Monopoly on Pain

I have a feeling this post won't be my most popular post. I'm not sure it will resonate with everyone, but it needs to be said. A change needs to happen in our society. We don't look out for each other. We don't try to posses the wonderful skill of empathy like we should.

Empathy is probably one of the most Godlike qualities we can strive for in this life. To accurately feel another's pain, and understand it, would enable us to be such a resource to those around us.

This is difficult. It get it. It's a virtue that is not likely to be perfected in this life. We can't fully understand something we don't know, and we can't perfectly relate one's pain to another's because we can't perfectly understand the unique series of circumstances that make up another person. I've never broken my arm so it's impossible to think I could really understand that pain. I get it, it's even a bit of an insult to act as if I do.

The problem is people, too often, compare pains as if it is a contest. You know the attitude of oh-you-think-you-have-it-bad-don't-even-talk-to-me-I-have-it-so-much-worse-because-I'm-dealing-with-this... All that does is separates us. It doesn't encourage unity or common ground. It doesn't make either person better understand the other. All it does is deprives us of comfort, and drives a wedge between us.

It compartmentalizes us into different groups of people who might understand our pain, but the truth is pain is so personal, while at the same time being universal. That is to say, literally no one understands our unique and specific pain, yet everyone on this planet experiences pain just as unique as ours. So these little cliques of people we group ourselves with because they, "get it," in reality don't get you, they can't. There is only one who can fully understand your unique pain, and that is the Savior. Everyone else only has a partial picture.

Our world today is all about political correctness, rules, and modern taboos. There are all sorts of lists of things you can, and can't, say to this group, or that group. While I'm a big believer in being sensitive of other people's pain and afflictions, a lot of times it crosses a line.

I have seen innumerable blogs, lists, and articles about what you should never say to a woman going through infertility. A lot of them make sense. Of course you should never say things like, "Maybe God doesn't want you to be a parent," or "You just need to change your attitude and you'd get pregnant." Those would be some pretty cruel and mean things to say. We should always try to be considerate. I have many friends who are living through this pain, and I can see it is suffocating. Sensitivity is always a good thing and I try so hard to err on that side of the fence. So I get the lists... for the most part.

Some of those lists have things that bother me though. Like this one which says to "please be quiet." if you ever want to say something like "I have a small family. I only have 4 children," or this one which suggests you never complain about your pregnancies to an infertile person, unless she asks, even if it is the biggest trial in your life right now; or even this one which as kindly as possible, states it's impossible for infertile women to empathize with other women who don't have that struggle, and they shouldn't even have to try to empathize, because it's an "infertility rite of passage."

The way all that comes across to me is, "You can never understand my pain. Don't try. Your pain doesn't compare. Understand me, while I don't try to understand your point of view at all." 

If your sorrow comes from a difficult pregnancy why shouldn't you be able to confide in your friend, even if they are going through something like that? Is a person suffering a very difficult high-risk pregnancy less entitled to comfort just because her womb is full? It's a slippery slope. I understand it's not very sensitive to mindlessly complain about to-be-expected maladies, but for a woman whose whole life has been uprooted by bed-rest, gestational diabetes, or some other scary complication, there is little else to talk about, or occupy her mind. Shouldn't a friend be a friend regardless? Shouldn't we strive for empathy in all situations? If we can only feel empathy for those whose pain is similar, that's not real empathy. A lack of empathy for anyone shouldn't be a badge of honor, or a "rite of passage." It should be a lead to follow to become better.

Now I have a unique perspective. Fertility per say wasn't my problem. I had an easy enough time getting pregnant, though now that I think of it, half my pregnancies ended in miscarriage, but I won't get into that. During the years that I was bringing children into the world, I would never have classified myself as infertile. It would have been a farce, and an insult to those going through that. Now, however, I would. I can't have anymore children and there is a yearning that I'll never satisfy. I understand the jealousy. I understand the difficulty of it being ever present on my mind. In a way I've been able to experience both sides of the pendulum.

You'd think first hand knowledge of the pain of infertility would lead me to agree with these lists more than I previously had, but I still have the same issues with them. It's not fair to suggest that you're part of a club, and push outsiders away for their inability to understand, being critical of their efforts to even try, and shaming those who don't try, while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge their pain as difficult, and their point of view as valid.

No one owns a monopoly on pain.

Pain is universal. We all experience it. It doesn't have to be a competition. When you go to a doctor in pain, they don't ask you what your pain is on a standard scale. The doctor asks you to rate your own pain on your own scale. My pain tolerance may make something that would be a 10 of others a 3 for me, likewise something that is low on the scale for someone else could be a solid 10 for me. Perceptions are different, pain is different, but we all go through it. It can unite us. I may not be able to understand your exact pain, but the fact that we both go through pain can make us comrades in mortality. When someone is having a hard time with something I don't understand, rather than focusing on how different our pain is, I can relate it to my worst pain, and imagine their difficulty in that pain to be just as great. I really believe this can give us a greater capacity for empathy, charity, and love.

There isn't a scale of pain that goes from a hang nail, to suffering infertility, to the death of a loved one. There is the pain of a hangnail. There is also the pain of infertility. There is the pain of losing a loved one. Pain is pain!

People often ask how one gets through an unfathomable pain, but the truth is there is no choice whether to accept a pain or not. My mother lost her precious daughter when she was only 3 years old. People have often asked her how she got through it, and her answer has always been, "I had no other choice!" All pain is that way. When it comes, endurance is our only option. This truth is universal for all of us, and it makes us all the same. There doesn't need to be category, and sub-category of pain. There is one pain, and another pain. Neither depends on the other's supposed level to be valid. When we invalidate people's pain we often turn them away from any comfort at all. It's a dark and lonely place when you feel as if there isn't room in the world for you to heal from the burdens you've been dealt in life.

I've felt that dark place before. I've felt it when a dear friend criticized my soul's complaint of the pain of not being able to have more children, saying I "don't have the right to be sad because [her] pain of being infertile is so much worse." Currently there isn't a place in society for everyone to mourn. Women like me, for one example, have no where to go, no where to mourn. There aren't massive amounts of reading material on what you shouldn't say to us. There is no us! If I were to start a support group I'd be insensitive of someone else's pain. We are insignificant, a small speck on the beginning edge of the pain scale, nothing more than a stubbed toe in comparison to those who "have it worse." 

I should rejoice I am blessed to have kids at all. I'm not allowed to be sad because some women can't have any children. My problem, my heartbreak isn't as bad as someone who has always suffered infertility. There is a shame, a stigma, placed on me for being sad that I can't have as many as I wanted. I am viewed as being ungrateful. I am looked at as selfish, a whiner and a complainer. For so long I hid my pain because I felt as if I didn't deserve to feel it.

But pain is pain, and I deserve to feel mine as much as anyone else deserves to feel theirs. Pain isn't a social asset, pain is a tool. It gauges how far along we are in healing. It's a personal way to determine how close to being whole again we are. It's not a spitting contest. It's not a competition. You can't win. It isn't a game.