Putting Pain and Stress on the Scales
I hate scales of 1 to 10. Do you know the kind I mean? On a scale of 1 to 10 how stressful is this situation for you? On a scale of 1 to 10 how much does this impact your life? A couple of years ago, just after being diagnosed with MS, I told the counsellor that I was seeing, that on a scale of 1 to 10, I hate those types of questions with a 10! Haha and yes, I refused to answer them 😉 One of the problems is that the marker isn’t static. Something that may appear to be the worst situation ever, suddenly isn’t when faced with an even worse scenario. We also don’t live each situation in isolation. I cannot separate the fact that I’m living with infertility from living with multiple sclerosis. Not that the two are considered to be related in any way, but for me, they are now linked because every single treatment choice that I make has to take both issues into consideration. Living with both together has added to my pain in dealing with each one.
Who Decides What Hurts Most?
I remember a talk last year where at one point a list of the most stressful life events was protected on the screen. As I read through them, I realised that, apart from divorce and general marital problems, I’d experienced every single one on the list within a three year period. But who decides what makes the list? Infertility didn’t even make that particular list and yet for many couples experiencing it, it is one of the most stressful events that they’ll ever go through. I’ve seen so many of these lists and each is different.
I understand that the purpose of such scales and lists is to try and deduce who might be more susceptible to stress related illness, breakdown and reactive depression. It’s certainly good to be aware of what stressful life events are present and of their possible accumulative effect on stress levels. However, the problem with trying to categorise pain is that all pain hurts. If it hurts at a level that greatly impacts the person experiencing it, then it needs to be acknowledged, and it needs to be grieved and we shouldn’t feel guilty about that just because others are going through what some would classify as “worse” pain than ours.
There is Enough Pain for Everyone!
When we try to trivialise another person’s battle by comparing it with one that we consider to be greater, then all we do is create guilt and a lack of empathy for the one who is experiencing the difficult situation. There is enough pain to go around! We can all acknowledge the life events that are painful, stressful or challenging without it in any way invalidating the pain that others are experiencing. It’s not a competition. We don’t need to classify ourselves and decide who has suffered the most, or who has an easier life. If our life experience is going to be of any use in reaching out to others, then we have to stop doing that.
When Comparisons Seek to Invalidate
The temptation to compare is likely to be there when issues of suffering appear to be opposites and to an outsider looking on, one situation clearly invalidates the other. When I struggled to overcome an eating disorder as a teenager, I was sometimes told to, ‘Remember the poor starving children in Africa.’ I remember thinking that the poor starving children in Africa were welcome to my food. Then I felt guilty for thinking such thoughts. I agree, it’s a terrible thing that there are children starving because they don’t have enough food to eat, whereas in the West there are teenagers starving themselves because they reject the abundance of food that is before them. However, eating disorders are a lot more complex than that and the two issues are very different problems with very different solutions. It is not the anorexic’s fault that there is an unfair distribution of wealth and food in the world. That does not make their battle even one ounce easier.
In a similar way, the sleep deprived parent may be tempted to invalidate the pain of infertility by reminding the person of how lucky they are to be able to sleep through the night and have a lie in. It’s true that both of those things are blessings, and I greatly appreciate them; I love sleep, but the person experiencing infertility has not chosen to sleep instead of have children! I appreciate those things because I have chosen to appreciate them not because I have chosen them over having a family. I would give them up tomorrow to experience motherhood. My pain is no lesser just because parents may get less sleep.
While the sleep deprived parent may be envying my lie in, those of us who live with infertility have to struggle against envying those who have achieved pregnancy and who are blessed with children. We have to struggle not to downplay how awful it must be to experience severe vomiting during pregnancy and how exhausting the demands of a new-born baby may be. I hate being sick; I know that I would find that hard. I have to tell myself that. The pregnant mother suffering from severe “morning” or all day sickness and nausea does not stop feeling sick just because I want so desperately to be pregnant. The sleep deprived mother doesn’t suddenly feel a burst of energy as she considers that some people don’t ever manage to have children and the inevitable time of sleep deprivation that is part of that.
Facing up to the Comparisons and Getting out of the Competition
Even within the areas where I have painful life experience, if I put my focus on comparing, who’s suffered longer and if I start asking whether my pain is greater or lesser than that of another, then I become unable to be authentic in reaching out to others, unable to seek and offer support. I would lose my voice because either I’d be too bitter to be able to share anything of value or feel too guilty to speak if my life experience seems to fade into insignificance in comparison with what others have lived. Part of processing our pain in a healthy way, involves facing up to the bitterness, envy and guilt that can arise from such comparisons. We need to learn not to allow such thoughts to consume us, to prevent us from grieving where needed, or to become an obstacle to meeting with others in their distinct places of pain. Sometimes it’s a battle but it’s one that’s worth fighting.
Although I may get comfort from considering how my current situation is better than it could be and acknowledging that some are worse off than I am, that is for me to discover and for me to learn. No one can tell me what I should feel blessed about. The process of learning to be thankful for what we have, has to be lived, not imposed. There is freedom in not judging others or trivialising their pain or our own. Categorising what pain hurts the most is often subjective. Since any painful life event is experienced in combination with whatever other stresses the person already has, it may be a seemingly trivial event that tips the boat in the midst of the storm. We rarely see the whole picture if we make a sweeping judgement. There is freedom in acknowledging that painful life events, challenges and daily struggles have many different forms and that we are not in competition against each other. We don’t need to invalidate the battles that others face, in order to validate our own.
It’s annoying when people say they understand something when they mean they sympathise, two separate things completely.
Being bipolar is a hideous thing and knowing your brain cannot deal with things and any one day I can go so deep into depression I might consider awful things or be so high I might want to buy a sports car.
So when someone who doesn’t suffer say I understand now chin up and smile everything will be ok………. I won’t finish what I want to put as my response, but it isn’t come on then let’s go for a curry
Hi Davie. I don’t know if you read my previous post, ‘Listening to and Learning from Those Who Have Suffered’? http://www.survivingtheplatitudes.com/listening-learning-suffered/ You’re so right; only those who have experienced the same issue can understand. We’re all experts in areas of our life experience. You have so much to teach those of us who don’t have bipolar and haven’t experienced how hideous it is. Thank you for sharing.
What I find difficult is the competitive nature. Almost like a game of top trumps! That some people don’t seem able to listen to your pain but state theirs was worse/bigger/greater than yours. I try now to keep quiet and just listen and try to validate their pain. I often wonder if no one has really listened to them in their time of pain which leads to this need to beat me over the head with how terrible theirs is. Whatever we say cannot “fix” another’s suffering but we can come along side and walk with them through it. Knowing you’re no longer alone in the daily (sometimes hourly) battle but have someone to turn to makes the platitudes fade to insignificance.
Yes Ems, I’m sure that that must be true, that those who are in competition mode are likely looking for the validation that comes through being truly listened to. If they’ve never received that, then that’s very sad 🙁
I love this so much. The “hard” part about being pregnant right now is realizing that all those pregnant women really didn’t complain for nothing, as much as their complaining drove me crazy. Being pregnant is not the most fun thing. But entering pregnancy after infertility makes you feel like it must be perfect. I think that’s just more of the injustice, the fact that we have to wait so long for something that also has a good amount of struggles in it. During my years of infertility, I would look at my exhausted stay-at-home mom friends and my sick pregnant friends and wonder “Why do I ache for this so badly?” It didn’t really make sense, but the ache was still unbearable.
I hate the 1-10 scales too. And it’s so important to develop a gracious attitude toward anyone in pain. No matter what the situation, pain and suffering teach us something. And they help us to be able to enter others pain. It’s never worth ignoring or discrediting, even if we think it looks trivial compared to our own suffering.
Yes, I can imagine that pregnancy after infertility has its own uniique emotions and as you’ve experienced, that feeling that it must be perfect. I hope it will get better for you.
I’m so glad you’re writing on not trivializing or comparing pain. Pain is pain and everyone has their own unique experience.
Exactly Lisa. That’s why communication is so important, so that we can understand each other and know how best to respond.
Wow Rachel such valuable insights on topics close to the heart. Besides knowing you wrote it, the subject drew me to read and I am so glad I did. I can’t agree more with you than your point about the experience of pain not being a competition. Why do we do it to each other?! As Lisa also comments, pain is pain and everyone has their own unique experience and their experience is as valid as anyone else’s. Circumstances and situations around people at any particular time also massively impact on responses and coping mechanisms. Oh how listening and being listenened to when sharing makes all the difference………………..
Dear Rachel
This is a truthful, valuable, helpful, relevant peice. I can’t imagine anyone alive who doesn’t relate to what you have said unless they have never suffered in any way…There is surely no such person.
How can it be that I haven’t really heard it before? The way you put it, so clearly, honestly and respectfully causes me to wonder how something so applicable to so many is the first challenge I’ve heard to some common wrong assumptions, that lurk beneath our conscousness as guilt!
I always remind myself that comparison the thief of joy! We all have different scripts written for our lives from the Lord – some might seem to have it easier than the others, but regardless we are appointed by Him!!! Thanks for this post
Hi Caroline. i like the term “thief of joy’ That’s so true; when we compare it’s so easy to get bitter and that doesn’t allow us to hold on to our joy. Personally I don’t feel comfortable with the idea that God gives us each a “script” I guess I don’t see our lives as having been as predetermined as that. I’m glad that He doesn’t waste anything though and that I can trust in Him to use it all for good. Some may seem to have it easier, but then we never know what they’re really dealing with. Thanks so much for stopping by my blog and sharing.
Hi, Rachel,
I just found your blog today after you commented on mine. I was drawn to this post – I have fibromyagia and it’s been acting up this week due to going back to physical therapy. Yes, something that’s good for me also causes me more pain in the short term!
This helped me today and I’m very grateful.
Thanks for writing it.
Sue
Hi Sue Anne. Thanks so much for checking out my blog! So sorry that your fibromyagia is acting up.. I hope that the benefits of the physical therapy kick in soon! So glad that you found this post helpful 🙂
Utterly LOVED this post Rachel. Such thoughtful and beautifully written insights. It’s such a strange competitive thing that so many seem to carry, though not a competition anyone would truly want to win. I loved what you wrote about freedom in not judging others or trivialising their pain or our own. Also because coincidentally, I also am unable to be a mother, live with a pain condition and also was anorexic during my teens so a lot of it truly touched all the more deeply. Also love that quote, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” It’s so true and pain has so many layers from what is already happening in a person’s life, to the circumstances surrounding them, to what we’re survived or concurred before. It’s as subjective as our own individual experiences are. Grateful for your wonderful post, thank you.
Hi Jo. Thanks so much for your comment. On the one hand, I’m sorry to know that you relate to the pain of not being able to be a mother and having a chronic illness, on the other hand, I’m glad to have a moment of connection here. I’m so pleased that my words were ones that you could relate to and get something out of. Yes, I also liked the quote about “comparison being the thief of joy” That’s a great thing to remember. We have enough to deal with already, without adding that to our issues.