Shame

Have you ever felt shame? I'm not talking about the shame of disappointing your parents. Or the shame  of showing up to prom in the same dress as three other girls. Or the shame of getting a good grade.


I feel a deeper shame. A haunting shame. This shame runs deep. It's not a one-way shame, but a shame that strikes at every turn. This shame does not rest; it follows. This shame is my shadow. It follows closely behind. Attached to me. Unlike a shadow, it does not fade at night. As the dark grows stronger so does my shadow. It grows strong enough to walk before me. I become the shadow to my shame.

This past year in class I read a book called La Honte is a French novella, memoir, history. It was unusual. And honestly, I wasn't a big fan. It's great and all, but it hit too close to home. (The title translates into English as "Shame." I've never been able to admit it until today. My life has been driven by shame. I have felt shame for all the pivotal moments in my life. The moments, the defining moments that make me who I am. Finally I have been able to grasp at my shame. At 21 I've had pain in my life that I would never wish upon any one. This pain was hidden then covered then buried. My pain walked hand-in-hand with shame. Except I never knew I was ashamed. Shame was the shadow to my pain.

For the first time in my life I have had no choice but to accept my pain and deal with it. I have been swept over with emotions that will not stop. I can't make them stop. Even though I bitterly want it to all stop. For me it has always been easier not to feel... Anything.

The first time I felt shame lasted nine years. I suffered from depression. The first time I felt shame was when I was awake at late one night at eight and hoping that I would go to sleep and never wake up. All I knew was children were supposed to be happy and hopefully, and I was neither. I buried the shame and lived with the pain. I tried to end it all several times. This added to my shame.

At fifteen I was felt up by one the heads of my school. Shocked and hurt I told my mom. She's never been the shining ideal, but this was the moment when I felt most alone. Completely stranded in normality. Abandoned among the people who "loved" me. When I told her she responded with "Let's wait and see if it happens again. Then we'll report it." This came from the woman who was supposed to protect me. Who had always said that she would kill anyone if they touched me without permission. She let me down in the biggest way possible. I lost all trust in her. I promised myself that I would only count on myself. I made a vow that I would never depend on anyone for anything. I ran. This was the moment that my life changed forever. This was the first time I felt sexualized.

At fifteen I was ashamed that I didn't want to live. I was ashamed that I had tried to off myself twice. I was ashamed I had failed twice. I was ashamed my school administrator had touched me. I felt ashamed that my mother, was no mother at all.

At seventeen I decided that I had enjoyed my last birthday. It wasn't worth it to me anymore to keep trying. My entire life I had battled alone and I didn't want to any more. My mother had abandoned me two years before, but I had to see her face every day reminding me what I was worth. I felt unloved and unworthy. At seventeen I met the boy that would change my life irreparably.

Clay was fifteen and I was seventeen. Long story short he told me he loved me. I didn't love him, but I wanted someone to love me. Two months into our two year relationship he bent me over an ottoman and raped me. After he was done with my underwear still around my knees he put an elbow on my back and called his three best friends telling them he'd lost his virginity to the girl he "loved." For the next two years it was constant. If I didn't "willingly" have sex or blow him, he'd hit me til I did. Or threaten to tell my mother we'd had sex. (At this point in my mother's brilliant parenting career she had said that if I had sex in high school I would be kicked out on my ass with nothing.) For two years I stayed with him. He said he loved me... Plus who was I going to tell. All of our friends knew about our fantastic sex life. What would my mom say? "Well we'll see if he rapes you again... Then we'll talk about reporting it." No one was going to believe me. I was ashamed that my virginity was gone. I've never been a save sex for marriage person, but I wanted it to be special, or at least consensual. I felt shame that my boyfriend raped me. I felt shame for staying with him the first time it happened and the second. I felt ashamed that I was so dependent on the words "I love you."

At the end of our relationship I cheated. I slept with someone else. I needed to say "yes" for the first time. I slept with a guy friend, he ended up saying "I love you" and I ran. I was ashamed that I had cheated. I felt pain because this was the first time I had had sex and it was with a random guy.

I gave myself a vacation in California the summer I graduated high school. I ran from the pain and the shame. I drowned myself in men. Men that I would never talk to or see again. Except I actually fell in love, as ridiculous as that sounds. He lived 2500 miles away. I was taking no chances after the last boyfriend. I went off to college with my very cute, loyal, long-distance, Navy boyfriend. Things were looking on the up-and-up for me. I made friends with one of my dorm-mates. He was from Iowa, sweet, quiet, easy-going, and a wrestler. Long story short, I'd never been friends with jocks and I shouldn't have started in college. He and I were best friends. My boyfriend new about him and was happy I had been making friends. It became a campus wide non-secret secret that he wanted to be much more than friends. We had a sit down and talked about how I was not going to be with him because I loved my boyfriend. We came to an agreement, and I went home with him for a weekend because we were friends. Well my best friend raped me in his house, in his bed, while my long distance boyfriend called to say goodnight. I really know how to pick 'em. None of my friends at college believed me. I'm a bubbly person to everyone, and they decided to tell everyone that I was giving him blue-balls and leading him on. They told everyone that we'd had sex and before I'd even got back to campus I had no friends left. I was so broken and hurt and alone that I cut off the one person that cared. I broke up with my long distance boyfriend so that I wouldn't have to tell him I'd been raped. Everyone was saying I cheated on him and at the time it was easier to say goodbye and accept a lie than to tell the truth.

At nineteen almost every nightmare I had survived hit replay in reality. This time it was set on fast forward. Instead of taking eleven years for everything to come to itself pain filled, shameful climax it took two months for my life to go from normal and happy to completely alone. Due to my reality replay being on fast forward I cried for one night, said "I've been raped before. This is nothin," I made new friends, and moved on. Actually I just buried the new pain and shame way down deep with all the same-old, same-old.

True to form. I got myself a new boyfriend. This one also changed my life irreparably. Meet Jamie, the man sleeping in bed next to me right now. We survived five months when I had to take my job.

Jamie and I have been together over a year and a half. I've been stripping for over a year. Most of our relationship has been throughout the stress of my job.

In the last two months I have worked my ass harder than I have ever worked. I have put up with so much bullshit that when I was in London for the first time in a year and really my whole life I had a moment to step back and look at my life with the support of someone who truly loves me. I delayed my complete and total break down until after we got back from London. In London I was surrounded by literature, and the book I kept going back to was the book I distinctly argued against in class La Honte.

London is the city of the modern world and history. It was my dream city. I loved every minute. But I often caught myself thinking "God. I hope they don't find out about my job." I've never not told people what I do. I would rather own up to it than hide from it. In London I was haunted by my job. It was always in the back of my mind. Shame. It started on the first day in the plane. These elegant British women started up a conversation and all I was hoping was for them not to ask what I do. I blended into the British sophistication of London, but I felt like a was a cheap, fake. Lesser. Lesser because I had bought my ticket, bought my dinner, bought my nice clothes, paid for my hotel with dirty money. Painful money. Secret money. Shameful money. I hurt. I knew why I was there. I was there because I had taken off my clothes, let men touch my body everyday, one hundred hour weeks, for a month.

Before we left for London, when I was working those hellish days, I started eating less. I slept less. I woke up earlier. I thought it was because of my work schedule. I forgot. I had run so far away from my past that I had forgotten the pattern. When I was in London I didn't eat much more. The shame and pain of my job were eating away at me. It took me four days to completely lose my composure. I haven't really stopped crying sense. I've gone into work three days. All I feel is broken. Everything that I have worked my whole life to hide, cover, and bury won't stay locked away. Anytime anything remotely mean is said I cry, unless I'm at work and then I just get mean. Jamie is trying his hardest for me, but even when he's sweet I can't stop myself. Before brushing our teeth and crawling into bed, he hugged me. I couldn't stop crying for fifteen minutes. All I could think of was that he deserved better. Than being close to him hurts so much I can barely breathe, but I can't let go of him. All I can do is cling to him because with him is my last shred of sanity.

For the first time I can truly say that I am ashamed. I am ashamed of who I am. I am ashamed of my experiences. I am ashamed of what I do. I am ashamed of my pain. My logic and intelligence tell me that everything I am ashamed of I shouldn't be. I am not at fault for my depression. I am not at fault for either of my rapes. I am not at fault for my mother's inability to parent. And I am most certainly not doing anything wrong by stripping. I can't help what I feel though.

I'm broken. I'm empty. I am still the shadow to my shame.