title: [Shame of having a disabled child].
abstract: This work is devoted to the problem of shame linked to disability in children. It has been inspired by patients - disabled infants and their parents. The shame evidently experienced during meetings with parents learning about their child's condition leads to many difficult questions. Shame is not a simple, isolated emotion. It is a complicated feeling, closely connected to various shame-related emotions and experiences. Shame leads to a sense of guilt and self-blame. Shame linked to a child's disability is a shame of 'lacking' and low self-esteem. Additionally it is feeling of nakedness, vulnerability and despoilment of intimacy; it makes parents feel forced to put their interior world on display and to show their weakness caused by their child's condition. Sometimes shame is an experience of humiliation, or hurt dignity caused by the looks of other people. It is also the shame of one's own difficult thoughts, desire to escape responsibility. It is being ashamed of experiencing shame. It is an emotion of ultimate suffering, often returning during whole life. One solution to the 'discomfort of birth' could be a lonely island. The issue is not that simple, however, and philosophy helps in this respect. A being is good and it has to be good. One cannot be someone, one is not. This is the difference between a being and a desire. There is love and acceptance, but there is also shame - even on a lonely island.
authors.affiliation: Oddział Neonatologii, Szpital Specjalistyczny im. Świętej Rodziny, ul. Madalińskiego 25 02-544 Warszawa tel: 604 068 686 e-mail: beatapawlus@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Beata
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pawlus
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D019988:Children with Disabilities; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D010290:Parents; D012752:Shame
keywords: dignity; disabled child; responsibility; shame