Do you know what the number one cause of death is when someone is choking on something? It’s embarrasment. It actually is!
Imagine this for a moment. You’re at a party talking with friends and laughing. You are wearing your best party outfit. Your makeup looks like it was stamped on by a Vogue magazine. Everything about the mood and feel of this party with you in it is perfect. You take a bite of an hors d’oeuvre and suddenly start coughing the loudest and nastiest cough. Everyone is watching.
You can feel your face turning red as the urge to vomit comes on. A crowd begins to circle around you. The girl beside you akwardly pats on your back in an attempt to help end this horrid scene.
Finally you’ve had enough. You’ll do anything to get yourself out of this embarrassing nightmare. You run into the bathroom and lock the door, believing that this is the one place you can cough up that evil piece of food. However you’ve gone too long with out air. The room begins to spin and… well- death by embarrasment.
I know that’s a horrible story. But in all honesty it’s what was taught to me in the first aid class I took as a teenager.
The moral of the story: stay in the room! Don’t leave a room full of people in a moment where you are experiencing the most embarrassing situation. Not just when choking on food- after a miscarriage, a bad break up, going bankrupt, losing a family member, after attempting suicide… The list of situations that can kill you because of embarrassment can go on and on and on.
We need each other. We need others to see our flaws. We need others to see us at our worst. We were not meant to deal with these moments alone.
