Far worse, humiliation.

I’m the kind of person who likes attention, not all the time but maybe most of the time, especially for positive kind of attention. But what if that attention is an act of degradation?

Here comes Humiliation.

Humiliation (also called stultification) is the abasement of pride, which creates mortification or leads to a state of being humbled or reduced to lowliness or submission. It can be brought about through bullying, intimidation, physical or mental mistreatment or trickery, or by embarrassment if a person is revealed to have committed a socially or legally unacceptable act.

Just the other day, I experienced one of the most unforgettable attention that I’ve had since I was born. I can’t even remember when was the last time that my parents humiliated me and made me look like a complete crap. They may get mad at me or shout at me in front of other people but it’s okay and that’s the only kind of humiliation that I can handle it, it’s acceptable because they are my parents. I would not be existing for the past 24 years if not for them.

What happened to me was more of an embarrassment, the shame you feel when your inadequacy or guilt is made in public. The feeling that people were looking at you confused and full of questions as of what’s happening. The moment wherein your self esteem is slowly digging six feet under and you just can’t help but cry. You try to smile and laugh to counter your emotions but the negative ones are winning.  Never did I imagine or expect that it will happen to me, especially by one of the person whom I care the most. I know that, that person did not really intend what happened. I know that, that person was just taken over by anger and great sense of emotion. That person got hurt too. However, I can’t seem to get away with that situation. I don’t want it to happen again ever.

It’s not really about how people saw me or how they understood and reacted to what happened. It was all about how I felt that time, how that person made me feel. How degraded and low I was. I’m not angry, I made a mistake too.. it’s just that I’m scared that this will happen again. What will happen the next time? Far worse than humiliation? I hope not.

Now, what would you feel if I do the same thing to you?

“The humiliation that Jane had felt turned to something else–grief perhaps, or regret. Regret that she had not known how to act with a boy, regret that she had not been wiser.”
― Beverly Cleary, Fifteen