Fading out

‘I have started to feel myself fade. It’s not a sudden and complete vanishing, but rather a slow flickering around the edges as my solidity begins to ebb and flow in the eyes of those around me.’ (Kate Lister)

If you didn’t see Kate Lister’s article* in the iPaper this week, it’s definitely worth a read. With echoes of and resonances with Susie Orbach’s earlier pioneering work in this field (see, for instance, What’s Really Going on Here and Towards Emotional Literacy), Kate models critical reflection by viewing her personal experience through a broader social-cultural-political lens. It reminded me of Richard Marshall’s insight in the human-relational arena when exploring the meaning and significance of experience: ‘It’s about you, but it’s not only about you.’

The question of seeing and being seen – or not seen – has been a recurring theme too in my own reflections over recent years. It’s as if being seen links existentially and psychodynamically to a deeper sense of ‘I exist’ and with that, if it's with an affirming gaze, to ‘I am loved’. Kate’s article reflects on shifts in her personal experience of being seen as a woman, to becoming unseen as she gets older. Since being seen links to being valued, it can have a profound effect: ‘I felt my power base slip…I had passed by completely unnoticed…I was invisible.’

This phenomenon calls into question what expectations and judgements we place on ourselves and others: where they originate, who and what perpetuates them, who benefits from them and what their impacts are. I too have felt this fading at times as I get older, against a wider social-cultural backdrop of norms against ageing. I’ve worked with people in Asia who’ve noticed that social status diminishes with darker skin tones; and with?asylum-seekers who feel their perceived value as human beings is questioned now they've become refugees.

Who could I notice, perhaps for the first time? Who could I help to fade-in, to not fade-out?

(*Kate Lister, 'I am becoming invisible to men and I refuse to accept it', 10 December 2024)