Gately, Joelle, the veil
U.H.I.D.'d say it's fine to feel inadequate and ashamed because you're not as bright as some others, but that the cycle becomes annular and insidious if you begin to be ashamed of the fact that being unbright shames you, if you try to hide the fact that you feel mentally inadequate, and so go around making jokes about your own dullness and acting as if it didn't bother you at all, pretending you didn't care whether others perceived you as unbright or not.
Context
Joelle, veiled, explaining U.H.I.D. doctrine to Gately at Ennet House — and turning it on him. This is the word "annular" applied directly to a psyche: shame about shame, the second-order loop that feeds itself. The book's physics vocabulary migrating all the way inward, from fusion reactors to the inside of one embarrassed head.