Queer people aren’t strangers to shame, or to reclaiming one of the darkest feelings a person can carry deep in their gut. Shame is distinct from guilt in that shame is about doing something nonnormative, whereas guilt implies a breach of morality. Still, the consequences of shame can be profound — isolation, stress, secrets. Shame is relative to our surroundings, to the people who have power over us or to the communities we try to find homes in. For this A+ personal essay series, writers wrote about things they can barely whisper to aloud, things they thought was once a blemish that they’ve turned into crown, things that make them feel like a “bad queer”, or the ways that other peoples’ shame has woven itself into their life and existence. Answers to nagging questions, positive conclusions from difficult times and happy endings are not necessary, and you might not find them in every essay in the SHAME series. But I do hope you fill find something that challenges some shame you might be feeling, that is too relatable, that leaves you questioning whether it is actually serving you to hide whatever it is you’re hiding. As always, thank you for the support that allows Autostraddle to publish the breadth of pieces that we do, whether we’re celebrating the bright spots or descending into the basements of our psyches — this is a space where queer people can pitch, write and publish work like nowhere else.

xoxo,

Nico

Editor’s note: The following essay contains mentions and discussions of domestic violence and abuse, stalking, blood, and child abuse.

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“seven years you assured me
That I’d be fine if I complied
Only push the way off to fight you
I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m not sure
Getting my chest the story now ends
I would find a way without you
(Tell him his eyes see too clear)”

— “Seven Years,” Saosin

“And it didn’t take ’em long to decide
That Earl had to die”

– “Goodbye Earl,” The Chicks

“Fear makes liars of us all.”
― In the Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado

Around a year ago, I finally got rid of the TV in my bedroom. It had been broken for months, the cracks in the screen making it dangerous to hold. But it stared at me: breaking the sanctity of my space, reminding me of the violence and the fear that held me captive for years. So, after shutting my cat in the bathroom, I pulled it off my dresser, and carried it out into the hallway. My hands were cut by the screen, on the glass. They bled as I hastily shoved it into two trash bags and put it in the garbage can. Yes, I know about electronics recycling and laws. But at that moment, I was finally more important.

They broke the TV in a fit of rage long after we had broken up, months after I had moved out of our shared apartment. “We were friends.” Apparently. The violence was purportedly not about me, nor directed at me, but it was violence. And it was always somehow near me.

It was still abuse, a word I can still barely get out, barely admit, a word that I still say in a whisper to my therapist. But after looking at the Power and Control Wheel, I couldn’t really deny it anymore. IYKYK. (But I truly hope you don’t). And I know it well, now.

In our last apartment together, there was evidence everywhere, evidence I tried to hide. The kitchen cabinet door had broken off the hinges, visible to anyone as soon as they opened the front door (it became open shelving!), the damage to the bathtub that I explained as a fall showed its dents to every apartment guest and maintenance person, the damage to the bathroom wall that I couldn’t explain as anything other than a fist through the wall. I try to list the broken objects, too many to count: my Dyson blow dryer, candles, three Pet Eraser Vacuums, mugs, eyeglasses, my favorite Chrissy Teigan glasses, three televisions, and ten phones. And me, of course.

Never physically aimed at me or the cats.
(So it wasn’t abuse,
it wasn’t about me,
it wasn’t,
it wasn’t,
it wasn’t
It was).

But every shattered object,
every busted door,
every hole in the wall was a new trauma, yes,
but it also took me back to the original trauma,
the “family of origin rupture,”
the person I claimed I would never be.

I didn’t break up with my ex: it never would have occurred to me. I was in deep after seven years. I was codependent, and we were both buried in mental health issues and graduate programs (which create their own mental health issues). We tried to survive day by day in a way that made us forget why we were together in the first place. Something like love had existed at first, maybe, but I don’t think I was ever really in love. I didn’t know what love was.

But I thought that I was finally safe, in a loving queer relationship, one that would be forever. When they did end our relationship, when they broke up with me, the day after we had a meeting at the church about our wedding (which was impeccably planned, down to the choreographed sibling dance to Cher and the art gallery reception) I cried. I screamed. I threw save-the-date samples like I was on a 90s sitcom. But after they left, after I stopped screaming (and before I started panicking about restarting my entire life), all I felt was relief. For the first time, in seven years, my future wasn’t laid out in front of me. I wasn’t tip-toeing around, trying not to rock the boat, avoid all the destroyed objects they left in their wake. It might involve love or sex. It might involve moving home. It might involve…anything I wanted, I could move back to the East Coast. I could move somewhere I wanted to live. I could be someone I wanted to be.

I was free.

Of course, when we started dating it wasn’t like this. I didn’t love them, but they weren’t mean or violent, and they didn’t throw my stuff. We also both thought we were cis and straight. They were polite. They were sweet. They helped me move out (a Herculean effort that won over my dad.). They got me cheese straws and sent me Cheerwine and Moon Pies after I moved up north. We talked about books more than anything else, but also politics and the South. And most importantly, I didn’t have to try to impress them, I just did. And after dating so many boys, who, in the words of Taylor Swift “would hide away and find your peace of mind. With some indie record that’s much cooler than mine” it was a reprieve. I, myself, was good enough. Until, of course, I wasn’t.

Myriam Gurba writes, in her essay collection Creep, about the beginning of her abusive relationship: “During our courtship, I boasted to friends and family about how dizzyingly romantic Q acted, and so, when he started behaving differently, I felt confused. I also felt embarrassed. Extremely embarrassed. No one likes to admit they’ve been duped. Those who believe that if they encountered someone like Q they’d immediately sense danger delude themselves. It’s not like you’re on your first, second, third, fourth, or fifth date with a Q when they announce, ‘Pass the salt, you dog-faced cunt, or I’ll slice you from neck to stomach!.'” Of course, at first, there was romance (or what passed as romance to me).

I was duped. And I felt embarrassed and stupid because I was not supposed to be stupid! I am the smart one! And I have seen all of this stuff before! Wasn’t I supposed to be able to recognize it? But because someone made me feel like I didn’t need to be cooler than I was, because someone was nice to me, because someone liked to read, they got away with it. Because so few people had been nice to me before, I thought that nice was special, nice was a good thing. But I’ve learned the difference between nice and kind, nice and good, nice and special. This is something that many other people seem to know intrinsically, but as someone with ASD I had to learn. And as my therapist sometimes says when I am trying to figure out if someone is worth a date, a conversation, any effort at all, “You’ve been through so much worse.” This isn’t to excuse bad behavior but to remind my hypervigilant self to let some people in, that I do now, finally, know the signs.

***After the breakup, my family expected me to be catatonic (they sent me stuffed animals, candy, a Winnie the Pooh thimble, and called more than they had in the 13 years since I had moved out). But I was okay. I wasn’t good. But I knew, finally, that I was going to be okay. I still didn’t even realize our relationship was abusive or toxic. They didn’t hit me. They didn’t throw me. They didn’t throw the phones, the glasses, the blow dryers, at me. They were just near me and it was always somehow my fault. To me, abuse was being punched, being strangled, being thrown out the front door. But not this.
For me, the worst part of the break-up wasn’t losing my long-term partner. It was disentangling things — joint phone plans and leases and expenses. It was cat custody, plant custody, and art custody. It was deciding to just get rid of our beloved Birkenstock Store Fixture as a coffee table because it reminded us both too much of our life together, a life that we would never really have.

If you had asked me then, I would have said of course abuse isn’t just for cis-hetero couples. I had read In the Dream House, after all. I also didn’t think I was being abused.

I also know the stats and get in arguments about them every pride and bisexual awareness day/week/month. Bisexual women face higher rates of both sexual assault and rape than both straight and Lesbian women. I may not be a woman, but I often pass (to my eternal chagrin). I am a trans nonbinary person and was in a relationship with a transfemme lesbian. Trans people are about 50 percent more likely to face domestic violence. Not only that, but Autistic people are also far more likely to face all kinds of abuse, including domestic violence, sexual assault, and bullying. I know this. But still, I thought I was the exception. I was special. I would not be tricked, I would not be trapped, until I was.

***Abuse, of course, isn’t just the heteronormative picture of a man punching a woman. It’s the slow destruction of every door in the house, covered in wallpaper or simply taken off the hinges. It’s cleaning up glass over and over again, my fingers bleeding, trying to protect the cat. It’s the excuses I made to my friends when scolded in public, the doubt creeping into my Dad’s eyes, ignoring every single impulse in myself that said, run, leave. It was being chastised for my Autism – for my shutdowns, meltdowns, hypo-manic episodes, and sensory needs. They told me I always got to have it my way, as if shutting down, going dark on the couch in the middle of the day isn’t suffering, isn’t dysregulation, isn’t my body’s way of keeping me alive. They blamed me for it, for my mental health issues, as if they didn’t have their own. But they blamed me for those too — if I spent less money, if I stopped making neurodivergent nests, if they didn’t have to take care of me, only then would they not only be successful, making progress in school, but they also wouldn’t be depressed. Then, they wouldn’t be suicidal. They wouldn’t have made five attempts during our relationship, some of them in front of me. Maybe, if I was better, their mother wouldn’t stalk me, banging on my apartment windows as I tried to sleep after taking them to the hospital. Maybe she wouldn’t blame me for everything: her child’s queerness, being broke, having weirdly colored hair, and growing up what they considered poor — the ultimate sin — as if I could control these things, as if I was the God they insisted on believing in.

My ex blamed me for not going to all of my doctor’s appointments, all of the time, when I have enough doctor’s appointments that it could be, should be, a full-time job (at minimum there are 5 weekly and I try to see a few additional specialists a week). They always implied there was an end goal. I needed to get better. I needed to fix myself. But better doesn’t exist for me. I am neurodivergent, depressed, anxious, traumatized and chronically ill. And that’s okay with me, now. I manage my symptoms, but I don’t contort myself to the expectations of a neurotypical society, of an ableist society, one that still refuses to fully acknowledge that Long Covid exists.

I don’t know what affected me the most, or what was worse, the emotional or physical abuse. But I do know that I still jump at any sort of loud noises. I installed a camera like I’m one of those weirdos on Next Door (I am not). When we broke up, the second thing I thought was that if I was going to try to date, if I wasn’t going to die alone, I needed to starve myself again, that the only acceptable version of myself was the one actively disappearing. Once again, the person that was supposed to be my safe place was, in actuality, the monster.

My first experiences of abuse were things I witnessed, quotidian domestic violence and relationship violence. At 5 years old, I already wanted to protect my family. The damage was done, and the role I decided I had in my family was clear: protect them at all costs. My first-ever favorite song was “Goodbye Earl” by the Chicks. (Side note: why isn’t Natalie Maines gay? We need her.) I was seven and stole the CD from my Mom. It made me think that something else was possible, that leaving was possible. After all, “Earl had to Die.”

Even though I knew all about domestic abuse theoretically, saw friends and family in and out of abusive relationships my entire life and grew up with the lore of the bad ones, the worst ones, the ones that they escaped in the middle of the night, I thought it was an impossibility for me. I was just TOO smart. Too self-aware. Too queer. Too weird. And just like I would never smoke cigarettes like my family, I would never let this happen to me. I knew what to expect. And anyway, a real queer wouldn’t be in an abusive relationship. Or one that felt somehow heteronormative (the real shame) in its abuse.
Even though I am nonbinary and bi and my ex is a lesbian transfemme, we somehow fell into “heteronormative” roles. Some were based on our interests and skills (I love sending mail so I did the Christmas cards). Some were a result of learned incompetence. And some were just bad, vestiges of their abusive upbringing in a conservative southern household, vestiges of my co-dependency and anxious attachment. It took months after the breakup for me to admit that it was possibly toxic. At least a year for me to use the word abuse. I grew up around abusive households and I had promised myself I would never be part of one. It’s a promise I’ve broken more than once now (a story for another time).
And it didn’t seem fair, or possible, anyway! I am queer! Why was I getting yelled at about dinners being on time and spending too much money, having doors and walls punched in around me? That wasn’t supposed to be the deal. I was ashamed. I was ashamed to admit the problem to myself, to my therapist, to my friends who saw, who knew, even as I carefully picked up all the broken glass off the floor, hands bleeding, to hide what they did. Even as I pretended we wanted an open cabinet space, that the wallpaper on the bathroom wasn’t covering anything (holes), and that they would never hurt me (even as they hurt me in some way, every single day), I was ashamed. Ashamed I wasn’t smarter than this, even though I know that’s not how abusive relationships work. Ashamed that I could fall into heteronormative relationship patterns as a nonbinary bisexual, and most of all ashamed to use the word “abuse” when applied to me.

Of course, logically I know that queer people can be in abusive relationships. That intelligence has nothing to do with it, but I never imagined one quite like mine.

I moved away from home at 17, when I left for college. Some people don’t think that’s moving out, but I never came back home, not to stay, not for real. Eventually, I realized that home wasn’t a place. Home was the women who raised me; the weird women, the crazy women, the women who like me were thrown and beaten, who were talked down to and above — the women who were controlled, in some way, somehow, by men. My abuser wasn’t a man, but I was always, already, home, even though I never came back physically. I know that while intimate partner violence is not genetic, it’s generational, it’s cyclical. 80 percent of people who were in an abusive relationships have a child in one. I don’t know what the statistics are when that spreads out — to cousins, aunts, step-family, grandparents. But I do know that even though I always saw these stats as ridiculous—because we are the people who should know — it didn’t matter. It came for me anyway. No amount of experience, intelligence, queerness, or force of will could protect me from where I came from, from where some part of me always will be.

So, I still make my nests. Shocker: I’m still sick, sicker every day. I am also still autistic because that doesn’t just leave you when your ex does. I got cat custody, and they got my prince of orange plant and it better be fucking thriving. I learned that abuse isn’t just being punched in the face. I have a security camera. Even now, years out, my friends all have my location all the time. And even though I’m not 7 years old anymore, “Goodbye Earl” is still my favorite song. But now, I pay a lot more attention to the end, when Mary Anne and Wanda set up a roadside stand. What does the other side of queer abuse look like? I’m still trying to figure that out.

Even now, I’m scared that they’ll read this, that they’ll know it’s about them, that they’ll somehow find me, that nothing I do will ever keep me safe. I talked to my therapist about writing this article, about the risks and the rewards. I don’t think that anything is going to happen, but, then, I never thought I was being abused. But maybe this will help some other queer person, stuck in an abusive relationship, somehow become safer than I was, safer than I’ll ever be. Or maybe I just needed to come out — not as queer, but as abused, as a neurodivergent chronically ill, nonbinary, bisexual survivor in a Ph.D. program, because abuse can come for you no matter who you are, who you love, and how many books you’ve read.