The Hierarchy of Pain
What a time to be alive, huh?
image by Andrew Neel
Quarantined in our homes with nowhere to go, no one to see, no plans to be made. I’ve been out of work for three weeks now. It’s felt like 6 months. I left my office for spring break (I am a school nurse) thinking I would return in a week, back to my routine. I haven’t been allowed back in the building since. I really miss my milk frother. (Afternoon lattes were my thing.)
I expired the limits on my social media use about a week into this gig. Only one hour of Instagram a day? Get real. I’ll admit, I’ve spent a lot of my quarantine time browsing about other people’s lives.
I’ve run into scores of really great memes, some recipes I am excited to try in the coming days/weeks and I’ve shared my adventures in bread making and failing (RIP twisted cinnamon loaf). But, I’ve been triggered too. Isn’t that what social media is for?
While most of the things shared have truly encouraged me and warmed my heart, a few things have made me scratch my head and say, “REALLY?”
One thought in particular was shared about this year’s high school senior classes missing out on the events reserved with a specialness just for them. Baccalaureate, Prom, state tournaments, choir contests and most of all, Graduation. I’ve felt profoundly sad for them, knowing what a huge milestone it is and how they will be missing out. The closing of one chapter to open another. Not to mention how profoundly sad I feel for their parents and family. Do you know how hard it is to get a kid from crib to cap and gown? Hello.
Many have shared the same sentiments and expressed them on social media. The responses have no doubt been a combined lament and disappointment, but one reaction in particular caught me off guard.
“Seniors this year are sad about missing graduation and other activities when the seniors of ‘64-’70 spent their senior year at war in Vietnam.”
I sat with it for a minute like, “woah, so true.” and then I was like, “but……. it still sucks and it’s still grief.”
It’s still suffering. It’s still pain.
When I was in grad school I spent my nights working 12 hour shifts in Tulsa and my 16-18 hour days (and some all nighters too) an hour away in Joplin, Missouri doing clinical rotations and studying for exams. I was exhausted to say the least. One morning I had expressed my feelings to my preceptor when she asked me how I was doing. Her response? “I wasn’t allowed to be tired because she did it with a husband and kids.” I wasn’t allowed to tell her I was tired ever again, she said.
Her response to my experience didn’t give me perspective. It didn’t make me step back and say “Oh goodness, I should really check myself.” It made me feel insignificant. Belittled. Weak and unable to rise to a challenge because her challenge was harder. It created a chasm between the two of us and made me want to avoid her emotionally.
I’ve been reading “You Should Talk to Someone” by Lori Gottlieb, a famous therapist in LA known for writing a book about the time she spent in therapy. It’s a catchy read and extremely eye-opening. She talks about the Hierarchy of Pain and how it doesn’t exist.
“Suffering shouldn’t be ranked, because pain is not a contest.”
Yep, that’s right. It’s not a contest. But, somehow, it is, because we humans cannot settle our competitive spirits to save our souls. We do it with everything and it starts in the womb. How big is your baby? How will you birth that baby? How will you feed it?
So when life - quite literally all of it - from how early we learn to walk, our first words, our grades in school, how well we perform in sports and extracurriculars, getting into college, GPA in college, interviewing for our first job, performing well at said job, when we get married, who we marry, what our wedding looks like, when we have our first baby, when they start walking and saying their first words to how early we retire and how much money we have in our 401k - is a contest and we are born into a world of competition, we are naturally inclined to compare pain and suffering as well.
But friends, grief is grief. Suffering is suffering. Pain is pain.
It’s true that no two situations are the same but, trying to place them on a scale of “who’s is harder or worse” benefits none of the parties involved. It gives one person a false sense of ego and the other a lesser sense of self and robs them of processing their emotions. It says to the suffering, “your pain cannot possibly matter here because my pain was worse.” You aren’t allowed to be sad about not getting to experience your graduation day due to being quarantined because those seniors were at war. How does this narrative help?
Spoiler alert: It doesn’t.
It ineffectively disconnects both people from their reality and stunts growth and healing.
Life is hard enough trying to wade through the present competitions, how can we set aside the need to “have it harder” than someone else and just be willing to say to someone, “I see you and I hear your pain. It’s hard.”
How do we get to this place? Where we can sit with someone else in their pain/suffering/grief without comparing it to someone else’s or even our own?
We have to go to the root to get to the solution. The condition of the heart where we are deeply satisfied with the accomplishments of self, even the accomplishment of experiencing pain, suffering and grief.
That condition is called pride.
“Lust, envy, anger, greed, gluttony and sloth are all bad, but pride is the deadliest of all, the root of all evil. the beginning of sin. Even pride is most likely to stir the debate about whether pride is a sin at all.”- Michael Eric Dyson
Pride. That one sin none of us really thinks we deal with, but we do. I deal with it.
The pride I feel in being single and having accomplished my dreams of becoming a nurse practitioner at a young age. The pride I feel from getting a masters degree from a prestigious university. The pride I feel in having started a successful small business as a photographer. The pride I feel I have travelled the world. The pride I feel that I give to the needy. The pride I feel that I have done the deep work of healing in therapy and counseling. The pride I feel in being a well-educated white, middle class woman. The pride I feel that I tithe. The pride I feel in knowing Jesus.
Pride is the ugly, twisted root beneath the tree of comparison and competition.
“By pride comes nothing but strife, but with the well advised is wisdom.” - Proverbs 13:10 (emphasis my own)
David Guzik writes,
“excessive self-focus and self-regard—constantly generates strife. When people are focused on their own exaltation they will always attempt to advance themselves at the expense of others.”
We don’t get to decide whether another person’s pain and suffering is valid.
When a person comes to us to share pain, grief or suffering it’s because there’s a trust that’s been built. A safe space to share has been made. What a gift! What an honor that they would feel safe enough to open their heart and be vulnerable with us. Will we choose to destroy that space with our selfish pride or foster growth with encouragement, truth and love? Will we be able to shut down our inner ego desperate to compare and compete and be willing to see and hear someone and validate their hurts and grievances?
Will we hurt or heal?
How has someone truly sat with you in your pain/grief/suffering? What are the ways you can choose to sit with someone else?