Shame as Humiliation

[Gaining Strength]

I have made some progress in my shame slaying.  In the past couple of days I have realized that I am still living in indescribable fear of the humiliation that I experienced day in and day out growing up in my family.  The big surprise!  I had completely sublimated how humiliating my childhood experience was.  By recognizing, actually feeling the kick in the stomach, stomach-ache of that day in, day out humiliation I suddenly recognize how powerful, how debilitating that experience was.

Using the word "humiliation" rather than "shame" helps me get in touch with that extreme pain.  Suddenly "shame" sounds so benign and "humiliation" has the impact of devastation.

For a long time, I couldn't understand why such trivial things caused me so much pain, why basic things like answering the phone was so difficult, going places where I was expected, doing normal everyday things - obligations.  I knew that "obligations" were a HUGE problem for me but not why.  Even when I was in college I knew that I could function in areas where there were no expectations but in areas where performance was expected I was frozen.  Now I see what it is at operation - humiliation.

Step by step I am finding ways to work through this with my eye on freedom (function). 

[Gaining Strength]

I just googled "humiliation" and found these two definitions: "One of the defining characteristics of humiliation as a process is that the victim is forced into passivity, acted upon, made helpless."[3] Johan Galtung, a leading practitioner, agrees with Lindner that the infliction of humiliation is a profoundly violent psychological act that leaves the victim with a deep wound to the psyche.[4]

I have recently written about the passive role I found myself forced into in my life as a child and helplessness - my therapist has been working with me for several years concerning the theory of "learned helplessness".

My father worked hard to render me helpless and then - BAM - when I left his home he completely let go of all obligation.  Now I was flailing and completely helpless - but I never knew it.  He didn't disappear out of my life - just out of any responsibility or any help for me - but I had never figured that out - until now.  Here's an example - the year that I married - I was 23 - I received notice from the IRS that I owed for several years in the past.  I remember the feeling when I got that letter.  I was frozen - powerless - stunned - ashamed.  I tried to talk to my new husband who was in law school but he would do nothing to help me (I could spend an hour psychoanalyzing this) so I went to see H&R Block.  I had noone to call.  Why not call my father?  That's the point of this story - I didn't know why not I only knew that I was humiliated and would have died rather than let him know.  How strange is that?  Well listen to this - I had never known that I owed taxes  - he had filed them but the IRS was notifying me in that letter that he had not submitted the correct amount for 4 previous years.  I had never known that I owed taxes, was paying taxes - anything.  He never told me.   Oh yes - I signed the returns  but did not know it.  How is that possible.  For years when he had me sign things he would put paper over the document and only reveal the signatory line to me.  I never even had the concept to question him and now here I am out of his house and completely out of his hands - not a word - not a transition - no guidance - nothing.  And only enough psychological damage to know that I was responsible, I was at fault, I was to blame.

Of course that is absurd - but I tell this story to demonstrate how complete the psychological control and domination was.  I would never bother sharing this with anyone in 3D other than my psychologist.  Noone would believe me and noone would onderstand - they wouldn't even want to try.  THAT is the humiliation by society.

[Gaining Strength]

Here's more that I found by a man who was humiliated by a teacher in 2nd or 3rd grade and when humiliated - twice - he wet his pants - thus shamed - thus the pain was transferred from the offender (the teacher) to him (the victim.)  That is so powerful.

this is so helpful to me.

Humiliation therefore gets
masked by the shame of the victim. Furthermore, this shame that gets injected into the victim
silences the victim to his own experience of humiliation, rendering the experience isolated in the
psyche and the person alienated from everyone else.
I now realize that I had never thought of humiliation as such and its pertinence in life,
conflict and relationships, because the nature of experiences of humiliation is such that it makes
these experiences impervious to consciousness and closed to any kind of scrutiny as a result of
the painful emotions that they give rise to.

[Juno]

Thank you for sharing this discovery--this will help a lot of us, I bet.

[Gaining Strength]

Here's a study of humiliation and the long term effects:

Abstract
Objective: To evaluate a model in which chronic emotional inhibition mediates the relationship between a history of childhood emotional invalidation or abuse and adult psychological distress.

Method: One hundred and twenty-seven participants completed a series of self-report questionnaires, and a subset of this group (n=88) completed an additional measure of current avoidant coping in response to a laboratory stressor. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate and compare a full and partial mediational model.

Results: Findings strongly supported a model in which a history of childhood emotional invalidation (i.e., psychological abuse and parental punishment, minimization, and distress in response to negative emotion) was associated with chronic emotional inhibition in adulthood (i.e., ambivalence over emotional expression, thought suppression, and avoidant stress responses). In turn, emotional inhibition significantly predicted psychological distress, including depression and anxiety symptoms.

Conclusion: This study found support for a model in which the relation between recollected negative emotion socialization in childhood and adult psychological distress was fully mediated by a style of inhibiting emotional experience and expression. Although it is likely that childhood emotional inhibition is functional (e.g., reduces parental distress and rejection), results suggest that chronic emotional inhibition may have long-term negative consequences for the inhibitor.

[Gaining Strength]

This is from a study about how humiliation turns to violence.  Most work on the internet is about the relationship with humiliation and violence.  The violence in my life has been actually something turned inward.

The only situation in which frustration without deliberate insult was found to elicit anger was when the frustration was unjustified (e.g., a bus driver deliberately bypassing a bus stop). This does not constitute an exception to the principle that anger and violence are caused by feeling shamed, however, for the perception that one has been a victim of injustice elicits feelings of shame: over being valued so little by the other person, and for being too weak to make him treat one fairly http://www.nyas.org/ebriefreps/ebrief/000263/rr/rr07.html

This is exactly what I have been posting about when I started the thread about taking things personally.  Here is it in black and white - those acts trigger my profound sense of being valueless.

[Gaining Strength]

Thanks Juno - that is so kind of you.  Here I am just posting away, caught up in my franzy to get at the source of the debilitating injury and then comes your note of support.  Like a hand reaching down from heaven sending a sign of encouragement and hope.  Thank you.

[sKePTiKal]

HOOOOO BOY!

Reading about how your Dad tricked you on the income taxes sets my viking rage button on stun!!! First, by not discussing taxes with you, then by not even letting you know what you were signing - and SETTING YOU UP for the accumulated past due balance later... he was sadistically manipulating you for what possible payoff???? It boggles the mind to even try to guess. Sick, sick man. For me, anger is the antidote to humilation... it's a loud, demanding "How could you DO such a thing??" that simultaneously shields one from the humilation and the shame... and says in no uncertain way that this is an egregious boundary violation; abuse.

OK, I've calmed down a bit. I don't know that "society" would try to humiliate you, upon hearing this story. I wouldn't be so certain. Your father didn't permit you to know you owed taxes; it was necessary in his plot for setting you up for the eventual kick in the pants when the IRS contacted you. I think most people would condemn him as a really mean, sadistic lunatic. And people would be quick to validate you with "you didn't do anything wrong", dear. No reason to extend his abusive humiliation to expectations of this from others. I think other people would surprise you with their compassion and understanding.

I have one humilation story to share. There might be more that I'm discounting... but this is the one that stands out for me. I'd been selected to participate in a 4-H fashion show, modelling the dress I was supposed to have made. (Never mind, that my mom said I'd never get into the show unless she made it...that was more important than me learning to sew.) THEN - the rape happened.

I begged, pleaded, cried, tried everything possible to get out of going. Tell them I'm sick, I cried. But no. This was HER heydey... by god, there's nothing wrong with you... you'll see... you'll like this. So I went through the practices... trying very hard to do what I was taught and to remember what I was supposed to do. Even that walk on, stop & turn and continue across the stage was hard to remember with the in/out of dissociation.

So the night of the show, we're backstage and I go to the restroom before dressing. I'd started my period and of course, had nothing with me. My mother wouldn't let me use tampax; insisted on pads and a belt. Only trashy girls used tampax. When I told her and said I COULDN'T go on stage... she made me go anyway; she said: just don't sit down. Never mind that I was so embarrassed I couldn't stop trembling; and the tears streamed down my face. My mother said it was just stage fright. I can remember getting out to the front of the stage... and I remember NOTHING after that point. I could've fainted; froze; tripped; fell off the stage... I just don't remember. The only thing I remember is that it was all my fault. Just like everything else. How could I disappoint her that way? After all the work she did?

I guess what I don't remember is the humiliation. And only later - remembering the consequent shaming for feeling humiliated in the first place.

[Gaining Strength]

I am just stunned by your experience.  The horror of that experience is incomprehensible.  I can't even get a handle on it. 

I keep trying to put into words the way I feel but I can't.  But what I can do is to tell you how sorry I am that you EVER had the experience of being humiliated by a mother who had zero concern for her, already, traumatized teenaged daughter.  I can't get a handle on it because it is so horrific.  What is must have done to you, to your already fragile psyche, already traumatized being.  This is true evil and it break my heart for you.

You have so much courage to share that.

I want so much to go to that little girl and rescue her from that wretched being of a mother.  I want to rescue her and whisk her away to safety and protect her and console her and save her and heal her.  Someone needed to do that.  You deserved that then and deserve that now.

I feel that something more needs to be said but I don't know what and it makes me feel so empty to not find words that can make a difference - but that's just it - no words could possibly make any difference to you or to you as that young devastated girl.  Thanks for your courage in sharing that.  We are not alone in having grown up with such devastating horrific parents but the pain is indescribable.

[Gaining Strength]

This from a book entitled Suffer the Children: A theology of Liberation by a Victim of Child Abuse.

To the extent that adults who were victims of abuse in childhood reject their own feelings of childhood humiliation, pain, weakness, helplessness, and neediness, they will have contempt for those such feelings in children.

[on the same page]
...it takes enormous courage to face and accept repressed feelings of pain, humiliation and helplessness.

[and more]
It is always tempting to try to abandon her [LJ - the authors oppressed child] again, to repress her feelings and reinstitue the inner adult-child split.  But now that I am conscious of her and in relationship with her I know that I am responsible to her and that only she can heal me, with God's help.  LJ is abused sexually, neglected emotionally, wounded narcissistically, and denied her feelings and her perceptions of reality. 

The only "actions" available to children in reaction to their abuse, such as conforming to adult wishes, running away, ... mental illness, tend not to liberate children, but rather to make their oppression worse.

Here's a link: http://books.google.com/books?id=NeYEZVDyrQYC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=humiliation+%2Bpsychology+%2B%22child+abuse%22+-sexual+%2Bhealing&source=web&ots=xZUhCcdPp-&sig=MCOOCdHAuSFC6ks9wXGlMXfJEg4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA19,M1 

Wow that's a long link!

[Ami]

Dear SS
 I am reading "Your Body Never Lies by Alice Miller. It discusses how we must accept all our feelings in order to be well and also not to project on others, as you were saying.                    Love   Ami
 

[LilyCat]

Hi SS,

It's really, really interesting to follow your journey. I am so sorry for everything that have gone through.

As I read your first post, I got the thought that shame and humiliation can be different things. Humiliation seems to me like something external, forced on you by someone else (e.g., your father). Shame seems like what you feel inside. It's an internal reaction to any number of things, especially humiliation. Technically I guess one can be "shamed" -- same as humiliation -- but this just sort of occurred to me.

The story about your father and the taxes is horrendous. It sounds to me like he was trying to infantilize you -- prove to you, as you say, that you are helpless without him. But on second thought, I guess he wasn't because if he had been, he would have continued to be there and bail you out of situations when you were in trouble. But I'm going to leave this thought in, anyway.

A lot of what you're talking about -- the emotional numbness and essentially the process talked about in the study -- are the results of anger shut down and/or turned inward. Feelings are an entire system. You can't shut one down without shutting all of them down along with it. So, if you're not permitted to express a feeling, say, anger, the whole system is shut off. Boom. Numb city. As an adult, or whenever one starts addressing this, you have to start working on getting the primary feelings out in the open.

I know whereof I speak; when I first went into therapy I was just as you describe: numb, sort of an automaton (although I did have emotional expression, but they weren't my true feelings, they were substitutes, "converted" feelings), a zombie of sorts. My therapist and I started working on getting in touch with the feelings. Mostly, it was anger. And twenty years later I still have trouble expressing it -- but at least now I know when I feel it and I can acknowledge internally, at least.

All this is probably relates to your comment in the other thread about your sister. You are absolutely correct. She's avoiding getting in touch with things because if she gets in touch with one feeling, they'll all come out, and that would be too much for her. My sister is like this. On the outside she appears to have a pretty good life, but I know that on the inside she's a mess. She clearly does not want to face her emotional reality, however, so she "doesn't go there." IMO she obsesses about dog agility instead.

You're doing great, SS. I know it's very hard, but boy, you are approaching this with such courage and integrity and tenacity. Very admirable. I know you're going to get huge pay-backs.

LC

[sKePTiKal]

I want so much to go to that little girl and rescue her from that wretched being of a mother.  I want to rescue her and whisk her away to safety and protect her and console her and save her and heal her.  Someone needed to do that.  You deserved that then and deserve that now.

I feel that something more needs to be said but I don't know what and it makes me feel so empty to not find words that can make a difference - but that's just it - no words could possibly make any difference to you or to you as that young devastated girl.

I started to post a thank you for such touching compassion yesterday, but I erased it. I realized that there was more to my feelings than the humbling, yet heart-healing and soothing sheer gratitude I felt - but I was speechless (yeah, it takes quite a bit to make me speechless!)  ;D

I am in a place right now, where I am "hearing" and "seeing" and "receiving" so much from the people I'm around; chance words; the sun shining and a light breeze; and simple human interactions. I think I've been closed, withdrawn, self-isolating behind a wall that simultaneously protected me and imprisoned me. Words like yours, SS are the trumpet that causes the wall to fall. Your words and the warm feelings behind them DO make a very huge difference!

In fact, I think you've just helped push me over the "finish line" - how important is THAT?
----- ..... ----- ..... ----- ..... ----- ..... ----- ..... ----- .....

I started out yesterday, with a question: why is it I'm able to be immediately angry at your father, but you seem to lean more to shame? Why is it that your compassion for me, when I was Twiggy, is so ready & forthcoming - but I have to go looking for my own compassion for my self? I couldn't answer this yesterday and I only have part of an answer now, because I think only you can answer for yourself.

(oh... my head hurts now for what I'm about to say next, publicly...)

I wasn't allowed to feel compassion for my self. It was "crying over spilt milk", childish, selfish and UNGRATEFUL for all my mother had suffered to finally divorce my Dad and make us SAFE. "After all she had done"... "I only stayed with your Dad those 14 years for YOU KIDS"... "what's WRONG with you... why do you insist on feeling those feelings after ALL I HAVE DONE AND SUFFERED THROUGH - for you?" I was made to feel selfish & ungrateful -  for my feelings about my experiences - because IT COULD BE WORSE.

Here's the kicker: I knew we were even less safe than before. Especially me. Any time I openly cared about myself before caring for my mother & brother I was dismissed, put down, called selfish and ungrateful, and "just like my dad".... I didn't care about HER. Any time a glimmer of simple peace or happiness came to me in that time... it "hurt" her and I was to get "out of there" until I could be what she wanted me to be. I couldn't talk about feelings at all - only be the dumping ground for hers. That was the ONLY importance I had to her - apart from housekeeping. I truly, truly didn't matter to her at ALL unless I was serving her NEEDS.

Here's what she says when I finally answer the phone these days: "So? You're finally home?". As if my only purpose in life is to be there when she wants to dump more feelings again. As if I OWE her this for "all she's done for me". Like the wolf in the story of Brer Rabbit - I let myself get tricked AGAIN. Today, I realized that beyond not loving my mother, I'm also fiercely UNGRATEFUL for "all she's done for me" - all her abuse. Because all these years, "all she's done for me" is summed up in my desperate act of survival - abandoning Twiggy - like some fallen soldier in a battle, to save my own ass and take the slim chance that I would eventually ESCAPE to FREEDOM.

As Twiggy, my despair was so great that I wanted to die. That seemed the only choice available to me, to escape. So I split her and her feelings and memories OFF, and tenderly packed it all away in the chinese puzzle box of my unconscious mind. For safekeeping. A secret, buried treasure. Twiggy had started smoking when experimentation gave her the discovery that it helped her think rationally - it helped her deal with the brain injury she suffered in the rape. It helped her be MORE ACCEPTABLE to her mother.

The funny thing about stuffing something into the unconscious, is that only conscious awareness of "it" goes away. The feelings and emotions, however remain - just below the surface of day to day experience. Like lava, they would erupt with vulcanic violence whenever something cracked through the hard, cold crust of a manufactured personality. They made absolutely NO SENSE in the context of my day to day life - until I was able to pull out the pieces of those memories from my unconscious self.

My/twiggy's desire to die - that overwhelming death wish to escape and not be abandoned, abused, denied SELF - lived right under my skin and took the form of nicotine addiction. EVERYTHING depended on this. And this is why it never made sense that I was able to quit for 2 years - and yet, I went right back to it over what was a normal disagreement with a co-worker; the lava of anger erupted with ALL the feelings that I had as Twiggy... and I needed a pack of Marlboros. To punish myself... because it was "not allowed" to be angry at my co-worker.... and it "wasn't a big deal"... in other words: I and my feelings weren't important.

And guess what? I understood better my question of yesterday. The reason I had to search for compassion for myself - is because I was expected to reserve all that for my mother. The reason I punish myself - am killing myself smoking - is because I DID have compassion for myself, and I DID have anger at my mother - and neither of them were allowed to be directed at the right people. Instead, my compassion for myself was stolen by mother (Brer Rabbit, again) and all I was left with was anger, that should've been directed at HER, but got turned on myself for abandoning "twiggy"... and it reinforced the wish to die...

cigarettes were so easy to come by for kids in those days. And what was the ultimate put-down, the ultimate denial of my self, and my feelings and my self-worth/importance? What did my mother say about my smoking?

"IT COULD BE WORSE". Those are the words that have cursed me and my whole life. Instead of allowing for the possibility that "IT CAN BE BETTER" - I matter so little to my mother, that I don't even have the "right" or the "entitlement" complain or be angry with her.


Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - Thank you - -

SS. Your words mean so much to me. Your words ARE what I need/needed to hear. I can hear the caring in them; I feel the comfort that is normal human compassion... that doesn't even exist in my mother's soul... you words broke a whole section of wall down! And I want to return the favor, but I've taken up enough space in your thread with my own stuff already this morning. I'll be back.

[LilyCat]

Hi SS,

It's really, really interesting to follow your journey. I am so sorry for everything that have gone through.

As I read your first post, I got the thought that shame and humiliation can be different things. Humiliation seems to me like something external, forced on you by someone else (e.g., your father). Shame seems like what you feel inside. It's an internal reaction to any number of things, especially humiliation. Technically I guess one can be "shamed" -- same as humiliation -- but this just sort of occurred to me.

The story about your father and the taxes is horrendous. It sounds to me like he was trying to infantilize you -- prove to you, as you say, that you are helpless without him. But on second thought, I guess he wasn't because if he had been, he would have continued to be there and bail you out of situations when you were in trouble. But I'm going to leave this thought in, anyway.

A lot of what you're talking about -- the emotional numbness and essentially the process talked about in the study -- are the results of anger shut down and/or turned inward. Feelings are an entire system. You can't shut one down without shutting all of them down along with it. So, if you're not permitted to express a feeling, say, anger, the whole system is shut off. Boom. Numb city. As an adult, or whenever one starts addressing this, you have to start working on getting the primary feelings out in the open.

I know whereof I speak; when I first went into therapy I was just as you describe: numb, sort of an automaton (although I did have emotional expression, but they weren't my true feelings, they were substitutes, "converted" feelings), a zombie of sorts. My therapist and I started working on getting in touch with the feelings. Mostly, it was anger. And twenty years later I still have trouble expressing it -- but at least now I know when I feel it and I can acknowledge internally, at least.

All this is probably relates to your comment in the other thread about your sister. You are absolutely correct. She's avoiding getting in touch with things because if she gets in touch with one feeling, they'll all come out, and that would be too much for her. My sister is like this. On the outside she appears to have a pretty good life, but I know that on the inside she's a mess. She clearly does not want to face her emotional reality, however, so she "doesn't go there." IMO she obsesses about dog agility instead.

You're doing great, SS. I know it's very hard, but boy, you are approaching this with such courage and integrity and tenacity. Very admirable. I know you're going to get huge pay-backs.

LC

[LilyCat]

SS, I had trouble posting my reply before; the internet connection was slow. So I logged off and came back on awhile later (now). I posted the above reply, but it was meant for your other thread. If it sounds a little out of whack with this one, that's why.