Humiliation Washer
Humiliation is one of those things everyone has a good conceptual grasp of but, when trying to define, has a hard time coming up with the correct words. Emotion Typology defines it as:
The feeling when someone has deliberately done something to put you down or make you look bad. You feel you have no power over the situation.
The Latin root of “humiliation” is “humus”, which means “earth” or “dirt.” Humiliation involves the abasement of honor and dignity and, with that, the loss of status and standing.
In common usage, humiliation appears to mean much the same as embarrassment, shame, or ignominy. This reflects uncertainty over what humiliation is conceptually, whether it is an act, an emotion, or perhaps both. What I think everyone will agree on is that power is central to humiliation, and it’s (almost) always used both demonstratively and unjustly.
The consequences of humiliation are a sense of permanent loss and feelings of impotence, frustrated rage, despair, and a ‘foul thirst for revenge’. It’s fair to say it’s one of the best ways to destroy someone from the inside.
Humiliation is an act that causes a change for the worse in the position of the victim and in the victim’s feelings about himself and his relationship to the world. Since power is central to humiliation, the victim of an act of humiliation can be described not as feeling but as being humiliated, as the victim of an act of power. Humiliation is something actively done by one person to another, even if through institutions or directed in principle at groups. It’s a demonstration of the capacity to use power unjustly with apparent impunity.
Let’s wash these experiences from your system and mind and see what happens to your mental health and well-being.
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