On shame and reconciling old stories
In her comedy show Nanette Hannah Gadsby tells her story of growing up and discovering she was a lesbian in Tasmania, where homosexuality was illegal until 1997.
I don't know what I was expecting when i turned on Nanette on a rainy Saturday afternoon. I had heard excellent reviews, how both hard truths were revealed intertwined with hilarious comedy. But when i sat down in front of the screen, i didn't expect what hit me. and maybe that's the brilliance of it all. In an hour long feature more story telling than comedy show i was hit face first with the human experience.
Hannah shares about shame. She talks about how before she even knew she was a lesbian she knew to be homophobic. 70% of the people in her immediate community - the Bible belt of Tasmania - thought homosexuality should remain illegal. And shame, she said, doesn't just go away. In the mind of a child it grows like a weed, ruining the pathways of being able to think things for oneself. The closet keeps you hidden from the world, she said, but it doesn't keep shame out.
Pause the movie
Hide in the bathroom, focused on brushing the tangles out of my hair so the tears don't escape. After all, this is supposed to be comedy.
I was in my early teen years the first time I stood outside of an abortion clinic.
I was there to pray, standing on the street corner in the cold with my friend and her mom, a short amount of time before we were supposed to go to a pro-life gathering. And with as much courage and conviction as I could muster at such a young age, feeling like I was making a difference and saving lives I prayed for the women who would walk in those doors because they didn't know the truth, because they didn't understand the value of life.
The way Hannah was raised to believe homosexuality was wrong, and then faced the realization that she was actually a lesbian, is the same way I encountered abortion.
I was raised in a conservative christian home, went to a christian school, went to church every Sunday. I was handed the narratives that abortion is murder, sexuality is bad and God is male from an age before i could even think for myself, or knew to ask my own questions. This isn't placing blame on my parents, or the church or any other place where i would have picked up this kind of knowledge. But it is saying that regardless of how this information was meant to be presented to me, i received it in a way that was very black and white, and i had only one of two options. i could fit inside the narrative presented to me or i could get out.
Which is why when faced with the reality of my sexual assault in junior high, my solution was to throw myself into church and Bible studies and prayer. And when that didn't work I literally had no way of making sense of the chaos in my mind so i spun some pretty crazy stories and did some pretty stupid things, all because i was trying to make sense of this life i was now living that didn't fit inside the story i had been given.
So I stood outside the abortion clinic when i was a young teenager and I listened to all the stories about how abortion is the next genocide and how women seek abortions as a solution to an unwanted pregnancy with no thought to the life inside them. I listened as this narrative vilified women, and created an us vs. them. We were the good guys, and everyone participating in abortion were the bad guys.
After Paris died, this became one of the stories I couldn't reconcile. When, from your earliest memories, you are handed one narrative and then the current reality doesn't fit inside of that narrative, it challenges everything. The shame culture i was handed as a child didn't suddenly go away because i was an adult. And I realized how, for so long, i had been unable to think about anything other than the stories i was handed.
I believe life begins at conception, and yet I had an abortion.
I had people who, upon my returning home from the hospital, told me i shouldn't use the word abortion. that wasn't what happened, they assured me. I didn't have a choice.
Really? Is abortion a dirty word now? Tell me, are you trying to assure me i didn't have an abortion or yourself because my story doesn't fit into the narrative you were handed about what you think abortion is? Is the truth of what happened to me making you uncomfortable?
Because, yes, I had an abortion. I am a married, successful woman who would have been thrilled to welcome a baby into the family. I was on birth control, i did everything right. I didn't end my pregnancy because it was inconvenient for me. I did it because to continue on with my pregnancy would have cost me my life. And even when faced with the choice between my survival and continuing a pregnancy that had no guarantees anyway i almost walked face first into my own suicide. Sometimes, when the shame and the lies seep in, I tell myself the facts of the matter and repeat them like a mantra. The amount of sugar and drugs in my system, and how dependent I was on them, was unsustainable, and my body would not have been able to carry my son to term. I repeat this like it is a bedtime story to help me fall asleep.
Don't think for any length of time that i didn't try to find another way. that in the moment before i walked into the operating room i wasn't thinking about running. EVEN THOUGH to run would mean certain death for me and my child. And in those moments before i fell asleep, before the surgery in which skilled surgeons ended up saving my life, i was thinking about trying to keep my breathing at an even pace so i could remain calm and my son wouldn't sense any fear. I focused on trying to let him know how loved he was, and how sorry i was that my body had failed us both.
To describe what happened to me as just a miscarriage undermines the extremely hard and painful journey we experienced. Miscarriages, i can imagine, are intensely painful in their own way but this was not a miscarriage in the sense that the baby stopped growing and my body knew what to do. my body did not know what to do.
Now look at me again and tell me about abortion. Tell me the women who get abortions do it to end an inconvenient pregnancy, or because they believe that it is just a clump of cells.
I remember one day in those early days of grief sobbing because of how wrong I was. How wrongly I'd judged women who got an abortion, put shame on them for their choices. And now here I was, one of them. As if there had ever been an us and a them. And all the shame and judgement that had been directed at those women was now turned on me. And I couldn't breathe because of it. I couldn't look myself in the mirror because of it.
And maybe that's what those well meaning people who told me i didn't actually have an abortion were trying to avoid, and maybe that's why it made them so angry when i decided to tell my story and include the word abortion in it.
But i've never subscribed to the idea that if something makes you uncomfortable you should avoid looking at it. I couldn't just put aside the how of how Paris died and continue on with mourning my child. I knew there had to be a better way.
"you destroy the woman you destroy the past she represents." I will not allow my story to be destroyed. What i would have done to have heard a story like mine. not for blame, not for reputation, not for money, not for power but to feel less alone. to feel connected. I want my story heard because, ironically, I believe Picasso was right. I believe we could paint a better world if we learned how to see it from all perspectives, as many perspectives as we possibly can. Because diversity is strength, difference is a teacher. Fear difference and you learn nothing
I'm angry. Of course I'm angry. And I think I have every right to be angry. What I don't have, as Hannah Gadsby said, is a right to pass along that anger. We can't change the past. But as I tell my story, as I am stepping out of shame, I can only hope we can learn the lessons so no other little girl has to feel shameful about who she is. I'm tired of systems and viewpoints that bury people in shame and misinformation and twisted narratives to keep them trapped.
Story telling is how I know to liberate myself. It is the slow, hard work of becoming free of systems that have kept me oppressed for years.
There is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself
I don't know what I was expecting when i turned on Nanette on a rainy Saturday afternoon. I had heard excellent reviews, how both hard truths were revealed intertwined with hilarious comedy. But when i sat down in front of the screen, i didn't expect what hit me. and maybe that's the brilliance of it all. In an hour long feature more story telling than comedy show i was hit face first with the human experience.
Hannah shares about shame. She talks about how before she even knew she was a lesbian she knew to be homophobic. 70% of the people in her immediate community - the Bible belt of Tasmania - thought homosexuality should remain illegal. And shame, she said, doesn't just go away. In the mind of a child it grows like a weed, ruining the pathways of being able to think things for oneself. The closet keeps you hidden from the world, she said, but it doesn't keep shame out.
Pause the movie
Hide in the bathroom, focused on brushing the tangles out of my hair so the tears don't escape. After all, this is supposed to be comedy.
I was in my early teen years the first time I stood outside of an abortion clinic.
I was there to pray, standing on the street corner in the cold with my friend and her mom, a short amount of time before we were supposed to go to a pro-life gathering. And with as much courage and conviction as I could muster at such a young age, feeling like I was making a difference and saving lives I prayed for the women who would walk in those doors because they didn't know the truth, because they didn't understand the value of life.
The way Hannah was raised to believe homosexuality was wrong, and then faced the realization that she was actually a lesbian, is the same way I encountered abortion.
I was raised in a conservative christian home, went to a christian school, went to church every Sunday. I was handed the narratives that abortion is murder, sexuality is bad and God is male from an age before i could even think for myself, or knew to ask my own questions. This isn't placing blame on my parents, or the church or any other place where i would have picked up this kind of knowledge. But it is saying that regardless of how this information was meant to be presented to me, i received it in a way that was very black and white, and i had only one of two options. i could fit inside the narrative presented to me or i could get out.
Which is why when faced with the reality of my sexual assault in junior high, my solution was to throw myself into church and Bible studies and prayer. And when that didn't work I literally had no way of making sense of the chaos in my mind so i spun some pretty crazy stories and did some pretty stupid things, all because i was trying to make sense of this life i was now living that didn't fit inside the story i had been given.
So I stood outside the abortion clinic when i was a young teenager and I listened to all the stories about how abortion is the next genocide and how women seek abortions as a solution to an unwanted pregnancy with no thought to the life inside them. I listened as this narrative vilified women, and created an us vs. them. We were the good guys, and everyone participating in abortion were the bad guys.
After Paris died, this became one of the stories I couldn't reconcile. When, from your earliest memories, you are handed one narrative and then the current reality doesn't fit inside of that narrative, it challenges everything. The shame culture i was handed as a child didn't suddenly go away because i was an adult. And I realized how, for so long, i had been unable to think about anything other than the stories i was handed.
I believe life begins at conception, and yet I had an abortion.
I had people who, upon my returning home from the hospital, told me i shouldn't use the word abortion. that wasn't what happened, they assured me. I didn't have a choice.
Really? Is abortion a dirty word now? Tell me, are you trying to assure me i didn't have an abortion or yourself because my story doesn't fit into the narrative you were handed about what you think abortion is? Is the truth of what happened to me making you uncomfortable?
Because, yes, I had an abortion. I am a married, successful woman who would have been thrilled to welcome a baby into the family. I was on birth control, i did everything right. I didn't end my pregnancy because it was inconvenient for me. I did it because to continue on with my pregnancy would have cost me my life. And even when faced with the choice between my survival and continuing a pregnancy that had no guarantees anyway i almost walked face first into my own suicide. Sometimes, when the shame and the lies seep in, I tell myself the facts of the matter and repeat them like a mantra. The amount of sugar and drugs in my system, and how dependent I was on them, was unsustainable, and my body would not have been able to carry my son to term. I repeat this like it is a bedtime story to help me fall asleep.
Don't think for any length of time that i didn't try to find another way. that in the moment before i walked into the operating room i wasn't thinking about running. EVEN THOUGH to run would mean certain death for me and my child. And in those moments before i fell asleep, before the surgery in which skilled surgeons ended up saving my life, i was thinking about trying to keep my breathing at an even pace so i could remain calm and my son wouldn't sense any fear. I focused on trying to let him know how loved he was, and how sorry i was that my body had failed us both.
To describe what happened to me as just a miscarriage undermines the extremely hard and painful journey we experienced. Miscarriages, i can imagine, are intensely painful in their own way but this was not a miscarriage in the sense that the baby stopped growing and my body knew what to do. my body did not know what to do.
Now look at me again and tell me about abortion. Tell me the women who get abortions do it to end an inconvenient pregnancy, or because they believe that it is just a clump of cells.
I remember one day in those early days of grief sobbing because of how wrong I was. How wrongly I'd judged women who got an abortion, put shame on them for their choices. And now here I was, one of them. As if there had ever been an us and a them. And all the shame and judgement that had been directed at those women was now turned on me. And I couldn't breathe because of it. I couldn't look myself in the mirror because of it.
And maybe that's what those well meaning people who told me i didn't actually have an abortion were trying to avoid, and maybe that's why it made them so angry when i decided to tell my story and include the word abortion in it.
But i've never subscribed to the idea that if something makes you uncomfortable you should avoid looking at it. I couldn't just put aside the how of how Paris died and continue on with mourning my child. I knew there had to be a better way.
"you destroy the woman you destroy the past she represents." I will not allow my story to be destroyed. What i would have done to have heard a story like mine. not for blame, not for reputation, not for money, not for power but to feel less alone. to feel connected. I want my story heard because, ironically, I believe Picasso was right. I believe we could paint a better world if we learned how to see it from all perspectives, as many perspectives as we possibly can. Because diversity is strength, difference is a teacher. Fear difference and you learn nothing
I'm angry. Of course I'm angry. And I think I have every right to be angry. What I don't have, as Hannah Gadsby said, is a right to pass along that anger. We can't change the past. But as I tell my story, as I am stepping out of shame, I can only hope we can learn the lessons so no other little girl has to feel shameful about who she is. I'm tired of systems and viewpoints that bury people in shame and misinformation and twisted narratives to keep them trapped.
Story telling is how I know to liberate myself. It is the slow, hard work of becoming free of systems that have kept me oppressed for years.
There is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself
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