Shame

Strange how two experiences, both known for decades, can come together and light each other up.

When I started nursing school, my mother re-told me the story of her own experience of the OB nurse shaming her when she lost control of her bladder during labor. This for her first child, and she knew no better herself. The hurt stayed with her.

So, I take care to always support my patients when their body acts without their intention, to lessen their distress instead of adding to it. I'm good at "better out than in!" cheeriness. I just clean up bodily messes without becoming emotionally irritated. Code brown? Bring a half wet, half dry towel and make it all pink. Tossing cookies? In the OR, a bath blanket catches stomach contents best, and a wet washcloth for the face after. All the while, I reassure them, "it's ok, this happens, it's what we are doing to you, we are used to this, no big deal." This is part of my job, this is what I was trained for, what I'm paid to do. No one needs baggage from a nurse who is squeamish. No one needs a squeamish nurse, full stop.

Dressing when my back hurts involves adjustment, like dropping a skirt over my head to put it on, instead of stepping into it. My mind flashed onto my tearing a blouse, when I was perhaps 12, because I took it off by sliding it down rather than take it over my head. And my mother shamed me for ruining my shirt doing something so stupid. But it wasn't stupid, I'd done it many times before. In the middle of puberty, my hips had widened just enough to make it almost still possible, but not quite. My body betrayed me, and my mother made a point of it, making me feel lower still.

Only today did I connect the two stories. She should have done less bad. Not a single occurrence, this, but a pattern of anger over my development, or it would have no doubt been forgotten long ago.

She often complained that her mother introduced her as "My baby." She never did this to me. She just didn't like me once I stopped being a little girl. Changing the words didn't change her treating me exactly the same as the way her mother treated her - that she hated.

The willful ignorance that allows for these gaping holes in her integrity keep me far away from her. Not any one mistake, any of which I would readily forgive, but the disconnect from what she says, and what she does. And what that shows me of her character. Understanding where this all grows from, the insecurity and anguish and grief, means I can understand. I wish her no ill.

Like avoiding poison ivy, once one knows that the next contact will cause anaphylaxis. Just want to stay far, far away.