EPTOn one of these occasions a friend asked me about how my training was changing me. He asked something like “after seeing so many people who have issues, doesn't it make you feel like everyone is messed up?” I pondered it.
My training was changing me. Not in the way he was proposing, but my friend was onto something. I was seeing people different. At the time I didn't have the words for it, and so I mumbled something about seeing the good in people too.
Years later I can see with more clarity what was changing. I was learning in very real ways that being human is unavoidably linked to suffering. Not a theoretical “life is hard” type of suffering, but suffering in deep groans that leads to tangible and visible pain. Pain that commands people to cut themselves or makes it impossible to get out of bed. Pain that leads someone to starve themselves or be unable to leave their home. Pain that is so heavy it breaks marriages and can destroy a 20 year career in an instant. Pain that is paralyzing. Suffering is not always so loud though. Sometimes it comes in nearly silent whispers. Pain that we can’t really describe or explain but we know is there, as if it is a little itch on our soul, unwilling to be soothed.
If I were to answer my friend’s question now, I would talk about how my training has led me to see how we all carry, in the depths of ourselves, disappointments, longings, yearnings, aches and pains. How, in talking with someone I can hear in a word, a tone, a grimace, that they are hurting. Not always in a dramatic and intense “my life can’t go on” sort of suffering. But sometimes, yes, that kind of suffering.
The more I learn, the more I think that this change in me is not so much due to the books I had read or the hours of lectures that I sat in. No, I don’t think it is that unique. I suspect it is an intuition we have about each other. An intuition we've learned to ignore in our busy and media-filled lives, but is still there and still available. I just got permission to listen to mine.
If I listen, if anyone listens, pain can be heard. It whispers, yells, begs, and pleads. We think we’re alone in it. The suffering tells us we are set aside to carry this burden. It’s a lie that keeps us from seeing and knowing others deeply.
In the afterword of “A Severe Mercy” by Sheldon Vanauken he writes:
I think, that we are all so alone in what lies deepest in our souls, so unable to find the words and perhaps the courage to speak with unlocked hearts, that we do not know at all that is the same with others.
Vanauken speaks to how hidden pain can be. We think we can store it away, protecting ourselves, protecting others. We pretend it’s invisible. It isn't invisible though, no more so than our humanity is.
So, as a psychologist, what I see shift in myself is how I pick up on ways that people are hurting. Not if they are hurting, but how. Sometimes gut wrenching sadness, other times a distracting anxiety, but it’s always there. There is always some kind of pain keeping a lock on our hearts, there is always something holding our hearts captive.
My hope is to write on my journey into and out of the messiness of suffering that I encounter. I do not believe I write with any authority on the matter (despite what my patients might assume), but more as an attempt to illuminate otherwise dark places. I’d like to write as a way to help myself better understand the depths of a captive heart, and perhaps, share whatever is gained with whoever may be reading. My guess (and wish) is that my thoughts here will cover many areas of my work, from lofty ideals to dirty details that it seems no one is really willing to discuss.
