Humiliation

I lost all of my hair in early 2012. A friend had a book that correlated feelings to a physical condition and hair loss fell under humiliation. I hadn’t considered this feeling in the chaos of feelings I had at that time, but in hindsight it was appropriate. Leading up to my hair loss was a laundry list of loss – divorce, career, babies – it was a heady list that made losing my hair seem just one more thing.

In 1990, I had moved to San Francisco and fallen into a bowl of milk after a few missteps. I was hired by an independent research firm to write about public companies, which led to leading a global group across multiple sectors that included companies who manufactured heavy equipment to the internet. I hadn’t realized that during the decades of working nearly all hours of the day and most of the night that my identity had become firmly rooted in my career.

I was a successful investigative reporter and editor for one of the largest independent research firms on Wall Street. This was who I was. And then one day I wasn’t. For years after losing my job, I grappled with the who I am part of my existence. I stretched out into different areas – mediation, meditation, facilitation – and though these were all part of my learning, not one became my identity.

Last night, I was sitting in an ACA meeting and we were going through a list of feelings. When we got to humiliation, I raised my hand. I knew what this feeling was. I knew what it was like to be a workaholic and to put all my eggs in one basket and then suddenly to have the basket tipped over and to feel empty. The humiliation of having no hair was nothing compared to having no career, no identity, no me.

And then as I was speaking about my past, I began to realize I have yoked my present identity once again to my work. Running the 100 Men Hall has been a passion project for me since 2018, where I became part of the narrative of this historical landmark. I said, “Now that I’m thinking about it, my identity has become running the Hall.” It made me reflect on my efforts, not always successful or intentional, to strike out and create my life independent of this work.

Like – I purchased the vintage Shasta camper to be someone who spends time in nature.

Or, I started writing this blog again to return to my first love, writing.

My friend who invited me into the meeting said my writing is how she knows me. And the host said she doesn’t know me through the Hall. My friend encouraged me to make a pie chart of those things that identify me. She said in recovery she had done one, and it helped her understand that her perfectionism in work could falter and there would still be so many pieces of her, all of which contributed to her self-esteem.

I have to work on shoring up my self-esteem pie – I’m a mother, a friend, a writer, an aunt, a sister (more blanks to be filled in) – so that when the time comes to move on from running the Hall, it won’t feel like an evisceration, but more like making room for the next great thing in my life.