“You learn to bear it. Yes, some things you just learn to bear,” were the words spoken to me the other day with a tight smile and condescending eyes. I was shocked – you learn to bear it? Are you kidding me? And then again she repeated this philosophy, “Someone of my advanced years has had more experiences and learned that some pains are learned to be lived with, to walk with.”
Again, I was speechless. Was this woman serious? Could she possibly be trying to tell me that her life pains/traumas were more painful then mine and one day I too would gain entry into this elite group that walks with pain? The most difficult part of the interaction for me is – she was serious. Her pains, her life experience were so hard – she proved it, she beared it everyday, proudly even. I shut my mouth, not questioning any longer, but spinning.
Yes, I was triggered – “Hello, Miss Victim, lovely to see you again. I didn’t expect to see you here. My, my, the social circles that you run in!” Breathe Kelly, breathe. There, sitting in that small circle, I saw pain. I saw several people sitting with their pain – trying to make an uneasy peace with it somehow and I wanted to run. I have never been a big fan of suffering, or even giving too much attention to it really.
In my early twenties, I was in a bad car accident that left me in chronic pain for almost three years. It was not good. I dropped too much weight, couldn’t eat because the medicines had damaged the lining of my stomach, it was a bit pathetic, but I kept walking through – searching for cures and trying to laugh.
One of my dearest friends worked with me in the same company. We worked in different departments and he would call me every morning singing Karen Carpenter songs. Totally not PC (and I definitely do not mean to offend anyone with this joke/statement except the chronic pain that I was clutched by), but I would laugh uncontrollably every morning by the circumstances of my life. I was a pin. I felt like crap all the time. I was taking 20 -25 pills a day. My life had become about when to take my next pill. I finally understood suicide. I understood it was about survival, not death.
Ultimately, I found my way back. Through alternative medicines, I found cures and answers. What I also discovered was these physical signs (i.e. bulging disks, chronic pain) of my accident were the outwards symptoms of my inward pain. Let me explain…My childhood was violent, full of addiction and I tried to disappear there – blend with the wallpaper as to not draw attention or wrath. Here this was happening again in my twenties…My car had been hit from behind, totaled, I was now addicted to the painkillers and sleeping pills prescribed for me as “the cure” and I was doing my best to disappear – not eating, getting skinnier and skinnier every day. So, I ask you – is this where I bear it? Are you kidding me? No, this is where I found surrender and peace. The bearing it was killing me.
I came to the belief that there is a valid reason for everything that happens. I came to view life as connection - not events that happened to me. I came to believe I was not alone. I discovered the divine in all things. Life now appeared to me as a continuum, without known destination. I discovered no one is lost to me, but will return again and again in different masks. And most of all I discovered, I could lay my burdens down and I found a true relationship with God.
“Bearing it” has only disempowered my life, myself and most of all my relationship with God. I have come to accept that today, I can only see in part, all will be revealed in time. And when my fears, my anxieties, even my own victim self reveal their presence still - I smile, start singing a Karen Carpenter song in my head and think, what do I need to lay down?
