Mental Health Week - Day 2

My childhood probably sounds idyllic to many.  I had two parents who loved each other very much and they both loved me with all of their hearts.  I never lacked for anything because I was resourceful.  I remember one time my mother wouldn't buy me a doll that I desperately wanted because she said I had too much.  My mother said she saw the wheels during in my mind and then I said, "when are we going to visit Grandpa".  My parents had amazing senses of humour and our house was full of laughter but we never laughed at anyone, but with them.  I pulled more practical jokes by the time I was 5 than most people do in a lifetime.

Despite all of this, I always had a negative feeling inside me that I could never name.  And, you have to name it to tame it.  It just recently dawned on me what that feeling was that I always had inside me.  That feeling that shaped my life was shame.  Yes, shame.

You see, I grew up in a town that probably was the inspiration of Mayberry.  Most people lived in the town all their lives.  Many grew up and married their high school sweethearts and had 2.4 kids and a dog and 2 cats.  Most had aunts and uncles and cousins living on the same block and grandparents were often across the lane.  Well, I'm sure there was a lot going on behind those white picket fences that I didn't know about, but, growing up that was the definition of a family.

My family was different.  I was ashamed.

No one knew that I was struggling with so many questions and I am sure the adults in my life were not deliberately deceiving me.  I am sure they would answer any questions that I had but the problem was I didn't know what questions to ask.  I'm sure the adults in my life planned to tell me the truth about everything when I was old enough to understand, but by the time that happened, I had already figured it out.  And by that time, I was not feeling empowered, I was feeling shame that I was different.

You see for most of the time I was an only child and it was just me and my mom and dad.  Which was weird enough for my community.  "Why don't they only have one child?", I heard people whisper, "is there something wrong with their health?"  I felt that I must have done something terrible to make my parents only have one child.

Yet, I also had brothers and sisters but they didn't live with us.  It didn't make sense to any one in the community and I didn't understand it either.  My siblings are called my dad "dad" but they called my mom "Lil".  I didn't understand but I felt ashamed.  The sister who was not my oldest sister visited the most.  She was married and she had three children.  They called me Auntie Shelley. All my life I was an Auntie and it didn't make sense, but it made me ashamed.  My oldest niece was 3 years younger than I am and we had all the fights of sisters, but we weren't.  She got all my hand-me-downs much earlier than I was ready to hand-them-down.  It sometimes got ugly.  One time, my mom and I went through my closet in preparation for their visit and my mom got my approval for things to hand down.  I dutifully agreed and my mother felt she was a genius.  She packed them away in her closet.  Of course, I had a plan.  When she was otherwise occupied, I went into that packet and took back the things that I didn't want to give away and hid them.  I thought it was a fool proof plan but apparently it was not as my treachery was discovered and I had to give it all away.  My sister spoke to me and indicated that she expected more maturity from me (I was 8 at the time) because I was an Aunt and I had to be responsible for my nieces and nephews.  Well, no one ever told me that I had signed up for that.  Here I was now responsible for these urchins when I didn't even understand how I became an Aunt.

The one thing that my sisters and I had in common was that we all had our dad wrapped around our fingers.  It was the same for my sister.  When she came to visit, it became her house, her rules, etc, because she was educated as a teacher.  She made me eat porridge for breakfast.  I hated porridge and my mom never made porridge.  Happily we had a powder room by the kitchen where I could flush it down the toilet.  And then I would feel more shame.  Once I was angry and told my sister that I already had a mother so I didn't have to listen to her.  I don't remember what she said because I wasn't listening, but the jist of it was that I had to listen to her.  Then, I felt shame for making me sister upset.

And, there was my older sister.  She was also married and had 4 boys in 6 years, two of them were older than me.  She lived in another province so she didn't visit as often but when she did, all stops were pulled out.  I remember being invited to a birthday party that I couldn't attend because my sister was coming.  That was ridiculous to my peer group.  The farthest their sisters lived was two blocks.  Why was it an occasion that prevented you from seeing friends?  I didn't have an answer.  I just had shame.

What made things worse was that my sister was stunning and looked like a movie star.  I was an ugly duckling.  I didn't feel hopeful that someday I would blossom, I felt shame because I wasn't good enough.  What made things worse was that my sister visited because she wanted a holiday from her snotty-nosed brats.  It turns out I was one of those snotty-nosed brats.  So, I would take my nephews to the playground and no one could figure out how I had nephews let alone two nephews who were older than me.  I didn't know the answers.  Shame.  Or I would be loaded in my brother-in-laws station wagon with my four nephews and my dad and we would go on an adventure.  Well, all of them would be having fun.  I was not.  It turns out boys like to do gross things and beat each other up.  I didn't enjoy our adventures which made me feel shame that I didn't love my nephews like I felt I should.

The worst crisis I had was when my brother got his driver's licence and proudly showed it to me.  I told him they made a mistake on his name because they identified him as Michael.  My brother's name was Mickey, I had never him called anything else.  My brother told me that Mickey was just a short-cut for Michael.  Great.  I didn't even know my brother's name.  Shame.  I was in tears when I asked my brother Bill if he had a secret name that I didn't know about.  Sadly, his birth name was William.  It turns out that my secrets also had secret names that I didn't know about.  Gerry was actually Geraldine and Millie was actually Mildred.

Eventually, I did figure out that my father was married before and had four children.  But, that didn't end my shame.

My oldest sister's good looks came from my father.  He was a very handsome youthful man.  When he retired when I was in grade school, no one could figure this out.  He didn't look that old.  Most of my classmates still had their grandparents working.  Shame.

The year after my father retired, we had an assignment to interview our dads and write about his job and how that contributed to Canada.  My dad didn't have a job and the teacher wouldn't let me use my mother.  I told the teacher in front of the class that my dad was retired.  The teacher answered in front of the class that that was code for being unemployed.  Shame.  What was my dad doing with his life?  Well, he was reading all the books he wanted to read but never had the time and he was re-making classic recipes with a modern twist.  If that was today, I would encourage him to go on The Next Food Network Star.  But, this was 40 years ago.  I just felt shame.  I was so shameful that I didn't tell my parents about the assignment and got a 0 because I didn't hand anything in.

As I have matured, I have realized how happy my childhood was and I had nothing to be ashamed about.  My parents were great people who showered me with love, attention, and laughter.  If the worse thing I had to endure was an occasional bowl of porridge, life must have been pretty good.  So many children don't have anyone to love them, and I had more than I could count.  Life was good.

I never realized how much shame I was carrying about until a couple of months ago.  I went to get my eyes tested.  The optometrist assistant (or technician or optical specialist or whatever is the correct name) remembered me from growing up.  I have no memory of this woman.  So, we chatted just exchanging small talk about our town and bragging about the new wave pool when she said, "I never understood your family.  Were you an only child or did you have brothers and sisters, like what the deal there?"

I was reduced to a puddle of shame.  But, for the first time I was able to name this emotion that I had so long inside me.  Shame.  This woman was trying to shame me.  Why would she want me to feel bad?  What was inside her that she wanted a basic stranger to feel bad?  For the first time in my life, I felt like the wrong person was experiencing shame.  I knew I didn't want it trapped inside me any longer.  Now that I had named it, it was time to tame it.  I wasn't going to accept it.

"And why," I asked, "is it important for you to know anything about my family?"

And I smiled.  My cheeks were only rosy because I had make-up on them.  She didn't smile and her cheeks were red because she asked a question that was none of her business.  But, I knew the look on her face.  It was shame.

I wish I could say that I now have a story book ending.  I don't yet, but so much more of my emotions and my behavioral activation make so much more sense.  And, I am no longer living a shame based life.  I still have a lot of work and a lot of healing to do.  But, now I know some missing pieces in the puzzle.

And, thank goodness, we live in 2018 where there is no such thing as the traditional nuclear family and a family is just a group of people who love each other.  Thank goodness, we are not ashamed to talk about mental illness and learn how to promote mental wellness.