Can it just be what it is?
The intense pain I experienced this last week has me thinking on the topic of suffering. I’m wondering, do you think suffering can be quantified?
When I’m not thinking, I don’t. I mean, when I’m just feeling my own suffering, I’m not comparing it with anything. I’m just…suffering. I’m crying out. I’m feeling angry. Afraid. Helpless. Wanting it to end. Now.
But when I am thinking, when I do get some perspective and look at the world beyond my body or set of circumstances, I often feel ashamed. Ashamed of the way I experience my suffering because when compared with so many other peoples’, it looks so small. Like a splinter or a boil. I feel embarrassed for complaining and like I’ve disrespected all whose suffering is greater than mine by acting like mine is enormous.
But I’m wondering now whether that kind of shame just isn’t very fair – to me or anyone else. Now that I’m thinking about my thinking, I’m wondering whether it’s just not fair to any of us to compare how much we hurt.
I’m thick in the stage of infant-care these days, so my mind goes quickly to all the people I know whose suffering is around babies. I have friends who have been trying to get pregnant forever and still can’t. I have friends who tried conceiving for a year, joyously became pregnant…and then discovered months later that their dear child has a serious genetic defect. She was born last week and has already had major heart surgery. She’s struggling for life in the ICU. And I have friends who have lost babies. Our neighbors had a baby the same week we did, and she cries constantly and isn’t gaining weight. So many stories of suffering. So many tears and anguished prayers and all the fear and anger and disappointment and depression you could ever not wish for.
So whose suffering is the worst? Doesn’t the question sound wrong? But…is it conceivably fair, in light of all of these stories, that I complain about my week of intense pain? – pain that antibiotics and few doctor visits took care of, and that came because I have a baby, a very healthy one, a mild-mannered one, actually, that took all of two months to conceive?
My suffering seems so stupid and small when put into broader perspective.
And yet… Couldn’t any of the people in these stories say the same thing of theirs, were they to compare their stories with ones that look more awful? People slowly starving to death. People living through decades of civil war. Long-term, debilitating diseases. I don’t know – any number of “worse sufferings” come to mind.
I don’t know how to think about this. Or even feel. I guess I’m wondering, though, whether the comparison game isn’t worth playing when it comes to this. That maybe there are indeed varying degrees of suffering, but it’s just not good to try to identify them. Could suffering just be suffering? And maybe the way we experience it be just that – not good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate, because of who we’re comparing ourselves to?
Thoughts, wisdom, ponderings all welcome.
October 23rd, 2005 at 6:10 pm
my friend heather calls this a hierarchy of pain. the dangerous thing about it is one who suffers “more” can invoke the hierarchy to silence the ones who technically are suffering “less.” the worst kind of power play. it’s a temptation though and a discipline–to be patient and a companion in suffering, even when you feel you’d do anything to suffer in another’s shoes, than to bear your own untenable misfortune.
October 23rd, 2005 at 9:17 pm
Wholeheartedly rejoice in your pleasure and cry out in your pain. But when you are budgeting your resources, weigh the relative suffering and wealth of those you share life with.
October 24th, 2005 at 8:22 pm
I learned some time ago to recognize the difference between those things that are truly painful and those that are merely a “pain in the neck”. I would put mastitis in the former category. And yes, you can be very grateful that there was a relatively easy solution.
Maybe the question you ask has something to with resolvable vs. unresolvable suffering……
October 26th, 2005 at 7:31 am
Jen, I like that language - heirarchy of pain. That helps name this beast I’m wrestling with. You’re so right about the discipline you speak of, too. I’m guessing all of us get/have to be on both sides of the equation at different points in our lives.
Roger, can you say a little more? I don’t fully understand what what you mean by budgeting your resources.
And Denise, thank you. I guess there is a distinction, as you say, between the kind of pain that can be resolved and the kind that can’t - the kind that CAN being a little more quantifiable. I suppose that even there, though, a person’s experience of their pain can be just awful (as in my case) and not something companions can helpfully downplay while it’s being felt. I think I like the way Jen talks about this challenge.
October 26th, 2005 at 10:14 pm
What I mean to say, Kristin, is that the time when you are experiencing pain and suffering is not a good time to be trying to compare one kind of suffering with another. To do so is to sort of deny that you are in pain (assuming you are comparing your pain with someone else’s). Let that pain be your experience and do what you can to solve it. Accept what help you can get for it. But at such time as you are thinking about helping to alleviate someone else’s pain, (with whatever resources you have to help with) then you might want to compare degrees of suffering and choose to give preference to some over others.
November 1st, 2005 at 10:22 am
Ah. Yes. Roger, that makes lots of sense. Thanks for clarifying.