Early Shame

   I have never been able to adequately express how I was as a young child to anyone. I've been trying to pinpoint what- I think- made my early childhood unique from the other early children around me. My immediate loner status upon exiting the womb is not unique enough- lots of kids are unpopular. The fact that I was shy to the point where people might question my mental wellbeing is also not definite enough apparently. Not even that despite this outward fear of everything and everyone, there was a deep-rooted early cynicism taking hold of my tiny tiny psyche is enough, because nobody knew it was there but me.
   I realized the other day, one relatable thing that made my childhood the precise sniblet of what my life is today, is that as a child, shame was a very real thing. The concept of shame was not unknown to me. Although I probably didn't know, or at least wouldn't have been able to vocalize what that even meant, I had a legitimate awareness of the feeling of shame.
   Personal anecdote! One time, at daycare during nap time, I stuck a bead up my nose. I don't know why. I was usually a very level-headed five year-old, so I cannot begin to explain this temporary lapse in judgement. As you can imagine, the bead only became further wedged in my nasal passage, the harder I tried to free it. I became more and more aware of the direness of the situation as I lay on my cot in the darkened room. Normal kids might have cried, or worried about sucking the bead up into their brains- normal irrational kid reactions. I, however, was concerned about the duration of the nap, and what would become of me socially (already being unpopular in preschool and daycare alike) if the lights were to come up and I was just sitting there with a bead in my nose. If I'd had a swiss army knife, I probably would have cut my nose off for fear of shame. In that moment, it would have been an apt sacrifice.
   In case you're wondering, I got the bead out somehow and was not awarded a sticker after nap time (which was very unusual what with me having no friends to distract me from awesome behaviour during nap time). My daycare supervisor said it was because I had been visibly "fooling around" or some shit.
   This was the earliest instance of shame and regret that I can remember from my life. The sticker situation that followed was probably my first run-in with rejection- what would soon become a running theme in my youth.