Shame as Humiliation

[sKePTiKal]

"One of the defining characteristics of humiliation as a process is that the victim is forced into passivity, acted upon, made helpless."[3]

My father worked hard to render me helpless and then - BAM - when I left his home he completely let go of all obligation.

These 2 quotes sound like your Brer Rabbit - the trickster who got away - SS. You had the natural expectation, that if you were as helpless as his treatment of you seemed to say was obvious to HIM... that he would continue to fulfill his role in that (already abusive) scenario. This was your "normal" ... even though IT WASN'T TRUE.

When he didn't fulfill that role - and intentionally left you without knowledge... that was a betrayal of your "normal", right? An overwhelming disappointment of your expectation of him. Is this where humilation or shame begins? Or was there some kid-logic, some interpretation on your part of his behavior that triggered those feelings that happened first? Or do the feelings arrive before - at the message of helplessness?

Did you have childhood friends to compare notes with? Spend time at their houses? Watch how those families worked? Or were you kept isolated? Withholding basic information and knowledge is one aspect of child abuse. I had to learn I needed a bra, to wear deoderant from my next door neighbor...at 12. Mother kept telling I wasn't old enough to know these things.

I think I see some (with 20/20 hindsight) faulty premises, if this is what really happened. I don't know that this picture I'm painting is totally accurate... but I think it holds promise in your effort to release humiliation and shame in your work. Wish I could be of more help to you.

I do feel, from what you've written so far - that your father was a monster. Without your mother to defend you, you became his prime target for control & mayhem - and he exercised both with no remorse. I so connect to this vulnerable being in you - because it wasn't true that you were "helpless"; you didn't deserve him humiliating you like that for whatever sense of power it gave him - truth is, you were only helpless in that one situation because you were a mere child - and kept as childlike, no doubt, to further enable his ignoble, inhuman ability to torture you, longer.

Outside that situation, you needn't expect the same treatment from other people.... and can teach yourself to let go the reactions you match those old expectations, too. It takes time & practice. You are warm, loving, deserving of respect for how far you've come already - how much of that little girl you've reclaimed and welcomed into your self. I am so lucky to count you as a friend.

Twiggy has a message for little A:

I have a swing by the creek, under a big tree. Wanna come swing with me? Or we'll find something to do that you like to do! Do you like to play baseball or jump rope? If you want, we can just swing... and I'll be quiet. I can draw your picture, if you want... then you can draw mine!

[Gaining Strength]

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?  Thank you PR.  You have just given me a validation that I have value in life.  My hope of having value has been so crusted over for so long but these words of compassion have just exposed that wound and helped me see that there is even more than hope, that there is real existence of value in me.  Thank you.

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.  I see what you are getting.  In this is the whole thing of healing. The whole nut.  In this compact expression reside everything just the way the whole oak resides in the acorn.  In having the compassion for each other we actually mirrored for each other in the way a baby looks to the mother to mirror back.  But our mothers had nothing to mirror back except pain and emptiness and the like. So now I see the compassion for that girl (me) through your eyes and suddenly I understand that I can have compassion for myself because LG (little girl) always has had it.  For the first time I see that I don't need to go back and get the right parenting.  I have been getting it and seeing it all along but I didn't know it because it didn't come from my parents, so I rejected it  in favor of the shame and pain and hatred that they gave birth to me to receive and hold for them.  I can't hold that anymore.  I choose compassion.  And I have enough of it - you have shown me that.

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.  Yeah.  That is our life's purpose - to be a recepticle for their shame and their hurt and their pain.  We were born to receive - but not love from them - just their dark pain which they could not take.

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.  Oh my heavens PR, your ability to see it and express it is just unbelievable.  You cut like a surgeon - straight to the heart of it.  That LG - (little Girl) has been going bonkers all along.  I have been so repressing and not escaping.

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... This is the second time I have written this post.  The first one got lost in some bizarre fluke when I pressed SAVE.  I say this because my first post was so strong and had so much in it and I cannot reconstruct it and consequently am really losing the passion and power of my responce.  But right here you have touched the essense of the wound and the way out.  You had compassion for yourself but were forced to give it all away - to her.  She stole your very core and turned your psyche unsidedown and inside out.  Now I see why that damage was the worst.

"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. MINIMIZE!!! MINIMIZE!!!! MINIMIZE!! to say you don't matter - part of the braincontroll to turn your compassion to her - and why not - she deserved it - she gave you life - sort of - well.

And I want to return the favor, but I've taken up enough space in your thread with my own stuff already this morning. No - there is no thread if it is just pieces of information I pick up off the internet, just stuff that validates my experience and that connects to me.  There is no thread unless what I feel connects to someone else.  The whole healing thing is happening right here.  The back and forth, give and take is right here and I would not have gotten any of this healing if you were not returning the favor by sharing here. 

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 - -
right back!

I am moving into the healing place.  I see that LG must have compassion.  But the key is that I also see that I have enough to give her.  That is thanks to you and your mirroring.

[Gaining Strength]

Hey LilyCat - I get what you are saying about the difference between shame and humiliation.  Thanks.

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.  Yeah I see it.  You are right.  But I finally get the other part too.  Thanks.  He dropped it because I was an OBLIGATION and one he hated.  Once I was old enough his obligation was OVER!!!  GONE!!!  While I was his obligation he infantilized me because it helped him control me.  He rendered me helpless so he would be in controll.  OMG- I have spent so much time and money trying to figure this out.  Boy - you are good.  Thanks.

I know you're going to get huge pay-backs. Yep - they are starting to flow.

[Gaining Strength]

When he didn't fulfill that role - and intentionally left you without knowledge... that was a betrayal of your "normal", right? YES!!!  That's it.  The word NORMAL!!!!!  My whole world hinges on your word NORMAL!!!!  Because it is normal there are worlds of expectation that hang on that - expectations that go way beyond the conscious articulation - the everything about what life was and was to be - the everything!!  Part of that expectation was that MY NORMAL was the same as those friends I had grown up with - and then suddenly IT WASN'T.  And I could not make sense of it and fell into deep depression and shame.

An overwhelming disappointment of your expectation of him. YES!!  BUT ..... ERKKKK - the disappointment got dumped on ME.  [rewrite] An overwhelming disappointment of your expectation of ME!!!  And I have lived that disappointment out.  BINGO!!

Is this where humilation or shame begins? Or was there some kid-logic, some interpretation on your part of his behavior that triggered those feelings that happened first? Or do the feelings arrive before - at the message of helplessness? NOt sure but I think it is the inversion of owning all his shame, pain, blah, blah blah coupled with the fact that I never saw what was happening - that he had completely dumped me but pretended to be the same kind of father as all his buddies.  That illussion coupled with holding their shame and pain did not allow me to just say, "To hell with this, I'm cutting out of this c**p and taking care of myself."  Instead I have stayed around to gather up the crumbs from their tables and beg for more kicks and slaps just hoping for a crumb.  Boy - I think I'm  ready to go. These crumbs are too small.

Did you have childhood friends to compare notes with? Spend time at their houses? Watch how those families worked?  I did - but the appearances were the same.  That was the big problem. I thought we all had the same.  My father pretended to be doing the same things.

you were only helpless in that one situation because you were a mere child - and kept as childlike, no doubt, to further enable his ignoble, inhuman ability to torture you, longer.  I so get it - at long, long last.  I really feel like the power he has over me has broken.

I have a swing by the creek, under a big tree. Wanna come swing with me? Or we'll find something to do that you like to do! Do you like to play baseball or jump rope? If you want, we can just swing... and I'll be quiet. I can draw your picture, if you want... then you can draw mine! Twiggy, I'm coming.  I love to play!!! and swing.  I'm not very good at drawing but let's do it anyway.  Thanks for asking.  It will be fun.

[sKePTiKal]

Being good at it, isn't required - only having fun! 
(and maybe LilyCat will let us come horseback riding with her)...

[Gaining Strength]

Wow - that hit me hard - didn't realize that LG needed to be good at things.  My parents would definitely be mean about it.  Isn't that funny.  I never realized that before.  I used to keep so much to myself because unless I was good at it they would make fun of me.  They would definitely make fun of my picture and if they knew I had fun at your house they would make fun of you too - just to be mean to me - because they didn't pick you as my friend - I did.  That makes my stomach hurt. Twiggy.

[sKePTiKal]

OH... I'm sorry!

I should have remembered. I've only recently learned that I CAN play video games, since my hubby bought a Wii. It took me a while to realize that I could have fun, even if I wasn't very good at it - but I only learned that watching the kids. They'd laugh & laugh at themselves... and I would give up and plead a phobia or not able to understand the controls or something... and just leave it. But when even hubby's 80 yr old mom started bowling strikes and dunking the guy in the carnival games... and laughing so hard she said "I almost peed myself!!"... I realized that "winning" or being really good at the games wasn't the POINT of the game.

My best friend from HS - her mom always hated me and didn't hesitate to let me know it. I lived on the wrong side of the tracks and wasn't good enough to hang out with her daughter. I'm used to it - sad to say. WAAAAAY too used to it.

[Gaining Strength]

I want a Wii.  My little boy wants a Wii.  Now LG wants a Wii. 

I would just love to see your 80 year old MIL wetting her pants playing with the Wii.  Now that is funny.

Doesn't matter if you are good. - That's a whole new concept.

I remember being so contemptuous of silly girls who would play games and gleefully laugh at their ineptitude.  I hated that feeling but couldn't get over it.  It was a sense of superiority and I knew it was wrong and denied it to myself but now I see - it was pure jealousy.  I wanted to have fun like they did - but it was condemned by my father - not allowed - verboten. 

It all makes so much sense now.

[teartracks]

Hi SS,

You are articulating something that I think is very important in this thread.   I look forward to reading along as you share the things that are unfolding for you.  Am I hearing  you right, that all along humiliation has been the bedrock of the shame you've felt?

tt

[Gaining Strength]

That's what I think TT.  It seems so obvious but it has taken me so long to get it.

[teartracks]

SS,

What you've articulated  has been my experience.  I am curious.  Can you trace back to a defining event in childhood that became the genesis of the humiliation and shame you've experienced over your lifetime? 

tt

[Gaining Strength]

Hmm.  I will think.  For some time it has felt like a compilation of millions of small experiences and then it became stuck so that every thing triggered.  I will think a while and see if I can come up with ONE.  But as I think about it I am just being flooded with memories from the age 5 and under.  Not any individual thing.  But here is an example, I was six, in the hospital.  I had fallen over the banister and fell face  first onto the hardwood foyer floor.  I had a concussion, broke my jaw and split my chin open.  2nd night in the hospital I am in a semi-private room in the bed closet to the door.  It is evening, my mother is there and my father comes in the door with flowers and a toy.  I am glad to see him and thrilled to get the gifts  but he just nods and keeps on going.  He stops by to see the other girl first.  When he comes back to see me he has only the toy.  I feel humiliated because I thought the gifts were all for me.

I don't remember how I learned not to ask for gifts but I know from this memory that I was taught early on that I was "ungreatful".  And this experience was proof of it.  I "expected" both the flowers and the toy were going to be mine and he proved me to be greedy and ungreatful without even saying a word.

Of course as an adult I see how bizarre his behavior is.  He comes to the hospital to see his daughter who could have died and who has had surgery to repair her broken jaw and sew her chin and wire her gums together and his first consideration is bringing flowers to a girl he does not know and will never see again AND he has to do that BEFORE he says a word to his own child.

I don't think anyone can really understand why this was humiliating. I'm not sure I do but it was.  It is the strongest memory I have of that entire accident.

[teartracks]

Hi SS,

I think you should change your name to Humiliation Slayer! 

I asked whether you could identify the event that initiated you into humiliation because of my own experience.  It happened when I was right around two.  I carried a still picture from the experience forever with no memory attached, not knowing what it meant.     I read Dr. Phil's book Self Matters .  This book explained how to do emotional archaeology.  Using it as a guide I was able to  revisit and reconstruct the event that introduced and initiated me into fixed, abiding, always there, humiliation.  From that day forward I was filled with anxiety, fear, and guilt.  I felt threatened by  everyone and everything, except books and nature.   That day, my coping self was birthed. 

As I worked through Dr. Phil's book,  I brought God into the process.  I was doing self therapy.  I needed someone in the trenches with me and He was there all the way.  Otherwise, I would not have made it.

I don't want to make your thread about me.  I did want to tell you about this part of my recovery because humiliation appears to be a common denominator in our experiences.   I so look forward to reading along as you share more of your journey.

tt

 

[teartracks]

Hi SS,

I can picture your father marching past you to the bed of the other child.  What an awful time for him to make a show like that.  There's nothing redeemable about the way he made you second.  I expect that the pattern was well established by the time you were five and lying bruised and broken in that hospital bed.  The good part though, is that you're rising above it, SS. 

tt

[Ami]

Dear SS
 You have brought so much healing to the board,with this thread.SS.What hit me after reading about your F and the gifts was that it had NOTHING to do with you, the essential you, your deep self. It was ALL him. It is so easy to see from the outside,but so hard to see when it is you, experiencing it.
 It was NEVER you. I wish I could make pills and give them to all of us so we can see ourselves,as we are.    Love You, Ami