Small Bits of Shame Linger

2 September, 2012 · by · in

The other day, I decided to share one of the letters I wrote to one of my molesters here on the blog. I wrote it about five or six years ago. It has been on my original site ever since, My Voice of Truth.  I copied and pasted it into the post, two days ago, included the Releasing Letters Guide and a bit of an intro, but I didn’t read the letter.

Today I did.

I realized, I haven’t read it in all these years. As I read it, it was as if I were seeing parts of it for the first time.  As I read it, I felt, the oh my God feeling…did I put this out there for others to read? How could I do that? I forgot how explicit it was, how honest I was, how right to the point and yet layered I was about what he did to me. Lingering shame crept in.

Now you know.

Not only do you know, but you know exactly what he did to me and there are  parts of me that are scared and screaming, why did you do that, why would you tell?

You see, although I have been an outspoken survivor of sexual abuse, I rarely if ever go into the story or the details of what happened to me. I don’t feel that it is necessary or helpful in general to do so and I realize much of my audience is comprised of survivors who can get quite triggered by such details. So it has been suffice to ay that I am a survivor of childhood abuse, I was molested by nine men and physically abused by my mother.

This time I told you more, this time I told all the dirty little secrets of what my grandfather did to me and the conflict of feelings I felt about it then. This time I let you see with words. 

And so this post is to tell you that it is not easy putting this out into the Universe, that parts of me are ashamed and scared despite all the work I have done on myself and that it is normal and okay to feel this way, when you speak your truth.  Especially your truth about such things as sexual abuse.

The difference is that this time, there is an Adult Self inside of me that knows she is okay. She can feel her power in sharing this with all of you. She is not blinded by her shame, in fact the shame I felt when I read the letter was small, and morphed as soon as I paid loving attention to it. My horror was quick and I became grounded as soon I started writing this post here. Things have changed so much. I can remember that twenty year old girl, who had no awareness at all about what was done to her and its effect, and what it meant to stand in her power. Today I know. It feels good to know as small bits of shame linger that I am okay and that they no longer have power over me. It helps me stand in them better and then lovingly let them go. The shame is not mine, it doesn’t belong to me anymore and I am willing to release them.

Thank you to all who have sent private messages or emails after the Dear Grandfather post. Your affirmations have been truly appreciated.

Keep Healing and Growing,

Stephanie

 

The Healing Shame Mini Workshop is available here

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