The "experience" day two part 2: the lies we tell and the secrets we keep

There could be a part 3, part 4, part 8 - who knows.

We talked about guilt versus shame.  I did something bad versus I am bad.  My entire childhood used to be one big bad secret.  It had an element of keeping up appearances.  No one can know what really goes on behind closed doors.  My mom's alcoholism was a secret although I know now that there were family members who probably knew.  Behind the doors we were not a family but we pretended on the outside.  At least I did.  I kept it a secret because it was embarrassing and humiliating.  Probably wrong emotions but the emotions of a kid who can't understand in an adult way what is really going on.  So I kept the secret.  But what I know now, and I know it from AA - it is your secrets that will ultimately kill you.  You are as sick as your secrets as they say.  I remember my dad in the summer time yelling at my mother and I to stop yelling or the neighbors would hear us.  How ironic.

I still carry a lot of shame about my childhood.  For the longest time it was very hard to talk about.  Even though I know now that I did nothing wrong.  It is embarrassing regardless of whether or not it was my fault.  My mother was mean to me when she was drunk and she wasn't particularly nice when she was sober either.  She told me she hated me, many many times.  And I blamed myself for that.  I thought if I could just do something right then she would stop hating me.  But it didn't matter what I did she drank anyway and she treated me terribly regardless.  I spent most of my childhood hiding in my bedroom.  My mother was a terrible mother.  There is no denying that.  She will even admit to it.  I didn't realize until I was an adult just how awful my childhood had actually been.  I guess years of pretending makes you forget.

So we were talking about shame and I was trying to get to the bottom of the feeling of shame that I have, the embarrassment that I still feel.  The facilitator challenged me to think about whether the shame is mine or my mother's.  Obviously it is my mother's.  I don't feel ashamed anymore.