The definition of shame, according to Merriam Webster:

• A painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety;
• A condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute;
• Something that brings censure or reproach.

The various ways shame can be manifested, according to several articles from Psychology Today:

• Can lead to feelings of being flawed, unworthy, inadequate, stupid, foolish;
• Can lead to the belief of failing to live up to others’ standards;
• Can be passed down through generations;
• Can cause inappropriate behavior of children for the shame that belongs to their parents;
• Can motivate to withdraw, remain hidden;
• Can lead to anger, but that anger can bring on more shame.

My birth mother carried the shame of being unwed and pregnant in 1959. She had little, if any, choice other than to give me up and walk away. I don’t know her specific story. She died before I found her, but I have learned that during that time it was shameful and unacceptable to have sex before marriage, much less get pregnant. Unwed pregnant women were condemned and marked as fallen into disrepute. Most of these girls were sent away, hidden. Some were disowned by their family. Some never got over it. Some were told to forget it ever happened. I wonder if my birth mother became a marked woman.

My adoptive parents carried their own shame. After my mother had her first child, a daughter, complications led to her not being able to have additional children. Fourteen years later, that daughter had not lived up to my parents’ expectations, and they wanted a do-over. They were embarrassed about how their biological daughter had turned out, and ashamed that they couldn’t have another.

Their biological daughter, my “sister,” carries the shame of not living up to our parents’ expectations. Her shame led to fury which she took out on me. Extremely toxic, verbally abusive, and sometimes physically abusive, she did her best to lessen her shame by adding to mine.

My birth father came out unscathed. I found him before he died and was able to place a bit of shame on his shoulders. He was 84, yet the thought of an illegitimate daughter, born 60 years earlier, shook him to the core. If word got out, it would ruin his legacy. He denied unequivocally that he had any involvement in the making of me. 

And for me? I carry the shame of being illegitimate, discarded, and relinquished. I carry the shame of not finding out I was adopted until I was 12. I carry the shame of being played a fool by the people who “loved” me. I carry the shame that I heeded society’s rules of not asking questions about my adoption. I carry the cumulative shame of all four of my parents. I struggle due to this inherited shame which manifests in so many ways:

If my own mother discarded me, I don’t deserve to be loved;

I bend over backwards so people will like me, putting their needs ahead of mine (I can’t bear the thought of being abandoned again);

I am either too attached, to the detriment of my mental health, or avoid attachment altogether;

If goodness appears in my life, I live in fear that it will be taken away (knowing that I don’t deserve it);

I doubt my feelings are valid, especially when society asks “Why do you claim to be traumatized? You were a child. How can you possibly remember?”

Even though I don’t remember my trauma explicitly, it does exist, and has forever changed the landscape of my life into a valley of shame.