To this day I have a tinge of self consciousness when I wear my glasses – after all these decades of “shame work” I’ve done on myself. And that’s even after proving over and over again that, indeed, boys do make passes at girls who wear glasses! (But, of course, in this day and age, “boys making passes” is likely an outdated concept.)
My Glasses History – finally seeing beyond the shame
As a little girl, I had lousy distance eyesight. And my mother, never asking me what I wanted, picked out the cheapest, which in my opinion, were also the ugliest pair of glasses – cat eye frames with leopard print.
Oh yes, in vogue now but back in the day they were an invitation for taunting. I hated them; and I hated her for taking my decision-making power away. And she did this for a lot of things throughout my childhood. It was her way of controlling me. Not to mention, I had a step-father who liked to call me names, including “four eyes”.
You can tell, when I pull the thread on my “glasses shame” and its derivation, it goes deep. Starting about the 3rd grade (around 8 or 9 years old), I was very self-conscious about wearing my glasses.
So I kept them tucked away in my desk. The teacher was fond of writing pop quizzes on the chalkboard so I’d quickly slip on my specs to read the board and then stash them away again. Maybe nobody would notice.
I remember one particular ugly episode in that 3rd grade class during one of these chalkboard pop quizzes, where upon returning from a bathroom break, and reaching into my desk for my glasses and … they were gone! I panicked as that quiz needed to be taken. I flailed around for an insufferable couple of minutes looking for them – until Alana Tweet, smirking, leaned over from her desk with placed them in front of me. Like watching a little helpless insect she had just torn the wings off of, she delighted in watching me writhe.
Then there was junior high, where the self-consciousness ratcheted up with my mother still forcing me to wear eye glasses she had picked out. I nearly failed a history class and an English grammar class because the teachers put their tests on the chalkboard and having an assigned seat further back, I could barely read a thing without putting on my glasses.
Can you imagine? Smart little me (and great at grammar!) preferred to pretend being dumb and clueless, rather than risking the taunting or judgement of other students. There was so much rejection going on at home that I couldn’t bear it elsewhere.
Even as I write this I’m triggered and feel a deep sadness coursing through my body. I know from all the emotional release work I’ve done, that this is mourning for a happy childhood I never had. But this is valuable processing – because bringing up this old memory and then, the feeling that accompanies it, has no relevance for my life today. So it’s time to let it go.
But that’s how trauma works. Backlogged memories that trigger these painful emotions need to be processed and released. It’s what I do for myself and it’s what I teach others to do for themselves. So when I complete this blog piece, I will sit down and do an emotional release practice to move this icky feeling through and be able to wave it goodbye. That simple. Really. I usually cry a lot and feel soooo much better when I’m done in about 15-minutes.
Your yucky backlogged memories
And if this sounds like something you need to do for some yucky backlogged memories you have, then I want to teach you how to do it. I invite you to register for this free Shift Network event where I’m interviewed about this work and also guide an experiential practice to release what ever is knocking loudest on your head. It’s worth your time. I promise.
Having uncovered this latest layer of shame about my looks, I’m giving myself the chance to finally let it go –releasing the weight of yet another old wound and making room for a lighter, freer version of me.
With Love,
Becca
Thanks Becca; I wore glasses also up until about high school, then switched to contacts which were way more cool and you could see better anyway, once you got used to them. Now that I’m old, I don’t care and like my photo sensitive glasses, very practical!
Hi David! Your point is a good one – in that as sensitive teenagers, most of us are hyper-aware of anything that might make us the subject of ridicule. We instinctively scan for signs that we don’t fit in, that something about us might make us an easy target.
Nonetheless, we all process these experiences differently. Take, for example, how matter-of-fact you are when recalling this particular memory: “[I looked] way more cool …[without glasses].” Your tone is neutral, almost detached. It suggests that while you remember the shift from glasses to contacts, it isn’t a memory that carries emotional weight for you. It doesn’t resurface as something that still stings. It’s just something that happened. Of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t have other memories that do trigger something deeper – but this one, at least, isn’t one of them.
For me, though, it was different. I, too, made the switch to contacts in high school – finally old enough that my mother couldn’t insist otherwise. And yes, being able to see without glasses “felt” like freedom. It lifted that awful weight of “I’m uncool. I’ll be rejected because I wear glasses.” It was, at the time, the solution to what felt like an unbearable problem.
And yet – like so many wounds from adolescence – the emotional charge didn’t simply disappear once the external problem was “fixed.” The feeling of not belonging, of being judged, had already embedded itself in me. Even after I stopped wearing glasses, the memory of that insecurity lingered beneath the surface.
That’s why, when I wrote my blog the other day, I felt compelled to examine why this particular memory still held so much power over me as an aging woman. Why, after all these years, did it still trigger something? Writing about it, laying it all out, was healing. It allowed me to acknowledge that while the moment itself had passed, the emotions attached to it had never truly been dealt with.
In working with many people over the years, I’m always taken with how certain memories –some that seem so small – can stay with us in ways we don’t expect. But, for all of us, facing them, unpacking them, and giving them space to exist outside of just our own mind, can be an incredibly freeing thing.
Thanks for the conversation, David – it’s always interesting to reflect on how we each experience and process these moments in such different ways.