“Would you say that you have…shame?”
I was about three sessions into therapy when my therapist interrupted my rambling and asked me about my upbringing. I was a little baffled that she asked, to be honest. I was seeing her because of the inner turmoil brought upon by my sexcapades with Ned, the guy at work, not due to some deep-rooted issues from my childhood.
Sure, I was brought up Catholic, taught to be abstinent until marriage, and that didn’t work out, but…shame? Hmm.
The answer came to me later that evening when I settled into a weed-induced journaling session.
When I was about five years old, I sought to emulate my mother in order to make her proud of me. It was probably some sort of attention seeking thing.
Around that time my brother would have been about three and my little sister, still under age one. Come to think of it, my mother was probably still breastfeeding Molly about then. And Byron already would’ve been a huge pain in the ass, even if my mother still won’t totally own up to that.
My mother worked from home, struggling to make ends meet, constantly doing freelance graphic design work, alternating between a desk in front of the bright window in the den and the dark corner of the basement, shooing us away from toxins as she airbrushed in a mask.
I’d seen her art books. I knew what art looked like, and I wanted to make her proud. A part of me always has. Sometimes, too big a part.
Anyways, I drew her a picture. An 8×11 crayon drawing of a woman from the waist up, her body leaned slightly to the picture’s right in order to accommodate her ginormous, uncovered breasts protruding onto the page’s left side. Her skin was peach, her nipples red, and I adorned her with a purple pearl-style necklace. I drew her blonde hair bobbed and her face rudimentary, but even at age five I accepted that as some sort of artistic style.
The whole thing just worked, I thought, and I was proud. This was no kindergarten drawing of a house and a stick figure. This was art.
I remember being excited to show my mother, but then horrified, crestfallen, cheeks set aflame at her reaction. She turned red, too, but with anger, the redness covering not just her cheeks but her whole face. I felt her feeling in my chest. Tight. Wrong. Describing her reaction as “disgusted” feels like an understatement. “Aghast” might be the correct term.
“Rip it up,” she said. No other words, her mouth forming a tight line of finality with that statement.
I hesitated, I remember that. But I don’t remember if I ripped it up, or if she grabbed it and did it herself, or if it got crinkled up and saved, or burned, or if she showed it to my dad, or if she even remembers this at all.
I just remember how I felt.
I think that was the start of my shame.