I'm being serious for a moment.....

Shame.


Shame by definition can mean disgrace, embarrassment, humiliation, and dishonor to name a few. In my family there are those with so much shame that it can overwhelm them. While I wish they could let it go some days I think they are now so comfortable in that shame that leaving it would be most uncomfortable and scary for them.

I have always known that my father and his siblings had shame about their lives growing up. But I never knew the whole story. We got bits and pieces here and there but it was always a whisper.

I wanted to do my family tree but was met with such road blocks. It will never ever be done because no one really wants to tell the whole true story.
My cousins and I have all discussed this. We each got different pieces to the puzzle from our parents. Sadly it seems to be governed by shame.

Here is what I know. My Grandmother was married and living in Italy. She had children. She had an affair with a man who was a boarder in their home. She ran off with him and her children to America. That made her children that she had with this man in America, which was 4 of her 8 children, to be illegitimate. They have such a strong stigma about this that it is barely possible for them to talk about it. It was a crazy story from what I can gather. Then the man left a woman with 8 children to go find work. Some of her children ended up in an orphanage for awhile until she could take them again. That left an enormous scar on all of these children. That topic is taboo. I got a snippet of info from an Aunt about this one. She told me that my father would wet the bed and the nuns at the orphanage would refuse to feed him because of it. Apparently they didn’t believe the adage that this wasn’t in his control but a deeper issue. So my Aunt would hide food and bring it to him. My father will not speak about it even when I brought it up. He, as well as some siblings have insecurities that lingered from their early life. My father being the baby of that 8 is very traumatized to this day although he would never ever admit to that but you know it from some of his behaviors.. He says he is fine but he is so not fine. But getting him to talk is so uncomfortable for him that at this point in his life I have given up. He will be 83 in a few weeks so I let it go long ago. I do believe it is an insight to some of his ways but he is from a generation that just will not talk. He’s macho and he is fine. At least that is what he is going to make you believe.

The things that cause him such shame are things that in today’s society are generally accepted.
We don’t seem to have shame about much these days.
All you have to do is look at television like Jersey Shore, Housewives of whatever planet and a Jerry Springer show. The saying, “have you no shame?” comes to mind when I hear about these show!

Shame does seem to rear its uncomfortable ugly head in situations where there should be no shame.  I read several blogs dealing with this topic of late. There have been several that have been dealing with forms of mental illness. Depression, anxiety, maniac episodes etc.

All who suffer write so eloquently about this yet all have in some form or another expressed shame. All, in one way or another have said that they held off talking about this aspect of their lives for fear of how we blog readers would accept them. Or how society on a whole accepts them.

This saddens me so much.
I am not sure why this topic pulls at my heart so but it does.
I remember when I was younger and when a friend was depressed I used to think, “oh c’mon snap out of it.” Then in my early 40’s I went to a very dark dark place.
I couldn’t control it or snap out of it. I was barely functioning.
I went to work and put on what I call my “peggy” face but when I was home it was gone.
I withdrew from everyone and everything including my husband.
There was no joy just dark scary thoughts.

Now I realize you don’t know me but I am a normally happy person. That word I detest Perky has been used oh so often to describe me. A type A personality who is always moving, talking, doing. Not the sort you think of with depression. That person was gone and it scared my husband so.

I went days without sleep; I had episodes of crying that lasted longer than a work day. I had a lot of physical pain in my body as well as in my mind. The only thing that stopped me from taking my life was Rick. I know it sounds silly or even trite now but I just couldn’t do that to him. That is the only reason I am still here.

He was trying so hard to help me but he couldn’t pull me out of the rabbit hole as he called it. I went from doctor to doctor with no help. I knew I had no reason to be depressed in theory. On the outside it would seem I had the world by the ass. We had everything we needed and more. We had no problems, we had great careers and from looking in you would think I just needed to “snap out of it” because it could be assumed I was a spoiled brat and had no damn reason to be depressed. On paper I didn’t. But I learned that you can’t just “snap out of it” and it wasn’t something I was wallowing in for any reason. I felt like I had no control and trust me for a type A personality losing control also freaked me out. It was finally found that I had a medical issue who's symptom was depression and once that was rectified the fog slowly lifted.
Some days I actually think I was given this as a gift to be more understanding to others.

That got me thinking about the shame of all of this brings on people.
My thyroid & adrenals are not working as they should.  Should I be ashamed of that?
These are glands in my body that need help from modern medicine to function optimally. There is no reason for shame here.  My husband has what I like to call a hiccup when it comes to his heart. He needs to take medication to keep things moving like they should so he can live a great life. He isn’t ashamed of the fact that he needs medicine to make this organ work properly. And no one makes either us feel shameful.

But yet when our brain, just another organ in our bodies, misfires we have shame.
How is that any different from my any other organ in our body that misfires?
Yet society doesn't see it that way.
We don’t need to alienate these folks but to understand and to ask questions so we all learn.

All the bloggers who write about this are educating us if we listen.
And we should be listening. There is nothing to be ashamed of if our bodies are ill and we are working on making them better.

The only thing we have to be ashamed of as a society is that you watch and love Jersey Shore and Housewives of other planets. I can’t give you a pass on that one and you know who you are!