Psychoanalyze me: Why in the world does this embarrass me?

[Anonymous]

NP here. I don’t think sharing an ice cream is gross nor strange.

[Anonymous]

I become vicariously embarrassed when I see dog owners waiting while their dog takes a $hit. It's just so disgusting and we're all witnessing it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:some theories.

- the ice cream truck is sort of embarrassing ITSELF in front of adults by playing a loud, grating tune meant for children in order to alert them to its presence. You are feeling embarrassed FOR the ice cream truck.

- you feel some shame around childhood innocence and some cringe like reading your old diary. Remembering how you used to feel and behave can lead to a feeling like embarrassment. Like you should have known better. Somewhere along the line, someone taught you that innocence needed to be moved past.

I agree with all of these theories, and the music itself is triggering and flamboyant. But we don’t need to feel embarrassed for the ice cream truck driver, because they seem to always have a line of people (at least where I live they do).

yes i dont mean you should *really* feel embarrassed for it, because the music is working to alert others to its presence. It's more of a reactionary gut feeling. I feel similarly when people sing and dance in musicals. Like - yes of course for sure. But also .... eeek.

YES. This is why I am not a theatre person. I die for everyone. Of course they are singing and dancing... it's a musical... and everyone seems to love it... but I have to pretend to love it if I am watching... or at least pretend I don't want to head for the doors. And then at some point I think about how rank the clothes must be that they wear every night... so much awfulness. Yuck.

There likely is a German word for feeling cringed out by the completely appropriate and rational (per any given context) outward demonstrations of others. Who knows it? It's not fremdschämen because the others aren't acting embarrassing per context... but it's still in that neighbourhood....

[Anonymous]

I lived at the top of the court, and the ice cream man would pull up at the bottom of the court, and I could never get money and get back in time before the ice cream man left.

I always made sure DD had enough money in her cargo shorts in case the ice cream man pulled up at the park!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Were you too get get ice cream when you were a child?

I’m assuming you meant “too fat to get ice cream” and the answer is no, I was on the thinner end of normal.

Sorry, I meant to poor

We weren’t poor, but my parents probably wouldn’t have splurged on this, and if they did, we would have had to share one treat (we often shared one ice cream cone, for example) But I was never embarrassed by it. To this day I sometimes share a cone with DH if we take the kids out for ice cream.

Sounds like your parents maybe shamed the idea of ice cream, or everyone getting their own cone. They may have thought of it as greedy, too expensive, too indulgent, whatever, but it hardwired the idea of you being embarrassed for your craving/wanting of ice cream as a kid, and the song brings that feeling back, like Pavlov's dog.

[Anonymous]

I find the music creepy. No bad childhood memories of ice cream trucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was psychology minor at a party school;

- repressed trauma

-blocked childhood memories

- projection

- and just for fun, Gestalt theory

Hahaha love you pp. I was also a quasi psychology minor because prof was hot. Dropped the minor so I could work full time in tandem with full time undergrad.
I agree with your diagnosis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ask your therapist.

Good idea 👍🏽.

It could be a trigger going back into your childhood.

Were you overweight as a child & other kids taunted you when you would buy an ice cream from the ice cream truck?

Or were you one of those kids who never had any $$ to purchase treats from the neighborhood ice cream truck and other kids used to tease you for it??

[Anonymous]

It might be the frequency and tones that your nervous system is reacting to and not the idea of ice cream trucks