A Poster Child for Shame

There’s a duality existing when what we long for finally arrives. In that moment we are tasked with facing it. Now, I am going back inside. I am choosing this journey. While still somewhat tired from writing “Cult Child”, I want to keep myself surfing this wave lest it all disappear.

As I am writing “Rise of Sila” I am facing some extremely harsh realities. I am diving into teenage stories that bring more realizations of the emotional intensity and aftermath being an abused child  had formed.

In some ways, we became a predator as a teenager and young adult. I wasn’t brought to that realization until today, talking with my therapist about teenage moments that as I write, I realize are filled with an incredible amount of shame.

Gottamn, that fucking hurts. It makes me angry. It makes me wince. How dare they.

I sat talking with my therapist, and she was so beautifully raw with me. Softly facing it. She asked me, “What would you know right now, today, do if you met a teenager like the one who sometimes came out in you? How would you treat her?”

I know what I would do today. I would empathize with her, hold her and do everything for her that I was screaming for. I would want to know what happened to cause her so much pain. I would see the need for love. I would reach out and give her a voice. I would believe her. I wouldn’t judge her.

“Then as you write your teenage experiences, that’s how you treat yourself. With understanding.”

Is this what I am tasked for in this life cycle? Is this why I took this mission; to stand in the footsteps of the shame, holding the highs and the lows of every human who experiences child abuse, teenage wildness and criminal behavior; standing firmly inside of owning it? Am I to be a split open example of how painful it is to heal? Am I to be a warrior of the journey of human mind control survival?

When the switch happened as a young girl, I didn’t realize the totality of its many manifestations, until I sat down to it write it out. I didn’t know until I looked back, how formed we had become and how utterly out of control the wheel had been spun.

As I drove home today, I thought to myself, I know why Lot told his wife not to look back. It had nothing to do with religion or the tale of a sinful city. It was a metaphor that sometimes going back can grind us to salt if we’re not strong enough. Lot’s wife wasn’t strong enough, so she crumbled.

I hope I am strong enough.

I believe that I am.