Shame

I remember the first time I felt shame. I was in first grade and living in a shack with my parents and E while K stayed next door in our house by herself. E and I shared the bedroom while my parents slept in the living room, but instead of sharing a bed like we did in the main house E got her own full size bed while I slept on the concrete slab. The room was divided by our belongings with E getting most of the space and me taking up the width of a child’s sleeping bag with a doll bed beside it. My possessions filled my little space, but all those dolls and animals were lined up in a row along my perimeter with my sleeping things in the middle.

One day we were all supposed to be cleaning house, which for our house was usually a once yearly thing where my hoarder mother pretended like cleaning was a normal activity she did as a home maker. Anyway, I was told to clean my area and quite quickly I did. But when my mom and E walked in, E said, “She thinks that’s clean. She’s pathetic.” And they both walked away. No one had ever taught me the difference between tidying my space and cleaning my space. In fact no one had ever taught me the difference between clean and tidy. Double in fact, no one had ever taught me how to clean up or tidy things. But I was shamed for not knowing what they should have taught me and done with me. I still feel shame over a messy space. I also get triggered in a messy space since it’s directly associated with chaos and violence and isolation and everything that was wrong with my home life as a child. But that’s another story.