Once Upon a Time, Shame Lived Here
"Shame derives its power from being unspeakable... if we cultivate enough awareness about shame, to name it and speak to it, we've basically cut it off at the knees." Brene Brown
Shame (verb): to cause someone to feel inadequate and ashamed of self by way of action or word
Shame: A b*tch
It's that silent thing we carry and don't talk about because God forbid they know what really happened. God forbid all your skeletons take off that which you've covered them in and bear themselves for all to see. It's the thing that keeps us up at night, replaying every scenario in our head-- questioning what we could have done to make it all right. It makes us our own martyr-- because God forbid we put the weight down, would we even be the same people?
Sometimes we carry shame subconsciously, forgetting its roots until something or someone does something that triggers us into remembering why we move the way we do. The worst part in all of it is the silence we choose because vulnerability is too much for us, so we choose the weight. The baggage. The silent tears. The avoidance. The lovelessness. The loneliness. The pain. The self-doubt. The self-sabotaging. We make a home out of it.
Can I tell you something? The right people, in the right spaces, at the right time will make vulnerability feel like a religion you can't live without. The right people will support your unpacking. The right people will help you turn your shame into your power. The right spaces will have walls wide enough and high enough to hold all the parts of you that you've fit into your small body-- causing you to become sick. Yes, Beloved, shame can make you sick, but generational shame and trauma has conditioned us to think carrying the load makes us strong. Baby, it makes us weak. It makes us walk our own journey to a slow death. It suffocates the life out of us-- the divine life that God wants us to live filled with love, joy, peace, and abundance.
I suffocated for approximately 14 years for a variety of reasons. In this space, at this time, with you, I'm going to lay out the shame that I had to unpack so I can live the life of the present. While my journey may not be identical to yours, we carried shame the same. Ran from vulnerability the same. Harnessed trauma in silence the same. Take what you need.
On Being a Brown Girl:
"You must be adopted." "She must have a different father." "I thought that was her friend who was always with her."
These were some the words of the women in my mother's church pertaining to me. These were some of the words I heard from kids in school. With a mother who is of light-skinned complexion, looking at the world through blue-green eyes, a sister who is of light skinned-complexion, looking at the world through hazel eyes, and a father of caramel complexion, looking at the world through brown eyes, it was impossible for people to find a space for mocha-brown-skinned and brown-eyed me in my own family. Imagine somebody else ripping you of your belonging in the same space that birthed you? Raised you? Loved you? Bandaged your wounds-- when you revealed them? I watched TV and didn't find many people who looked like me in high regard. I felt foreign to my own home-- even though they loved me and reassured my belonging. To be Brown was a crime-- so much so I watched Wheel of Fortune every night, rooting for the whyt womxn to win over the Black/Brown women because clearly that was better than being Black/Brown, right? Something was wrong with me-- I didn't belong in the spaces I entered with the people whom I ended up with. Shame had me in a chokehold, and worse, it made me cold and hurtful to people who were darker than me because I wanted somebody else to hurt too (that's what shame can do).
Imagine wanting to peel off your layers before even having the chance to grow into them. And God Bless the hearts of my family, but they didn't know the feeling so the words fell short. The statements of "I'm Brown, too" for inclusion didn't work. But self-love and affirming over time did the healing. Reading Toni Morrison's God Help the Child soothed some of the wounds. Going to Howard reaffirmed my belonging in every space-- especially in my family, in the diaspora, in my body. In my Coco Butta skin.
Affirmation: "I am magic, cocoa powder, shards of glass and shrapnel, and the deepest parts of my grandmothers' imaginations. I am savory and sweet: salt, sugar, and lime possessing the gentleness of the brightest lilies and the strength and temerity of the most destructive storms."~ Tanya Denise Fields
On Being Body Shamed:
"Look at her boobs." "You have to wear a bra at 9?" "I can see your bra through your shirt?"
Puberty hit me quicker than I could find out what it was. At 3, I was taking steroids to control my growing "kibbles and bits," as the older women in my life would call them. But at 9, there was no controlling them. They were there-- a C-cup and not going away. Not knowing or listening to my momma, I'd wear the cutest colorful bras she bought me under my favorites white t-shirts. Now, Britt, why would you do that? The boys were already teasing you about their existence, and now you've only made it worse? I'd run to the bathrooms, take my bra off and hide it in my desk, thinking I was saving myself. But no, they noticed and tormented more. So, now there's something else abnormal about us? Welcome body dysmorphia until you're 23 years-old. God clearly didn't think this one through.
The same boys who hurt my feelings at 9 were the ones wanting to be close as we grew up, transitioned into middle/high school, and learned about puberty, development and-- ding ding ding-- boobs. But the ones who hurt you cannot be the ones to heal you. Lust-- from the wrong persons-- doesn't heal-- it hurts. It hurts. It hurts. Ask 14 year-old Britt.
Affirmation: "I want a life and a body that feels like mine. I want to feel at home in myself. My goal for survivorship is to just feel whole. I don't feel like that's too much to ask." Kaia Naadira
On Not Being Able to Connect Intimately:
Imagine being in your twenties, exploring love with your partner, and you just can't fully be present. Reaching the peak of your mountain is impossible because you're stuck in your head every single time. You hear 14 year-old you screaming from the rooftops because you haven't healed her heart yet because vulnerability about situations like that is impossible. Nobody believes the victim, especially not when the abuser is the school's favorite football player. So you carry the disgust. You carry the trauma. You carry the shame. You cannot possibly make the stars jealous of your present love because they know your secret of shame too. They know you can't connect. Hell, they may be talking about you amongst themselves. And God Bless the lovers who try to understand and reassure you that its okay, but you know it's not. You cannot fully satisfy and love them back because you're hurting-- you're dying and your womb is traumatized... to the point it ejects them out because you're thinking too deep.
It's not your fault, but you cannot help but wonder how you could've screamed a little louder...ran away a little faster... been less kind and more mean. Baby, you did everything you could and they did everything they shouldn't have. It's not your fault. I promise.
Reminder: "Sexual abuse robs us from connection to ourselves, especially to our bodies. When we become disconnected from our bodies, it impacts us throughout life." - Deran Young
On Hiding Who You Love:
"You're confused." "It's just a phase." "How can you love God and want to be with women?" "How do you have sex if you know... they don't have a --?" "You ever heard of the story of the cucumber vs the pickle?"
These were the responses and questions I got from members of my family when I told them that I loved freely. For more than a decade, I held onto my knowing of who I was, who I loved, and how I dreamed of loving. When you're a teenager living in your highly Christian mother's house without a penny to your name, you keep your mouth shut about what she won't accept, and you don't tell a single soul outside of the house either because God forbid she finds out from somebody else before you tell her. So, you only allow yourself to live within the box that society and religion will allow. You date the opposite sex and the opposite sex, only. You go as far as telling them that you would never even consider kissing a woman, knowing that's something your heart desires, but you hold tight. You keep on walking in the straight line drawn for you, until one day you have a career and financial security. You meet a woman who listens to you so deeply that she buys you a dog for Christmas because she overheard you tell your mom that you wanted a dog, and now you have to open up your box of freedom and tell all because there's a dog coming to the house in four days from the woman you're dating. Luckily, if your mom kicks you out, you could survive elsewhere.
So, you get past your mother and her not talking to you for days because she "didn't raise you like that and in this house we will serve the Lord." You feel brave enough to tell some of your family, and the hurt just begins to mount up. The verbal abuse comes from every direction-- boldly and passively. So, you hide your dating life from your abusers and keep your love in a sacred box-- only to be shared with the people who feel like home to you, and that was enough. If you were to marry a woman, their presence would be enough.
If I've learned anything on this journey of free loving it is that family in adulthood is comprised of the people who love every part of you without condition and with much correction. It is selected, opposed to given-at-birth. It is safety, acceptance, and home.
Reminder (you're perfect and holy): "It was in being told, they felt that I had chosen my identity over them. I had forced them to carry shame for my unruliness. And in their rejection of me, I could sense all the things about themselves they believed had to be hidden or compromised in order to belong, and the expectation that I could or would do the same."- Prentis Hemphill
On Loving People Who Cannot/ Will Not Love You Back: (See previous blogs for depth)
Pink is pink. Red is red. Do not change the colors of the flags. Everybody's not ready for your kind of love, and that is okay. Take your love with you, give it to yourself, and journey until you encounter a love who reciprocates all the love and good that you pour.
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There's a look into a small portion of my shame. This is me being vulnerable with you because I am safe within myself and am okay with everything. Rainbows don't arrive without rain and to see a rainbow is to know that the sun has arrived to shine its light on all that got caught up in the storm. The rainbow is God's promise to us (no pun intended but yea-- hold it down). A year ago-- hell a few months ago, I wouldn't have told you about any of this, but the weight got heavy. So, I sat with my shame, found the root, found safety in my tribe, and released all that was hurting me. Now, I won't lie and say that some days I don't get caught up in the memories. However, I will say there is forgiveness and grace where there was once tension. That's what healing looks like.
So, Beloved, I hope you give yourself the chance to be free of shame and being shamed. I hope you find people and spaces that feel like home-- safe enough so you can bear your naked self and let down all that has held you down and broken you, piece by piece. You owe it to yourself to journey lightly. Be vulnerable. Be honest-- with yourself first, then others. There's no healing in denial and hiding.
From the depths of my soul, I love you as you are. And should you need a friend, a place to call home, I've got you.
Until next time, be all that you are, without shame and without asking for permission.
I leave you with these words by Yolo Akili Robinson:
"Shame is not your name. Shame is not my name. There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with me. We have patterns to unlearn, new behaviors to embody, and wounds to heal. But there is nothing wrong with us and the core of who we are. We are unlearning generations of shame and remembering love. It takes time. And the time is now."
I love you. Take care. xo- Britt 🌹