Franks is a funny kind of name to me, and I'm sorry to those of you who are indeed named Frank, or have significant people in your lives named Frank - I really don't wish to cause offense or upset. Some years ago I started referring to shame in my life as Frank. I've known shame for many, many years and at times it has almost crippled me. It's been important for me to learn to distinguish in a number of ways.
Firstly, shame is not mine, it was given to me (or more appropriately forced upon me) by others.
And secondly, feeling ashamed is very different from feeling or being shamed. Feeling ashamed results from having done something wrong or hurtful, whereas being shamed (and the feelings that go with such) are most often the result of someone else's words or treatment toward you that conveys a message of insufficiency or of not being enough.
And so, Frank and I go way back, in fact, I've known Frank for most of my life. That's when it all began. He came in to my life when I was around 3 or 4 in the throes of sexual abuse. I was shamed by two adult men who were sexually abusing me, and mocking me. This introduction to Frank is one of my earliest memories, and I can still the images so very clearly.
Frank has been in my life ever since and has prevented me from doing some of the things that I would have liked to have done and from fully living as freely as I would prefer to. Over the years, I've learnt to tune out Frank's words, or shut him up, but sometimes he is still really loud. Growing up i the late 70s and 80s, I learnt that there were ways to be a man, and the more of a man you were, the better. So, along with sexual prowess and winning the ladies, sporting proficiency, an interest in cars, masculine bravado and machismo, one also had to be well endowed in the underpants department. I was none of those things, quite opposite to those, I was gentle, tactile, artistic, expressive, loathed sports, and not all all well endowed where it seemed to matter most. And I was (am) gay to make it worse. If their was a caste in high school, I was an untouchable. And just in case I wasn't sure of where I stood in the order of things, I got my head flushed in the toilet regularly enough to help me remember.
Frank is an old aged man now and is growing frail, but he's still around. Sometimes I have conversations with Frank and other times I'm like "Yeah, I can hear you Frank, but can you shut up?" Do you get me?
