

They fed me indifference and called it love. One dissolution was a choice between child or husband; I chose my child. The other made me feel unworthy so he could feel powerful with the back of a hand, a kick or fist. He cheated but I became the whore. I was told by his own mother to let him do as he wishes and welcome him in when he came home.

As a woman, I have loved three men in my life. All of them Capricorns an irony in life’s mysteries with coincidences that mirrored other things in my life.

I gave myself to them. It was love as I knew it to be in the age I was and believed was my purpose.

My first husband was my first and only (yes coitus, that is what I mean) until we parted. Met at 14, married at 16, separated at 18.

My second husband I met at 19, married at 26, divorced at 28.

The third major relationship is one I never should have had. One that didn`t start as a relationship. I didn`t worry about him interfering with my life and one nobody knew about for years. There was no contract, no vow I made nor broke but yet managed to yoke myself in his.

He was someone I saw here or there. Meaning I was one of many he rolodexed through while attached to his primary. No, I wasn`t proud but I justified, I excused and crippled myself in what felt familiar…. shame.

It could be months or even years in-between our encounters that he always initiated, and I was ok with that. I raised my girls and lived with no desire for more. But when he did call and the children were gone, I let him in. To me he was safe, and he was safe because he knew how to play the game he had mastered before I came along.

Towns away, another zip code, another life with no fear of his bleeding into mine. I paid my price in shame, regret, karma and atonement has been made. It was three years before forgiveness came and another few for me to forgive myself.

Many the excuses and justifications I told myself

• I was easy prey, as a child of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. My temple was long desecrated, and I felt no worth. I was already damaged goods.

• I was not seeking a relationship but craved a gentle touch once in a while. One that didn`t come with demands. The shame was the same though and it took me time to connect the new to the old and differentiate between the two.

• His home was wrecked decades before adding me as another notch on his belt. His harem continues to this day I hear. I no longer care and haven`t in years. (he is 14 yrs my senior) She passed from illness. Her forgiveness she blessed me with.

• Many, many times, nothing happened between us. I`d listen to his laments of their recent fight and send him home to apologize. I felt more like his therapist than his mistress. I wouldn`t let him demean her to me and told him he was wrong. Ironic I know but it meant something to me to keep that line drawn.

• He let me read my poetry, play my songs and didn`t push or force what he often didn`t get. He didn`t raise a hand to me ever nor a demeaning word at me.

• Never did I allow a man to live in my home after my second husband. Never was I going to fear closing my eyes again.

• No money or bill was paid nor given nor would be accepted- I have been self-supporting since I left home at 15. I didn`t earn my living on my knees or my back and I took pride in that. (that honor no one could take from me)

I have not had actual coitus in over a dozen years. Nor any type of intimacy in six of that dozen. None

Touch never could be trusted and truthfully, I don`t feel I ever could trust it again. I wanted to, I tried to. I do not know what it feels like to be loved by a man for anything other than their sexual needs or as a domestic servant. (other than from my brothers as a sister)

That has been the legacy of the abuse I suffered from childhood on. It has been worn like skin my whole life.

In order for me to try and shed that skin I have released any want, need or desire to be touched; to think I could be loved for more than my services to their need.

My body has done me a favor by revolting. Always on guard, always wondering what I must give up just to be held. The freedom of autonomy comes in loneliness.

My illness and diagnosis that shortens my life gives me the excuse that I can offer nothing of value to a relationship.

Love, you say…. I can offer love…. could they? To a woman who cringes with a touch, wondering how much that touch will cost her… this time?

My memory loss and death will eventually come and leave someone with what? It`s too late to start from less than zero and build something sustainable, or even memorable. That part of me already died waiting for the rest of me to catch up.

I have healed. Not completely as you can see with what I`ve shared. But enough not to hide the scars. Enough to share the truth of my failures, so they can`t be used against me to carry the shame any longer.

I am not infallible, but I am capable of atoning for and correcting my mistakes. I have and I do not need to continuously drag myself over and over.

Fear of judgement kept me from pursuing my dreams, a real relationship and shedding the shame I carried all these years. No more, for today I release it all into the light of truth to be dissolved. I carry it no longer.

“When I look into the mirror, my friend I wanna love who I see” (see link👇🏼)

✨Be the Light

Mirror