The most embarrassing moment of my life is from my childhood. It isn’t funny, and it isn’t cute. As a matter of fact, it’s depressingly dark and heavy. So if you don’t feel like a downer today, then bugger off and read someone else’s blog. I need to get this off my chest. It came up spontaneously in the writing workshop I went to this weekend, and I’m thinking it has something to do with that snake attack dream I had the other night.

I was about 8 or 9 years old, playing “London’s Burning” on my recorder in the school hall. We were practising for a performance, and I badly needed to go to the bathroom, but didn’t know how to ask. There was no space to ask. No one noticed when I tried to put my hand up, and I had to carry on playing.

Finally, I couldn’t hold on any longer, I had to let it out. I was bursting with pee. It came gushing out in a great torrent that flowed hopelessly down my legs. For one awful heart-stopping moment, I pretended to the boy next to me that the roof was leaking, and we both looked up. And then everyone stopped playing and stared at me. 

It was obvious that I had wet my pants. My clothes were soaked. A puddle had formed between my legs. There was no escape. I was paralysed. I hid my face in my hands and hung my head in shame.

It was the worst moment of my life. I wished that I were dead.

The teacher seemed angry, and all the other children laughed and pointed. I knew I would never recover from the shame, and I never have. I remember it vividly. Like it was yesterday.

I’m wondering now if this happened before “The Attack” or after. It would make sense if it happened after. It must have happened after. That’s why I felt like I had no voice. That’s why I felt invisible. That’s why I felt paralysed with fear. I didn’t think anyone would listen to me. I was afraid of being seen.

I was painfully self-conscious. I was acutely aware of every little bit of space that I took up in the world. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I knew I was different from everyone else. I knew there was something terrribly wrong with me. And now by peeing my pants in front of the school, I had proved it to the world. I would always be branded a freak. Only freaks wet their pants in public.

Why didn’t I just go to the bathroom if I needed to pee?” That’s what the teacher said to me, and before now I couldn’t understand it myself. It isn’t logical. It isn’t normal. But that’s what happened, and now I know it makes sense in the wider context of my life. It had something to do with “The Attack”.

I find this realisation reassuring and healing. It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t a bad person. A bad thing happened to me when I was child. My sister and I were sexually attacked by a stranger when we were picking blackberries in the woods. I was 8 and she was 9 years old. One horrific incident that changed our lives in an instant. 

No wonder I peed my pants.