let’s talk about shame

T and I have been talking about shame. He tends to get ‘a little hot under the collar’ as he likes to say when I tell him I feel ashamed for all the things that happened.

The shame. It comes from so many different things–they told me it was my fault, they told me nobody would care, they threatened to kill me if I said anything about it to anyone. And yeah, those are all bad things.

But the worst thing of all? My very first sexual experience was at the hands of my own family members. I don’t know if people can understand how that feels unless they’ve experienced it. It’s literally one of the most shameful things that has ever happened in my life.

Having sex for the first time in your life should be important. It should be when you choose to do it and with who you want to do it with. I didn’t get to experience that…it was taken from me..and it’s hard to comprehend. You end up avoiding relationships because you want to avoid the possibility of having to explain it to another person and you end up keeping secrets from everyone who tries to get close to you.

You’re ashamed because parts of you reacted. You’re ashamed to be alive. You’re ashamed because you want to die. You’re ashamed by how you look and what you feel. The shame becomes part of you, as though it’s woven into your DNA.

Sexual abuse does this to you and you feel like it will be a part of you until the day you die.

It’s unfair. It’s so fucking unfair. And you can say it’s not my fault and that the shame doesn’t belong to me, but my brain is not ready to hear that yet. So for now we just need to meet each other where we are and slowly make our way through this horrible, ugly, awful, thing.