I want to make sense of all the shit in my head, and the stuff stuck in my body that I can't attach words to, but sits in me like congealed oatmeal weighing me down, hindering free movement. A 30 year fucked-up-shit anniversary is coming up. Over the last year I've tried unpacking it through therapy, and writing, and although I've had some epiphanies when I've taken the time to step back at let Author aspect of myself take an objective look at it, its still...a spear through my heart? a weight on my chest? a yoke around me neck?
Self blame. It's a core operating principle. It's what keeps me mired down.
So, why is it my fault...why is that the default-setting regardless of the issue or circumstance? Why does it always have to be my fault? Mom? Certainly that is some of it...she was so very fragile and I had to take such delicate care of her, and gods forbid she ever felt guilt, shame, or regret...the world would implode, just as her psyche did that night in the kitchen when she had her psychotic break. She decompensated, and at 9 or 10 I was the only "responsible adult" trying to make sense of things, trying to prevent it-and failing. It was my fault.
Skip back a few more years, and there's John...he at 15, me at 7...and it was my fault. I should have fought harder, I should have made him drag me back there EVERY time, I should have said "no" more than the countless times that I had said no. I should have run away from home, I should have thought to kill myself. Notice not once is the narrative, "I should have told ____." I knew better, I know better. There was no one who would come to my rescue. It's your fault, figure it out or deal with it.
Fortunately, a few years back I finally unraveled that particular moldy bundle of "its all my fault" trauma...well as much as I can unravel it. And the key thread that really got shit moving was the self-blame piece. When I could quiet the loudest voice in the living room who was so quick to always shout above the rest, "If I just would have done something different!", always quick to find a reason that it was my fault, then the hooks started to disintegrate.
I wish I could say quieting the self-blame voice from that particular situation had carry-over to the hills and valleys of memory and experience, but unfortunately it didn't. So here we are again, trying to slay the hydra that has its many sets of fangs sunk into that experience.
I have a list of objective, legit reasons it's not my fault-but logic doesn't matter. Facts don't matter. That self-blame part is like an old redneck screaming, "I've done this for 30 years, I've believed this for 30 years-fuck your facts! I know what I know!" There is no logic to this voice. Only defensiveness, and a hard shell of defiance.
What purpose does it serve? What is the job of this part? Why the defensiveness? Who will keep me safe? Maybe it's like how I point out how I'm fat to everyone before they can tell me-yeah, I already know; no need for you to shame me too! I'll attach myself before you have a chance to. Yeah, it was my fault-we don't need to discuss it, I already know. Thanks for playing though. Thanks for playing. It was my fault, and i know it. Now let me slink off to the corner and sit with my shame. MINE-I don't need any more from you, I already have plenty of my own, thank you very much. I have plenty of my own. Fucking shame. What would I do without it? What would I be without it? My mother? My sister? My father? What would I be without self-blame? Dead? Would I exist without it? There has to be something more, right? I don't know. I don't fucking know. I don't fucking know.
***
Since leaving this to sit and ferment I had a session with my therapist during which she wondered aloud if the self-blame, and minimization was a way that I have protected myself from the terror. Terror that I had no room to fully experience, Terror that was never validated, Terror I've been too afraid of looking at.
Damn.
Terror, that I finally need to slow down and take a look at. Terror that I need to honor. Legit fucking terror.
As uncomfortable as shame is, it's far less (ahem) terrifying than terror. And there is a little bit of terror in admitting how terrifying so much of my first 20 or so years was. Even as I write this, there's a little chihuahua nipping at my heals saying, "Well, Les didn't ACTUALLY shoot you-that bullet was 2 feet away from your heart! What's the big deal?" But really, is it normal or common for a gun to go off in a dining room-is it normal and okay and no-big-deal that if you hadn't just stood up to turn the fan off that that bullet would have torn through your heart?
The good news is that with this new insight the voice for the most part is a chihuahua, not a belligerent mobster with a baseball bat. And as I review some of these old files through the lens of terror rather than shame they start to feel a little lighter, a little more manageable.
