Humiliation - the first crescendo
Being a fairly proud and defiant person I had never been prone to feelings of humiliation. If ever I was socially maligned (or abused) as a young adult or teen I would invariably provide the most suitably venomous retort within my command and typically hit the mark with skill and finesse. As I grew into adulthood I would tend to hold my tongue more, hold my head higher, square my shoulders more broadly, and take with dignity the slurs sent my way. Interestingly I noticed that this latter approach had no less impact on any protagonist as the most venomous and hurtful retort of my youth. I think I simply began to figure that any maliciousness or ignorance exhibited by a person (including myself) was a discredit to the proponent moreso than the recipient so I changed my ways.
If I ever committed my own social faux pas, and became conscious of the fact, I would only be satisfied if I had done all in my power to appease the injured - which usually was accepted and done with quickly. I would not be prone to dwell on the matter beyond that and did not shrink back from getting back on with life mindful, but unconcerned, of the former situation. In short, I wasn't quite bullet proof on the matter, but I certainly was not predisposed to travelling through life with a temper of disgrace or shame even if I had done something silly.
So as I began to realise that I had depression, come to terms with its symptoms, and then attempt to understand and allow for the symptoms' impact on my personality and activity, I was completely unready for the feelings (which were more a state of mind, or a distortion of my soul, than an emotion) that soon overpowered me with guilt and shame. It was initially a kind of embarrassment on steroids but it soon degenerated into a feeling of self-abasement and disgrace that encompassed my whole life and being. I felt awful because of the depression and I felt even worse because of the humiliation of my soul and being.
I began to take on a self awareness of embarrassment when I began to have the symptoms of depression and not know what caused them. I was critical on myself about being lazy and undisciplined so that when I was confronted, usually by my wife, on my state of living before I was diagnosed with depression (of which the symptoms involved not moving out of the house more than a couple of times a week, wasting my time on the computer, and a steady disengagement from my social networks) I felt embarrassed about being a bad person and a poor husband and felt embarrassed about simply wasting my life away. Typically I was a driven and productive person so this change of lifestyle impacted me to a fair extent. I think I was saved more embarrassment due to having declining powers of cognition and concentration so that towards the time of diagnosis I was unable to think much about how I was living although I was in a constant state of sever agitation and frustration.
On being diagnosed with depression much of the embarrassment I had felt disappeared pretty quickly. I realised that I was not as 'bad' as I had thought and that there was a real explanation for what was impacting my life. I felt very uncertain about what the immediate future held but I knew what was wrong and that was sufficient for the moment after several months of decline.
After this initial period of embarrassment I again fell into the same state but for another reason. I was being treated with anti-depressants and I wanted to act contrary to my symptoms wherever possible so I started to attending low key social occasions wherever possible (family gatherings and occasionally meeting my most intimate friends only). In doing this I felt extremely awkward. It wasn't a social phobia at all it was just that the depression had so impacted my mind and concentration I was unable to socialise properly with other people and I was reluctant to tell them of my illness. These two factors embarrassed me a good deal. It's hard to say in this period whether it was the illness itself or my reaction to its symptoms that caused the most embarrassment but in some sense it didn't matter as either way I felt dreadful. I had some small feelings of guilt and shame at this time about not being a useful or productive person but this was far less so than the more immediate embarrassment I was feeling at the time.
I still remember quite vividly the first time I went out with other people after I was diagnosed with depression. It was a celebration for mine and my brother’s birthdays (my 29th, his 25th). I had only just been diagnosed with depression about a week before and nobody except my wife and I knew what was going on. I was desperate to cancel and not face my family (besides which I just felt totally dreadful anyway) and only got to the restaurant due to the patient encouragement of my wife. I walked into the restaurant like an invalid. The whole evening seemed to drift by like a dream. I sat in one spot and didn't move all night. I hardly said a word to anybody. I could hardly be less enthused if I had tried and I felt like I was attending my own funeral rather than my birthday. Attempts by family to converse with me were utterly painful for both parties as my mind was still very agitated and the last thing it wanted to do was hold a conversation. At the end of the night I had fudged my way through the evening but that was about all I had successfully done. I felt dreadful because of depression and felt equally awful because I was unable to socialise as normal and I was too embarrassed to tell them about my depression in the first place (as if it was a sign of weakness or something like that).
Soon after this 'party' I returned to my doctors to monitor my progress. He needed to find out more about my family history of mental illness (which certainly didn't make me glow with pride). I now had to tell someone in my family what was going on just to be able to find out what I needed. I chose my father who I knew to be discreet and who hadn't attended my party. He hadn't seen me for several months and was surprised to see me just turn up at his door. Due to the change of expression on my face and the 20kg (44lb) I had added to my weight he hardly recognised me. From memory I just got pretty much straight to the point by telling him I was sick and needed to talk about the history of mental illness in our family. I have hardly felt so degraded as person in my life by confessing my illness at this time. It was a definite low point for me but only continued to decline.
As the relief began to settle from finding out my diagnosis I became more prone to feelings of uselessness, and shame. My medication reduced the agitation of my mind so I had more time to think and reflect on what was happening. I started to feel useless as a person as I was unable to do anything much - and I still believe that this is quite a normal way to feel when looking at what's happening and it was certainly something I was not ready for. It is truly humiliating to a person who is proud and productive and who has a sense of worth in what they are able to do as much as in who they are. And I felt the anguish of this. It was totally humiliating to be asked by someone "how are you today?" because i just felt like crap and was instantly reminded of it. It was totally humiliating having someone ask how uni was going for me or what I was doing at the time because I was doing absolutely nothing and uni was going to the dogs. All these little things that are normal to life had the severest impact on the way I felt about myself and I was more or less in a total state of humiliation until several months later when I had recovered enough to risk taking a job.
I felt that depression was slowly but surely destroying my soul as effectively as it had destroyed the normality of my life at the time. And a key in that process was the building and building of self-degradation and shame that left me in an almost constant state of humiliation.
If I ever committed my own social faux pas, and became conscious of the fact, I would only be satisfied if I had done all in my power to appease the injured - which usually was accepted and done with quickly. I would not be prone to dwell on the matter beyond that and did not shrink back from getting back on with life mindful, but unconcerned, of the former situation. In short, I wasn't quite bullet proof on the matter, but I certainly was not predisposed to travelling through life with a temper of disgrace or shame even if I had done something silly.
So as I began to realise that I had depression, come to terms with its symptoms, and then attempt to understand and allow for the symptoms' impact on my personality and activity, I was completely unready for the feelings (which were more a state of mind, or a distortion of my soul, than an emotion) that soon overpowered me with guilt and shame. It was initially a kind of embarrassment on steroids but it soon degenerated into a feeling of self-abasement and disgrace that encompassed my whole life and being. I felt awful because of the depression and I felt even worse because of the humiliation of my soul and being.
I began to take on a self awareness of embarrassment when I began to have the symptoms of depression and not know what caused them. I was critical on myself about being lazy and undisciplined so that when I was confronted, usually by my wife, on my state of living before I was diagnosed with depression (of which the symptoms involved not moving out of the house more than a couple of times a week, wasting my time on the computer, and a steady disengagement from my social networks) I felt embarrassed about being a bad person and a poor husband and felt embarrassed about simply wasting my life away. Typically I was a driven and productive person so this change of lifestyle impacted me to a fair extent. I think I was saved more embarrassment due to having declining powers of cognition and concentration so that towards the time of diagnosis I was unable to think much about how I was living although I was in a constant state of sever agitation and frustration.
On being diagnosed with depression much of the embarrassment I had felt disappeared pretty quickly. I realised that I was not as 'bad' as I had thought and that there was a real explanation for what was impacting my life. I felt very uncertain about what the immediate future held but I knew what was wrong and that was sufficient for the moment after several months of decline.
After this initial period of embarrassment I again fell into the same state but for another reason. I was being treated with anti-depressants and I wanted to act contrary to my symptoms wherever possible so I started to attending low key social occasions wherever possible (family gatherings and occasionally meeting my most intimate friends only). In doing this I felt extremely awkward. It wasn't a social phobia at all it was just that the depression had so impacted my mind and concentration I was unable to socialise properly with other people and I was reluctant to tell them of my illness. These two factors embarrassed me a good deal. It's hard to say in this period whether it was the illness itself or my reaction to its symptoms that caused the most embarrassment but in some sense it didn't matter as either way I felt dreadful. I had some small feelings of guilt and shame at this time about not being a useful or productive person but this was far less so than the more immediate embarrassment I was feeling at the time.
I still remember quite vividly the first time I went out with other people after I was diagnosed with depression. It was a celebration for mine and my brother’s birthdays (my 29th, his 25th). I had only just been diagnosed with depression about a week before and nobody except my wife and I knew what was going on. I was desperate to cancel and not face my family (besides which I just felt totally dreadful anyway) and only got to the restaurant due to the patient encouragement of my wife. I walked into the restaurant like an invalid. The whole evening seemed to drift by like a dream. I sat in one spot and didn't move all night. I hardly said a word to anybody. I could hardly be less enthused if I had tried and I felt like I was attending my own funeral rather than my birthday. Attempts by family to converse with me were utterly painful for both parties as my mind was still very agitated and the last thing it wanted to do was hold a conversation. At the end of the night I had fudged my way through the evening but that was about all I had successfully done. I felt dreadful because of depression and felt equally awful because I was unable to socialise as normal and I was too embarrassed to tell them about my depression in the first place (as if it was a sign of weakness or something like that).
Soon after this 'party' I returned to my doctors to monitor my progress. He needed to find out more about my family history of mental illness (which certainly didn't make me glow with pride). I now had to tell someone in my family what was going on just to be able to find out what I needed. I chose my father who I knew to be discreet and who hadn't attended my party. He hadn't seen me for several months and was surprised to see me just turn up at his door. Due to the change of expression on my face and the 20kg (44lb) I had added to my weight he hardly recognised me. From memory I just got pretty much straight to the point by telling him I was sick and needed to talk about the history of mental illness in our family. I have hardly felt so degraded as person in my life by confessing my illness at this time. It was a definite low point for me but only continued to decline.
As the relief began to settle from finding out my diagnosis I became more prone to feelings of uselessness, and shame. My medication reduced the agitation of my mind so I had more time to think and reflect on what was happening. I started to feel useless as a person as I was unable to do anything much - and I still believe that this is quite a normal way to feel when looking at what's happening and it was certainly something I was not ready for. It is truly humiliating to a person who is proud and productive and who has a sense of worth in what they are able to do as much as in who they are. And I felt the anguish of this. It was totally humiliating to be asked by someone "how are you today?" because i just felt like crap and was instantly reminded of it. It was totally humiliating having someone ask how uni was going for me or what I was doing at the time because I was doing absolutely nothing and uni was going to the dogs. All these little things that are normal to life had the severest impact on the way I felt about myself and I was more or less in a total state of humiliation until several months later when I had recovered enough to risk taking a job.
I felt that depression was slowly but surely destroying my soul as effectively as it had destroyed the normality of my life at the time. And a key in that process was the building and building of self-degradation and shame that left me in an almost constant state of humiliation.
posted by Blackdog at 9:23 PM
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