Memory and Forgetting

DISCLAIMER: I was reading ginger and lime's blog and was interested in her entry on pain. It inspired me to think some more about the issue and put my two cents in. Later that evening, I was reading through a new blog and reached the last entry. The topic was on Pain, and suddenly, I realized that I was reading the post that had originally inspired ginger and lime! So there is definitely a weird infinite loop happening here. All that has to happen at this point is for Tertia to read my post below and be inspired to write a follow-up on Pain, and we will have come full circle. 


All that said, I'm not going to waste a perfectly good post that took me way too long to write. Enjoy it for all its redundancy!


P.S. DISCLAIMER: If egghunt ever runs across my post below, please know that even though our thoughts are eerily similar, I wrote it before reading yours. So that must simply mean we're kindred spirits!

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I read ginger and lime’s post and was inspired to continue the discussion because I have had similar thoughts about my own pain and have felt similarly guilty about enshrining, sanctifying and even idolizing my Suffering as proof that I am “special” - for lack of a better word. By elevating my pain to such significant status, I somehow look down on the world from my pedestal of pain with a certain amount of disdain for the petty concerns of “normal” people. I love to think, “You think you have it hard, try losing three babies in a row … lightweights. Pffft.”

Perhaps it is a way for me to eek some meaning out of my pain – a way to have it function as a vehicle by which to gain social or moral superiority in a situation in which I more typically feel broken, abnormal, punished and generally “less than.” We all know the unfortunate statistical position in which we fall, and when you are struck by that unlikely meteor, understandably, you want to invest it with some positive function.

But then, on the precipice of gloating, I remember that there is always someone who has it worse than me, who could argue that their suffering is more acute and deserves more attention and pity. And there I am, on my mark, ready to sprint in my own personal Pain Olympics (a term I love. Who came UP with that!?) – the desire to legitimize my pain competing with my guilt for claiming too much suffering.

Objectively, you might be able to get a cross section of people to agree on what situations are for horrific than others. (The following exercise is just a philosophical exercise, I mean no offense and am making no judgments). For instance, I tend to think that time spent in a concentration camp trumps a miscarriage in the first trimester. What about finer-tuned differences? I find cancer and miscarriage hard to parse out (I think they both have to do with facing premature mortality). And I suspect that I’d much rather lose a baby in the first trimester than in the second or third. What if I had never gotten pregnant? Is the pain and disappointment greater or lesser losing a fetus vs. never having been pregnant at all? I could keep unraveling, but I have to stop myself here and think hard about what I just typed because I realize how presumptuous it is of me to assume any pain is greater or lesser than any other – even my own. It’s easy to dismiss my pain, particularly in hindsight. But really, when I was in the middle of that pain, it was just PAIN. Sometimes the pain was a 3, sometimes a 10, then down to a 5. But when the pain was a 10, it didn’t matter what caused the pain. It was excruciating no matter what. And once in a while, I can experience that 10 again – out of the blue. But those episodes are farther and farther apart – the erosion of pain by time.


Fact is, as soon as I start trying to make distinctions between pain, I realize the fruitlessness of such comparisons. It’s dehumanizing and useless. Pain is pain, awful is awful. The Pain Olympics, while a juicy new item to throw on the pyre of self-flagellation, is just, in the end, not useful. Some people will look at my pain and think, “I am so lucky.” And some people will look at my pain and think, “She doesn’t know what suffering is.” It’s all a matter of where you are standing and who you are asking.

My therapeutic approach to my suffering is that I seek comfort from those who can understand my particular flavor of suffering (other IFers), which serves to validate and acknowledge my pain. And when I am in a bad place emotionally and want to scream at everyone who is demanding something from me to please-give-me-a-break-because-I’ve-got-enough-to-bear-and-if-they-knew-what-I-had-to-go-through-they-would-feel-so-guilty-about-not-handling-me-with-kid-gloves, I try to keep in mind that 1) they can’t identify with my situation and 2) they are probably thinking the same thing with respect to their OWN pain. So I try to swallow my rage and suffering till I can visit with you all here in blogland and spew my pain. And even then, this “rage against the machine” is only cathartic when used sparingly. I find if I live in a state of perpetual rage and martyrdom, I lose touch with a different, equally viable reality that I can create if I choose.

So at this point, some of you may want to exit because I’ll be offering something that has to do with starting to move past pain or at least wrangle it a bit. I realize that when you are in the midst of grief, you don’t want or need ANYONE to tell you to snap out of it. That is beyond inconsiderate. Everyone needs to have their pain acknowledged and respected (till loved ones intervene in concern, perhaps).

But if you have reached the phase in your grief where you may want to let go of some of it and you are worried that moving out of the pain negates the important influence it’s had on your life – then this podcast from Radiolab might be worth a listen, It helped me dissacociate myself from my situation and try to think of ways I can alter my “personal narrative” so that it is not so rife with suffering.

For those of you who haven’t hear of RadioLab, it is a radio show that explores abstract themes from a scientific perspective. The one I am recommending is called Memory and Forgetting. For someone who suffers from diagnosed depression, is a pessimist and catastrophizer, and who has done a lot of work in therapy trying to shift my thinking habits, this research on memory and forgetting is extremely interesting because it reinforces the incredible influence our habits of thinking have on our self-concept and even the “narrative” of our lives. I think, for anyone who is processing the reality of IF in their lives, this podcast is worth a listen since it examines how memories (which, from a non-spiritual point of view of course, are the building blocks of “who we are”) are created, erased, stored and altered in the brain.