An accident in Venice

I was once fortunate enough to attend a wedding on an island in the lagoon of Venice. It was undoubtedly the swankiest affair I’ve ever been to, and I say this as someone who was once the Queen of the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. I’m not usually one for designer clothing but this event demanded a level of sartorial splendor beyond my usual glad rags.

It was a gorgeous occasion and I was feeling pleased by my beautiful dress (a preferred indifferent, in Stoic terms). I should have done some premeditatio malorum, though. In the gorgeous villa where the wedding dinner was held, my lovely pal mistook a glass shelf decorated with votive candles and a bottle of tequila for a bench. The shelf shattered, and the tequila splashed on my dress. A flame from the candles set fire to an important piece of my delicate silk gown: the entire back of it.

It left a hole the size of a large margherita pizza and my intimate undergarments were exposed to all and sundry. Luckily for me I was encased in an exoskeleton of shapewear, so it was no more revealing than lycra gym shorts.

I couldn’t see the pizza-pie-sized hole, but it must have looked unsightly. “You must go to the ladies room,” my husband hissed, as though if he kept his voice down the other guests wouldn’t notice what had happened. “For what? Is there a tailor elf in there? Or Rumplestiltskin, to spin me a new dress out of toilet paper? We’re stuck on an island.”

There was nothing to be done. My wish to honour my friends who got married was greater than any feeling of shame or embarrassment about having an unintentional backless dress. It really wasn’t a big deal, just a dispreferred indifferent. Accidents happen, and I wasn’t going to let a missing section of my dress make me miss the wedding.

Embarrassment needs an audience

What my husband was feeling, and what I did NOT feel, was embarrassment. It was a temporary negative feeling caused by something outside either of our control. Embarrassment requires an audience; if I’d accidentally set the dress on fire in our hotel room, neither of us would have any reason to be embarrassed. I could have simply changed into a backup dress.

Shame doesn't require an audience because it is internal

Shame is different. Shame is internal and doesn’t require an audience. It's a negative feeling about some aspect of yourself that you dislike, the sense that you are flawed, and have failed to live up to expectations. While embarrassment is acute and temporary, shame is chronic and it lasts if you don’t treat it. Shame would have been if I felt I had never deserved such a beautiful dress in the first place. My pal who set my dress alight told me later that she was so embarrassed and shamed over ruining my dress, she couldn’t face me for six months. The thing was, I got over it in about 2 minutes.

10 pounds of Duff into a 5 pound dress

When I was diagnosed with sarcoidosis of the central nervous system, I was embarrassed. The steroids I took to help alleviate pain and inflammation caused me to gain weight. I couldn’t fit into my clothes any more. I was supposed to be a model shilling perfume, and I’d keep the crew waiting while the wardrobe assistant tried to squeeze 10 pounds of Duff into a 5 pound dress. I wasn’t that vain of my appearance, but I do value showing up and doing your work. I was failing in front of a film crew of 45 dedicated professionals.

I also felt shame. I felt that my body had let me down, and that I was letting everyone else down because of it. I was ashamed that my condition was extracting resources of worry from my parents. I didn’t want them to come and baby me, but of course they did. I felt like a dependent after many years of successfully navigating life on my own terms.

Stoicism as an antidote to shame

Three decades later, I still have to set up guardrails so I do not allow the obstacles of my illness to cast a shadow of shame. I still cannot button or zip up clothing, or tie my shoes, or twist a key in the door due to neuropathy in my hands. My hands can hold a book and reading the Stoics inspired me to understand what was in my control. Stoic philosophy is an antidote to shame.

Karen Duffy is a producer, actress, and former MTV VJ. Her latest book on Stoicism. Wise Up (https://amzn.to/ 3PpLv5D) is published by Seal Press.

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