At first introduction, start with every trauma you’ve buried deep down… Now we’re lifelong friends. An article on my grief shame and period shame.
What is it about buying a new journal that makes everything start making sense again? It’s like I’m eager to start a new life and with a pen in my hand, this time I’m ready for it. I’ll write three pages about the most minor of all inconveniences I’ve experienced this year. One thing about me, I’m going to beat that dead horse.. I’ll reach down over a cup of coffee that’s already gone cold, and inside I’ll dust off the memory I’ve buried deep inside from that time someone I love said something that would alter the way I love myself, or rather struggle with the lack of, since. I’ll write four pages, front and back, about this before regretting it and going back to pretending it never happened… again. It’s like I’m introducing myself to this journal. I’m starting with the most traumatic experiences that haunt me to my core, rather than the typical small talk and niceties of names and favorite colors.
Hi my name is Kristina. My middle name is Angel, because I’m angelic, duh! My favorite color is yellow. I watched my sister die when I was thirteen and didn’t even know it. What was your name?
Mom’s gonna hate that I wrote it like that, the same way she hated that after my sister passed, I wrote a poem about how only getting to love someone for a short time makes you questions if they ever existed at all… I buy a new journal and suddenly I realize something. I have never gotten over anything in my life, ever.
It was through a grief much later in life, more recent now, that I started allowing myself to like the things I used to love as a kid. Things like writing and making art, I always envisioned them being such a big part of my life but then you have bills and gain weight and lose friends and you’re an adult and art and writing was just something you used to do as a kid. I owe the person I am, creative and open to my friend and great love who has passed. I mention it often because without that loss I would still care far too much. Perhaps I’ll go into more detail about that a different time though.
The shameful experiences of girlhood, being a person who bleeds, and a middle sister
One thing I didn’t allow myself as a child was the freedom to express my emotions. I was labeled as too sensitive by a teacher who was not my own in the hallway when I was in elementary school. I hit my chin on a stair railing and when they gasped, I got all watery eyed. It wasn’t just sensitive; it was phrased too sensitive. It was the way they said it too, that phrase would go on to haunt me for years and keep me questioning if my feelings were normal and if they were why was I the only one that wasn’t allowed to show them?
My older sister yelled at me in a Chuck E. Cheese, “Okay well don’t be so fucking sensitive.” I’d cry, confused why she was being so mean, and when she saw me stifling my tears she’d calmed down and say, “you’re just too sensitive”. It was my fault for assuming her lashing out was personal. It was as if I should have known she’s just got so much on her mind, I shouldn’t have been sitting at the same table as her and then she wouldn’t have taken it out at me. The worst part is that things still don’t make sense to me. How can you get over that one time someone was mean if you never understand what you did wrong? Does that mean now I walk on eggshells? In some way, yes.
I didn’t grow up feeling like emotions were always safe at home. I was the middle daughter of three and things made sense. My older sister was always in trouble, and my younger sister was just mean and that’s just how she was. I was close to my parents and life just made sense because I was 7. Even after we moved, things fell into place. I remember when I first got my period I didn’t understand it. I thought I was dying. My mom was so gentle with me, explaining everything. I didn’t realize this was something other young girls my age felt embarrassed about until I did.
Later there were four kids in the house and suddenly we were allowed to occasionally sleep over at our cousin’s home. I wasn’t close to my parents anymore or my sisters because life was just busy. Later through a shared grief our home was filled with sorrow and darkness, sisters teaming up against each other with me once again stuck in the middle. If someone was mean to me or hurt my feelings, suddenly it was “oh yea you must be on the rag” a phrase I still don’t quite understand… I remember being upset with my sister once and I can’t remember what we were arguing about, but I remember what my mom said. “You must be on your period”, I wasn’t, “that’s why you’re being such a bitch.” Suddenly everything was embarrassing.
Later when my younger brother was born, we had hope back as a family, but things were never the same after the loss of my youngest sister. Maybe this was how the people I loved processed their grief but at whose expense? Could I ever feel like emotions were safe to be expressed after this?
In my journal they could be… as long as my sisters didn’t get their hands on it. When I moved out, that stopped being a problem.
I was living across the country for an AmeriCorps gig, making new friends while trying to stay in touch with the ones I’ve grown close to in college and even before. Even now though, I still didn’t feel totally capable of sharing my emotions so openly. Could they potentially use those against me like the people I loved have done all the years before? Somewhere down the line I met someone I really liked. I actually met quite a lot of people I really liked and loved but this one was different. He was sensitive and never acted as if that was a weakness. He shared stories of his upbringing that made me feel like maybe I had been too sensitive. Here he was talking about neglect and abused he endured looking for an out in the military that would later not pan out, and I was sharing stories about the time my sister broke my necklace and an aunt stole and pawned a ring that my late grandpa said he was saving for me post-graduation. I felt for him, and he never made me feel like we were competing for whose life was harder. We were simply existing. I knew I’d love him then. I got my period and bled on his bed and had to embarrassingly tell him, worried he’d be mad, but he was so gentle with me and acted like that was totally normal. Was it normal, and if so, why did I believe otherwise all these years? As I watched him pull the spotted blood sheets off his bed, for the first time I told someone I wasn’t related to and therefore obligated to that I love them, and I meant it. We’d later go on to get married but at this point in the story he was just someone I was seeing, where conversations before bed always stared something like, “did I ever tell you about the time in third grade when someone said this to me?”
He never made me feel like I couldn’t totally express myself. The crazy thing is, once you’re being open and honest with one person it becomes easier and habitual for you to become open and honest with everyone else, including yourself.
I used to try to present myself as a good vibes only kind of person and now I allow myself a whole spectrum of emotions. And I’m open and honest about it all.
The shame I’ve given myself when I should have given myself the opportunity to process grief
I’ve lost a lot of people in my life, and it never gets easier, obviously, but they’ve all affected me in drastically different ways. One day, in my private journal, I’d like to dissect them all- from great grandparents to classmates. I just don’t know if that’s an emotional storm I’m ready to face.
When I was 9, my grandpa died. It didn’t feel real to me, and no one was talking me through it either. I thought there was always the possibility that he’d just “wake up” in the middle of the ceremony. I thought if I envisioned it enough it would come true. He was the same age when he passed that my parents will be this year. I remember feeling so high fashion at his wake in my new thrifted dress, it was black and covered in large flowers. I cried crocodile tears the whole ceremony but only after hearing my cousin say if we didn’t cry that means we didn’t love him. When I was in middle school, my youngest sister died. This time I cried real tears, but I’d swallow them to make it look like I never was. I’d write in my notebook about these feelings but for the first time my sister didn’t try to read it, they didn’t care to, because they knew exactly what I was writing about and if it wasn’t something they knew for sure they didn’t want to.
My younger sister would scream cry in the shower, and my older sister would blankly stare at her bedroom walls. I feel like I didn’t see my mom for days. I’d sit at the kitchen table or on my bedroom floor. I’d write and write and write about loss and what I thought heaven would be like. I wrote a lot of poems and one for her mass card too, and a eulogy before turning 14. My dad would walk by and see me writing or drawing and he’d stop and offer to talk. We were the only two in the room when she passed and that should have brought us closer together, but I’d just push him away. I couldn’t look at him and not see my dad trying to resuscitate my infant sister. Could he look at me and not see the kid fumbling the phone calling for help in a panic or would that just be all we were to each other moving forward. This felt like the first real loss I experienced; I understood it. The guilt of being there in those final moments when others weren’t made me feel like they were the ones who deserved to be sad, not me.
It wasn’t until nearly five years later when our family dog, Lilly, passed away that I let myself really grieve. I wasn’t just grieving the loss of my sweet Lilly but in some way, I was finally letting myself process the passing of my sister all these years later. My sister was an infant when she passed but even then, her best friend was our dog Lilly who moped around for months after my sister passed away. Lilly would make her way into the room while I was sitting on the floor writing or drawing, and she’d gently place her head on my lap. She was the last part of me that felt tied to my sister and she was gone now too. I took this loss the hardest.
I allowed myself to be open about my grief this time, took time off work, and told my close friends what I was going through. On the surface my friends seemed to understand and tried to offer encouragement that they knew what I was feeling because they too had a dog or cat that died when they were younger, but it didn’t feel like they really understood. Who could? As time passed, they grew impatient with me. Months of grieving was too much, I was in a dark hole where nothing made sense anymore, but I wasn’t replying to their messages and they hated it. This friend group was a trio of me, my closest childhood friend, and her tagalong that she was always smitten for. The tagalong messaged me to call me a bitch for not caring enough about my childhood friend getting her first kiss. We’re in college. I’m not doing well. My dog died. I don’t care about your first kiss, I’m sorry. They’d later use the excuse that they were drunk on two wine coolers and would have never messaged me those things otherwise… If I didn’t think that was okay, they didn’t want to be my friend.
It felt like a heart break. The first time I actually let myself process grief, it cost me a ten-year long friendship. At the time I felt heart broken, later it would prove to be for the best.
