Letting Go Of The Shame That Does Not BelongTo Me

In my effort to heal, I keep finding ways to let go of the shame about what happened to me that I could not prevent.  

One way to air out shame is to bring events out of the hidden darkness and shed light on them. I got help seeing it all in a new light by talking to my family, friends, and many counselors, as well as reading stories of how others regained their  strength and self esteem.  Fostering self forgiveness of how I was unable to prevent it at the time, as well as learning productive ways of preventing it in the future, and using that knowledge helps me have faith that the future is brighter than what I endured in the past.

Bring the facts forward and say: This happened.  As a kid, people did things to me I did not like or want yet I felt too young and too scared to take a stand for myself.  I did not have the tools nor where-with-all to take preventative action to stop or try to stop them.  I can forgive myself for not knowing any better, I was just a kid, a scared frightened child. Being afraid of being hurt or further tortured set up a detrimental dynamic that led to further violent and sexual abuse.  And not being able to prevent it led to me being ultra sweet in order to be liked enough to not be hurt by others.  

A a child and young adult, my best attempt at preventing further harm was to accentuate being sweet and angelic, a good little girl – a personality that did not protect me then nor now.  As a child, I was not strong enough to risk getting hurt to fend off unwanted advances, or physical harm.  And because I hated fighting, I chose to be a pacifist at the age of nine.  I hated competitions because I too often lost, and did not want another to feel defeated either.  I hoped most people were basically good, and they would behave.  As a child, I decided surrendering was a better option than the potential of greater harm.  In times of great challenge, I did not even have a choice, I was so frightened I froze, which left me with no choice, voice nor ability to move. 

I used to be afraid of people knowing my past for the fear they would judge and blame me.  I noticed as a child, people often blamed the kids who were abused and taken advantage of – as if it was their fault.  In my heart, I knew the abuse of power I endured was not my fault.  The abuser is to blame.  Let the abuser wear the shame, feel deep regret for actions taken.  Let the abuser repent and make amends.

For most of my life I kept what happened to me inside out of fear of making my life or others lives much worse.  I saw how hard it would be to endure being blamed for painful situations while struggling to navigate good healthy steps forward, so I kept a lot of my painful experiences to myself for a long time.  At some point I had to open up and vocalize what happened and how it hurt.  I looked at the deeply imbedded fears and untangled the erroneous logic those experiences taught me.

Too much of life can be spent in a vacuum, churning over the harm from the past.  Healing involves building confidence that we understand the dangers and how to avoid past patterns of painful interactions in order to have more fulfilling lives.