When your story goes beyond

the experience/depth/awareness/capacity of others

Photo by Vincentiu Solomon on Unsplash

I read the following quote today:

“Some people will never believe your story because the level of pain goes way beyond their level of awareness.” ~enlightened target

Or, we could add- experience…or ability to empathize…

This quote seems especially true in our country and world today -

It makes me reflect on how uncomfortable we are when faced another’s brutal experience, and how quickly we move to minimize it.

Or, we don’t, but there comes a point where others’ tolerance and ability to hold any more space for it ends.

Then you’re expected to move on, wrap up, and those are the people for whom -

These are the people for whom - they are fortunate enough never to know what it was like to have a before and after in the life.

There are some for which you can never “move on” because there will always be a before this happened and after it happened for them.

It makes me glad I experience one of these life stories that makes others get uncomfortable AF and awkward and don’t know what to say.

Because -

I genuinely believe it’s made me a better human being.

It makes me better able to hold space for others who have a another earth-shattering moment for them.

Like -

Maybe I don’t relate to taking three peoples’ lives while in active combat. (I don’t).

or

The pain of how you live with yourself after you’ve killed people while at war. (I can’t).

These are a few of the examples I’ve heard lately, from students and people in my circle(s).

I don’t know what to say to these people; I can’t relate. But I don’t need to -

I can hold space for them, nod, affirm, validate -

And admit I know nothing about it - but that it’s life altering and it will always be something for which they must live with.

In cases like these, I truly believe that being heard and then referring these individuals to support groups and counselors who do get it is empowering.

“Yes - I see your experience is unique and different from my own - I see your need for community of others who DO get it…” (at least more than I can)

I talk to my students frequently about the need to hold two seemingly contradictory true things in your hand -

Because of the unshakeable truth that -

We have similarities between our stories and experiences, and we have differences between them - things that make them unrelatable from one to another.

But - can we ‘hold space for both’?

Can I hear you on a human level and listen to your pain, experience, and story -

Can I set in the discomfort of what it must be like, without rushing to say, “Oh, I get it and —insert my experience” as the same - even if it’s nothing like it -

Can we say anything - or do we get awkward and change the subject?

Can we really listen to one another without the need to fill the empty space because we’re uncomfortable.

I think most people are just desperate to have someone listen to them, to be heard. To be validated in their pain and in their experience(s).

And I think that some people are more willing to open up and to do this with me because - I care, I listen attentively, I try to hear what they say and then pause with what they’ve told me. I call this ‘holding space’

I also think many people know fundamentally on some intuitive level when another doesn’t care and doesn’t want to listen to you - from non-verbals, to lack of eye contact, to awkward silence, to changing the subject, to working to homogenize experiences, etc, etc.

When you find someone who is willing to listen, and whom you feel genuinely cares, and you’re not paying them as a therapist — I think many people feel that that is worth gold.

And, arguably, it is, more and more - as we get quicker and quicker, move faster and faster in society, listen to each other less and less, grow anesthetized to the pain and suffering of humans in the world and in our neighborhoods.

And now, we have initiatives now with anti-DEI that will further harm - trying to to do this homogenizing of individualized experiences, especially those with intersectional identities.

When you encounter someone who has really known loss or losses, on deep levels, or fundamentally experienced earth shattering blows in their lives, sometimes you can relate to one another. Sometimes one’s own personal pain and earth quaking experiences make them more likely to be willing to hear another’s.

It’s really rather sad and simple how basic it is - can you listen to another, whose experiences are painful and different in a way that you can’t understand - and hear them, truly listen, without allowing your own ego to get in the way?

Many cannot or are unwilling to do so.

I am not always able to do this, of course, - but I do think, from my own experiences, I know—intimately—what this is like - to have some life experiences that cause others extreme discomfort.

And I have had experiences that a very small percentage of the population can relate to (and are willing to listen to). I am not 'saying ‘woe is me’ or ‘no one can relate’ - Some can.

But - I am a statistical outlier in the number of suicides in the nuclear family - AND I am someone willing to talk about the losses from suicide in my immediate family. I know others exist out there, but it’s hard to track down their stories. I’ve searched at length over the last five years. I found two mentions, one in a blog and one in a news article about their losses, very little said from the first-person perspective. That was it.

I know how that feels to realize your peers who may have solidarity with your experience are extremely limited. So many of us grasping at straws at a hard time in life want to know that there are others who have survived it, lived to tell the tale, and how they did it.

I know that sometimes even amongst those closest to you, there comes a point where they grow impatient. They expect you to move on from it. ‘Get over it’. Aren’t you over that yet? This relates to grief, trauma, major losses of some kind. People reach a breaking point even if they tried to have sympathy for a time period to start.

Then - there’s -

Deflection. Discomfort. An inability to appropriately respond because it’s beyond them, that experience.

Perhaps it’s the human condition to never be able to understand the walks of lives and journeys of others different from our own, that sound so atrocious. That’s nothing new.

But I also believe that it’s humanity at its finest - equipped with critical imagination and compassion and empathy—to try. To care enough to invest a moment in which to do so.

If we’re unwilling to do so for five minutes in a meeting or in a class, what message does that send to the other person who has to live it? Day after day after day for the rest of the lives?