“Shame On You?” (“Hello, Gentlemen…” Book Excerpt)
Hello, Gentlemen.
It’s me. Sheryle.
“I live in disgrace all day long, and my face is covered with shame.”
Psalm 44:15
Can you relate?
How ashamed are you right now?
Yeah, I’d like to talk to you about shame. Because guess what?
I have dealt with shame, from the start.
And I DO mean the start!
“I am too ashamed and disgraced, my Elohim, to lift up my face to You, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens.”
Ezra 9:6
I don’t know how much you know about me, but, more than likely, I am a product of rape.
So, my mere existence, from the start, has had a lot of shame swirling around it.
And secrecy. So much secrecy. It can poison life, right?
A little bit about my backstory and shame.
I had no idea that I could EVER be the possible “product of rape.”
Yeah, there was abuse in my home. Yeah, there was silence in my home. No one talked about anything that was REALLY going on. Like the abuse.
There was just my dad’s terrifying and screaming rages. There was just my frightened mother and me, trying to deal with it.
No one dealt with anything.
And, I learned, from the start, that I was not wanted.
You can tell when you’re not wanted.
You maybe know what I’m talking about.
You are just “tolerated,” at the most. Maybe they punished you for existing.
You weren’t “bornright.”
Therefore, you deserved to get hit, kicked, beaten, molested, raped, ridiculed, or neglected.
Any bells ringing there for you, and how you “came up?”
But no one tells you that they were happy that you were there.
Instead, they tell you that you are a “mistake,” “a problem,” “a burden.”
Of course, all the cuss words. I don’t need to mention them. You know them very well.
Maybe, sometimes, they call you a “bastard.”
If they don’t say that word, they let you know in other ways.
You are not legitimate.
I found out that I was “a bastard” as a teenager. I discovered my parents’ marriage certificate, did the math, and boom.
No one told me directly.
Shame, however, did.
I was concealed, as my mother was “knocked up.”
A “shotgun wedding,” rushed, before she started to show.
It was decided, I guess, that it was a good thing if my mother “didn’t show.”
Because it was shameful. My existence was shameful…
