The age old question of suffering’s meaning has been on my mind lately. Anyone who has looked at the few memoir pieces on this site knows my childhood gave me little sense of safety or love. As is true for many, if not most, of those who have major issues with depression, my upbringing was filled with sorrow, fear, loneliness, and shame. Even so, I entered adulthood with a huge amount of energy and an insistent drive to escape my past. I worked hard, albeit a bit erratically, to succeed in school. I got accepted to top medical training programs, and managed to secure an excellent post when I finished. Although my personal life was ever stormy, my professional life followed a smooth upward trajectory. By age forty I believed the past was behind me. I had triumphed.
Then the whole thing collapsed. My neck developed serious disk problems, causing excruciating pain. When I realized the constant, intense aching was on the verge of reducing the quality of my operations, I concluded I could no longer ethically work as a surgeon. Life quickly became confusing, and I made a number of rash decisions that have haunted me for the past ten years. I ended up in a hospital for depression, and was discharged on medications that triggered an intense manic episode. After the mania resolved, I settled into a deep and stubborn depression. At first I trusted my psychiatrist as she put me on ever-increasing doses and numbers of medications. After a few years, however, the dreadful side effects became far worse than the dark moods that the drugs were barely elevating. As I tapered my medication load, I struggled to accept the permanent and humiliating bodily damage the crude pharmaceuticals had inflicted. I also looked back on career opportunities that had been ruined by the sedating effects of the powerful drugs. Then, just as I secured a solid handle on that latest grief, in the past year my arthritis pains began increasing. I had enjoyed a relative break of many years when I quit operating, but now the pain is often as bad as when I worked as a surgeon, without me doing anything to exacerbate it. The only consolation is that I am better able to tolerate and function with discomfort.
Spiritually, I alternate between two frames of mind. The first is a profound state of acceptance. I am able to embrace the whole rocky story of my life, and recognize how much it has taught me about humanity, adversity, and struggle. I feel at peace in every cell of my being, filled with a sense that this entire drama has made me into a person with a unique perspective and at least a little wisdom. On the other hand, sometimes I only feel sorry for myself. Why did I have to grow up hated, abused, and neglected? Why did I have to lose my hard-won career so early? Why have I had to contend with the subsequent menacing depressions, awful discouragement, and medication-induced injuries? Why do I have to suffer such physical pain? It’s all-too-easy to think: “Poor me!”
In spiritual systems I see two broad solutions to the problem of suffering. The Judeo-Christian formula is to look at hardship as God’s will. Either God is punishing me for my sinfulness, or God is sending these trials in order to enrich my soul. Regardless of the motive, trauma is inflicted by an all-powerful, all-knowing creative deity who sees what is best for me, or at least what I deserve. The Eastern view has to do with karma. My tribulations result from conditions set in motion long ago. In its purest form, the Law of Karma would tell me my difficulties are the fruit of harm I inflicted in earlier lifetimes. Perhaps I was a torturing, genocidal war criminal in a past life. Karma-lite remains neutral on reincarnation, but tells me my hardships are the consequences of my own actions in this life. In truth, much of my adult difficulty did come from my own choices, including the various destructive acts I’ve performed. But that doesn’t explain my childhood; it’s hard to see how a seven-year-old boy could have earned the kinds of torment my stepmother perpetrated in the dead of night.
The hard-nosed scientific approach is to see suffering as largely random and without meaning. Some aboriginal systems would suggest I’d been cursed.
All I can say for sure is that the tribulations have indeed shaped me. Sadly, they have sapped me of joy and enthusiasm. But it is also true that most of my best qualities have arisen from my struggle. More than ever before I try hard not to hurt others, now that I see how deeply pain can penetrate. I acutely feel the sorrows and frustrations of those who open up to me about their own stories; I am sure my empathy is vastly greater than if life had been easier. Fear has largely evaporated because my past agony has been so immense that no matter what happens, I am unlikely to feel anything worse than I have already endured; I am confident, at last, of my ability to survive anything. I can write with all sincerity: “Yes, the suffering has had value. It has both tempered me and softened me. It has expanded my heart, sharpened my vision, and opened my soul.”
And yet, much of the time I simply wish things had been easier.
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