Shame [Part One]

I don’t exactly remember when he came.  Probably early on—maybe he was already soaking in my birthwater, or came through a toddler mishap, but the lines between he and I blurred at some point and it seemed we were one and the same.  That he was something I didn’t have to have lurking in the depths was never something I considered.   I thought he was a part of me.  

So I ate and walked and breathed with Shame, to the point where things didn’t feel right if he wasn’t there. 

As Jesus came and as the clouds began to clear, I realized the Shame was someone tagging along, that he was a “he” and not me.  Even worse, I realized I was holding his hand.  By now, he was a dear friend—someone I could count on, someone who would always be there.  I would let go of his hand, but five seconds later, there it was again clutched in mine.  I felt naked without it, I would pick it up without even realizing it.  To let it go took difficult conscious effort, whereas to pick it up again happened without my even knowing it.

Later, leaving patriachy, I would wonder if those doctrines played into it (that I accepted them because of my prior conclusions of who and what I was?), or was it simply that Shame was given more power through those doctrines?  Wish I knew.  But patriarchy gave me a funny combination: a place of honor and a place of shame.  Honor, in that here was a place that highly affirmed my choice to stay home, applauded me for choosing to eschew a career in favor of raising children full time.  Shame, in that it re-affirmed my lower/lesser place, re-affirmed my childhood conclusion that something was wrong with being a girl (if I’d been born a boy instead of what I was, maybe then my dad would like me?), re-affirmed that same sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I sat on the pew as a child and heard the, “wives, submit” verses read from the pulpit, watching the women there all steeling their faces against letting out the slightest expression.  

When I was young, school helped and then hurt, and I’m not sure which one was greater.  In 5th grade, you couldn’t have found a more confident kid on the planet.  My teeth were in braces, my hair was an over-permed nightmare and my clothing taste hilarious, but despite it all, I thought that no mountain was large enough for my pithy 2 ounces of smiling faith.   Plus, there was one amazing teacher who was a gift from God and then some—introducing me to the world of creative writing and good literature and helping me realize that I wasn’t the only one in the world who loved that sort of stuff.  That I would one day become a US President seemed not only possible, but highly likely.     

 But by 8th grade, I was tragically aware of the fact that my flat chest would probably always be that way, that being known as a great athlete at my little elementary school was quite another thing compared to being known as a great athlete at a much larger junior high (yes, I was the one who barely made the team that year, who dribbled the ball in for a lay-up, enjoying the loud cheers from the crowd, only to find out that I scored 2 points for the wrong team).  In 8th grade, being smart wasn’t cool anymore and what was cool was something I had yet to figure out.

Shame helped with all of that.  He hid in the background and came out to visit when I was all alone, loving long discussions about the things I didn’t usually want to think about, making me cry yet making me feel safe.  Shame flexed and grew strong as I decided that I wanted Cool more than I wanted God.  With every twist of the curling iron (how high can the bangs go, spiral perm queen?), I plotted my course upward, and with every long drive home after the end of the day, Shame sat beside me recounting the events in detail, making me wince, making me cry, making me tremble with fear that the God in the sky was watching, taking notes, planning His attack. 

I don’t think I realized it, but I brought Shame along that day I met (or re-met) Jesus as a drugged-up college student.  I didn’t realize he was there—I thought he was me. 

I was raped that year.  It happened right after I was baptized.  He played guitar constantly, I sang in a band, we’d met here and there (me sharing my new faith with him on my front porch, actually) so he invited me in to work on some songs, no big deal.  He wasn’t my type, but he seemed like a nice guy, and I never turn down a chance to write music.  So I went downstairs to his apartment, had a drink (didn’t realize that whiskey would hit me so hard, didn’t realize that he was refilling my cup and only pretending to drink his, didn’t realize that this was What He Did on a weekly basis with whoever was stupid enough to come in and sit down with him) and well, it didn’t matter that I didn’t say it was okay, because there I was and it was done.    

He was good at his side-profession, because I stumbled out of his place thinking it was all my fault.  All my excited vows, all my plans to live for Jesus, all my hopes and dreams went into a dark dark place.  I went back to my apartment, pretended to my roommates that everything was okay (they were a bunch of guys who would have killed him had I asked them too, but I was too ashamed to tell them what happened), and shut the door to my room and cried.  I didn’t turn on the lights, I could hardly move, and I stayed like that for almost a month.  It took me that long to realize that I’d said no, that I didn’t say yes, that I didn’t want to do it but that I was too drunk to stop him, too drunk to realize that I was being played.  

But that only made my Shame grow.  Here I was, some Christian, can’t even stop some idiot from violating me because I’m too drunk—because I can’t count how many sips of alcohol I had—because I thought it might be a good “witness” to him to let him know that Christians can have a drink every now and then and it’s no big deal.

All the things I’d given up—the life of drugs and parties and the guys—all of that seemed so stupid now.  All the will power I’d exuded, all the hard choices I’d struggled to make to say no to things I knew I couldn’t do anymore, gone in the five seconds it took the neighbor guy to do his thing. 

The day after the rape-that-I-didn’t-know-was-a-rape, I called my true love (who was planning to fly down so that we could be together, the man I would eventually marry) and told him not to come.  I told him that I was dirty, that something was wrong with me.  I was crying so hard I could barely say it.  Only a couple weeks prior, we’d both been in Alaska together, sitting on the beach with our Marlboro’s and our love, his long hair blowing in the salty cool air, my short punk doo in sharp contrast and our hands together and our eyes locked on eachother and on the life that would be born out of two God-lovers becoming one.  We went to the little church in the woods that Sunday, were baptised together, and knew it was a new beginning.  We were nineteen.  Life was good.  Fresh starts are for everybody, even me.  The world seemed like it was filled with sunlight.  

But now I was in my dark room surrounded by a tightening circle of familiar demons, clutching Shame’s hand for dear life and telling the young man, so good and strong and right, to stay far far away from me.  He was clean—he needed to find a nice girl who deserved him.  When I hung up the phone, that day on the beach seemed far away from me.  Coming up out of the water in front of a congregation of good honest people seemed far away from me.  The only thing near was Shame.

To Be Continued…