The Awesome Power of Shame

The Awesome Power of Shame

Words by Dennis Allen

Qanuqitpihi! I remember one time when I was hosting Suaangan and Uncle Edward Lennie phoned me and said “Qanuqitpihi.” I knew it was some kind of greeting and fumbled over some kind of reply. He told me it means “how is everybody?” He went on to say that Siglit use “S” and Ummungmuit use “H,” hence the different pronunciation. He said he was calling to correct me ‘cause Iwas opening my Suaangan show by saying “How are you?” instead of “how is everybody?”

I sure miss hearing my dad and his friends speaking “Eskimo,” as they used to call it. They would laugh like hell and slap their knees. Even though I never understood them, it felt comfortable knowing my dad, and by extension, myself, were rooted in our culture.

I hope everyone had a good summer. I was just talking to Floyd Sidney, who was working in Inuvik for the summer, and he says there are hardly any boats on the river. I remember when the river was like a highway and how many boats were always coming and going. In June, everyone would be hauling stuff down to the coast for whaling. I know I haven’t been home in a while but I still get lonesome when I think of getting ready to go to the coast.

I haven’t written for a while but in my last writing I was talking about the problems we still face as Inuvialuit. Like I said, we’ve come a long way from Frobisher Bay.

People, don’t you know what I mean? She had the boys all crying on the distant early warning line; Muktuk Annie could really make the scene.

Sorry, I got carried away with that Bob Ruzicka song. Anybody remember Bob Ruzika playing in Semmler’s Store?

Anyway, like I was saying, though we’ve come a long way in terms of education and self-government, we’ve still got a long way to go. The reason I say that is because I work in a federal prison here in Alberta and I’m still seeing our young men coming down here. They actually are coming from all over the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. I do programming with them and we work together to try and figure out why they commit their crimes. And what we are finding out is that we carry a lot of shame, and shame is a big ingredient to destructive lifestyles.

What we found out when we really dug deep was our shame began long before we were born. Our shame began when the first whalers and traders started coming around. At first, it was a good relationship. We showed them how to live in our country. Our women sewed for them and the men taught them how to hunt and survive on the land. But it slowly turned on us.

Over time, we became dependent on them for rifles, shells, rope, matches, canvas, tea, sugar, coffee, flour, etc. We couldn’t live without them. Soon, the traders and their way of life began to erode the true Inuvialuit way of life and we began to lose our identity and independence. I must say, however, that Slim Semmler was the exception. He stayed and lived with us and married into our people. Slim saved a lot of lives by extending credit. I’m sure there are a few others, but there were many who came and went.

More dangerous was when the whalers introduced us to alcohol. I remember stories from my dad about how they taught his grandfather how to make moonshine and home brew and how they used to have big parties at special times of the year. It sounded like fun but underneath that there was a lot of abuse: spousal assault, sexual assault, child neglect and child sexual abuse. A lot of those abuses were brought on by the whalers themselves who took advantage of the friendly Inuvialuit.

That was the beginning of what we call historical shame – shame that was not processed, understood or corrected that is passed on from one generation to the next. People didn’t talk about it. They just swallowed it and it stayed with them until it surfaced as anger, rage, resentment, drinking, more abuse and pain.

Then we went a little further and started talking about when the churches came in. Again, at first, it was a good relationship. People were happy to exchange their superstitious beliefs for what the Bible was teaching. To them, it made sense to believe in Jesus and follow his teachings. But what followed was what even today is being referred to as a cultural genocide.

A genocide is when one culture imposes itself on another culture and takes it over, literally killing it. What I’m referring to was the practice of taking kids from their families and putting them in residential schools, away from their homes and ways of life, sometimes for years at a time.

I was looking for pictures of the inmates’ relatives so we could put them up on the wall when I came across pictures from the residential school in Hay River. I found a picture of one of the guys’ grandmother. Her head was shaved and even though she was trying to smile, you could see the pain and hurt in her eyes. I don’t know how many years she stayed there but she must have been there for a long time. Try to imagine your kids being away from you that long and how much hurt you would have, let alone how the kids must have felt abandoned and neglected. I can’t imagine the shame that would bring to a family.

I know a lot of people, including my mom, said they had nothing but good to say about residential school. But the number of people who had bad experiences far outweighs the good. I remember interviewing an elder in Fort Good Hope one time about his experience in residential school. He showed me a scar on his lip where a nun hit him with a fire poke because he was hungry and trying to steal food. That was not near as bad as some of the other stories that came out of residential schools.

When we were kids, there was a supervisor in a residential school in Inuvik who was sexually abusing little boys. Most of those guys have committed suicide or are street people now. Imagine being the parents of those kids, or the children themselves. Back then no one questioned the church.

They just swallowed that shame. Again, we said people were “tough.” But underneath was a sea of shame and hurt. So it’s hard to say that residential school doesn’t play a role in our historical shame.

We also had to look at what widespread epidemics did to our people. Entire villages were eradicated with simple flu viruses because we had no immunity to foreign diseases. A lot of children were orphaned, and a lot of mothers and fathers lost their children. The entire social fabric of our community was destroyed. How can a parent not feel shame for losing a child? How can a child not feel shame for not having parents? Even in those days.

We always think people had no feelings in the past ‘cause it was so long ago. Go ask an elder how they felt to be orphaned, or to lose a child. We say they are “tough” but underneath is a world of pain and shame. We can see it in them as they walk up town by themselves. Inside them is a rumble so loud that it drowns out their voices.

So what happens when people cannot process or understand that shame? Remember that shame is an emotion and emotions need to be expressed for people to live healthy lifestyles. We can’t hide our secrets, because we are as sick as our secrets. When I read the police reports of the crimes these guys have committed, I see where the shame comes out. It comes out as self-hatred, violence, low self-esteem, alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual assaults, vicious attacks on others, murder and manslaughter, just to name a few. And that’s not to mention the people in our communities, people who walk around with their head down, who are so burdened with shame.

Shame is a powerful emotion that demands attention. As human beings, we learn ways to stifle it because it is such an uncomfortable and uneasy feeling. We don’t like to feel like that, so we have to supress that feeling somehow. I know for me alcohol was a perfect way to kill those feelings I had in myself. Whenever shame would rear its ugly head, I would just go to the bar and kill it with booze and good times. But all the time I was crying on the inside. I’m not going to go into detail about how I got my shame, ‘cause that’s my business. The fact remains I have it and it almost destroyed my life.

I could not drink anymore (I entered stage three alcoholism when I quit) but I was still not ready to reveal my secrets to anyone. I didn’t trust anyone, nor did I love myself enough to get and accept help. So naturally I found other addictions to cure my ill. Again, I’m not going to go into detail. If you are reading this, you know what I’m talking about.

I had to find another addiction because my shame was so powerful that I had to somehow medicate it. The addiction I chose, or the addiction that chose me, began to create more shame over my behaviour. I was using another sickness as a cure for my alcoholism. The cure became the poison, and I got sicker and sicker. As I did, I hurt more and more people.

Addiction is a cruel beast. It cares nothing for people’s feelings, worth or self-dignity. All it cares about is being fed. You, as a person, no matter where you come from, what you’ve done, how people look up to you, how much money you have, who your parents are, what you drive, means nothing. Because the addict is in total and absolute control. No matter how much you want to quit and how much it’s hurting you and people around you, you have no control. “Give me more, now,” it screams in your head. That plays over and over in your head.

What we are finding out, with the help of our prison psychologist, is that the addict is actually our egos. And ego is a part of our being that is supposed to make us feel good about ourselves. It was designed so we can comb our hair in the morning, put on clean clothes, don’t slurp when you eat your soup, or tuck your shirt in at church. It’s designed to give us dignity. Otherwise, we’d be walking around with no clothes on taking a dump anywhere we want, like an animal, and caring nothing for ourselves or our society.

I did not want to give up my addiction. It felt too good. It was the only thing that made life bearable. If I didn’t have it, then I would have to face myself. The truth was too painful. Withdrawal was off the table. I simply could not handle not having my drug. Because by that time, my body had become used to it and expected it at a regular interval. I actually went into physical withdrawal (moody, uneasy, angry, rageful) when I didn’t have it. That’s where the ego comes in.

Instead of looking after me like it was designed to do, my ego began to control me. It began to tell me that it wasn’t that bad. “Your hangover is not that bad. You’ll get over it. You are not an addict. You’re entitled to do what you want to do. They can’t tell you what to do. They’re not the boss of you. You know what you’re doing. Leave him alone.” My ego began to outgrow its original purpose and soon was making all my decisions. My true self was suppressed. The guy who wanted to do the right thing, the guy who wanted respect, the guy who at his core was a good person, was squashed and ignored.

At the core of every man, woman and child, is a light that wants to shine, to do the right thing, to help others, to be a good person. Some people call it God; others call it Creator, Allah or whatever your language or belief is. It is the fundamental driving force of life.

That goes the same for ego. Some people call it the devil in you, the negative side of man, the lower side of man’s being, because it can turn on you and kill you. And what feeds that negative side of us is shame. If we don’t start looking at our shame and bringing it into the light, then it will grow and fester in the dark. Our secrets will kill us.

That’s what we do here. We start the painful but essential task of unearthing our shame. Because if we don’t, these people will go back to their communities and their shame will rear its ugly head. They will continue their destructive behaviour. And ultimately, someone will get hurt. But very rarely is it just someone; it becomes someone and their family, someone and their kids, someone and their community, someone and … ad infinitum.

As we go through this, I share my story with them. As fortunate as I am to be on this side of the fence, I’m still not immune to the “yet” syndrome of an addict. As addicts, we look at others and say “I’m not as bad as them.” But we forget the word “yet.” Because if you continue on your road to destruction, you will arrive at “yet,” sooner or later.

The thing about addiction is that it is incurable. You cannot take a pill to get better. It is also progressive. It gets worse. The alcoholic doesn’t start drinking by lying on the side of the road in a dead drunk from Lysol. He starts off sneaking a little sip of beer here and there, and then it progresses over the years. The last truth about addiction is that it is fatal. It will kill you, sooner or later. If I didn’t stop my addiction, it would eventually kill me.

The first thing I had to do when I wanted to stop my addiction was to admit to my very core that I was powerless over my addiction and my ego. I had to put the truth on the table and look it square in the eye and say, “You win. You are more powerful than me. My life is unmanageable when I am in my addiction.” And with that, I had to walk away from it. But more important, I had to find others who had walked away from it and follow their advice on how they stay away from it.

What they tell me is that I have to admit every morning before my ego and my brain start to tell me that I’m okay and that I can handle just one, that I am powerless over my addiction and it makes my life unmanageable. I also pray to that little light inside me that wants to be good. And the more I pray, the bigger that flame gets. I have to follow that voice in my head that tells me to do the next right thing. I have to follow my higher power. For me, my higher power is love. The love I have for you, and the love you have for me. It’s that simple. All I need to do is do the next right thing, whether that means making amends for all the damage I’ve done, all the hurt I’ve caused, all the shame I carried. It will slowly disappear and life and love will naturally follow.

June 9 th , 2019. Bernard Andreason drum dances at the reconciliation ceremony welcoming him and honouring his late friends, Dennis Dick and Lawrence Jack Elanik. The three “lost boys” ran away from Stringer Hall residential school in 1972. Bernard was the only one to survive their treacherous journey to Tuktoyaktuk. Saliqmiut Drummers and Dancers of Tuktoyaktuk (with dancer Catherine Katigakyok in the background) marked the reconciliation ceremony, organized by East Three Secondary School.