On Aging and Hardship

Posted on July 11, 2003 in Crosstalk Hope and Joy PTSD

Butuki writes:

Whenever a youngerly person announces that they have experienced no real heartache or disappointment, that bounty has dropped in their laps without cuffing their knees or scraping their elbows I have to wonder if they have really lived. For me, at least, living means half pressing into the blurry promise of dreams and stepping forth blindly when there is no promise of return. Taking chances. Staying out alone in the woods and wrestling with the early fears until you can close your eyes and rest, safe in the knowledge that alone you are all right. And it means facing the possibility of rejection, and plunging into the waters of love. People will come and go all your life, but they also constitute some of the truest reflections of yourself and of intimacy with the world.

I’m not sure how old Butuki is, but here from the vantage point of 45, I think having gone through many hardships is a tad overrated, especially if they involve violence or emotional abuse. I’ve been fortunate in my wife of 15 years, but recent forays into the past via the medium of my notebooks has uncovered a childhood which doesn’t seem to have had many happy moments. I say “OK, today I shall write about happy times” and I stare at the page unable to form a fresh image about such things where my childhood is involved.

I’ve been writing about these things frequently on my weblog, too, and about the deep longing that I felt, a longing to be out from under my parents and my brother that was so intense that once I got my wish, I ran and ran just for the sake of running.

The older I get I’ve developed two practices: first, not to envy or chastise those who had a better life than I did just because they had a better life. It wasn’t their fault. Of course they don’t like hearing about my bad childhood: horrible things are not only horrible to live through, but they are horrible to hear about. I only get angry when they think it’s fun, a joke, or a lie. Then they get a piece of my mind.

Second is to accept all reports of pain at face value. I have learned that the pain we feel is invisible to others. You can see the wound, but you can’t see how it feels. I once saw a discussion between mothers who had had both root canals and gone through childbirth. What I discovered was a variety of experiences. Some said that the abcessed tooth was worse, others said that giving birth was the ultimate in pain. A rare few shrugged off both. When the talk is of emotional pain, there is no wound, no blood flowing. (Maybe some people cut themselves to show that they are in pain?) For these, I must trust the reporter.

The characteristic that I have found among those who have suffered intense pain of all varieties is that unlike outside observers, we don’t play the “who’s pain is worse” game. I have friends who have suffered under a combination of Communist authoritarian oppression and alcoholic parents; former political prisoners; women who have been raped; a kid who was hit in the head by a stepfather with a baseball bat and left viewing a foreshortened life span; and many children of violent and verbally abusive parents. Once we have gotten over the first period (they tend to swing around back again) of feeling the world is after us alone, we hear reports of another’s pain and we say to them “I know. It hurts. It’s frustrating. But you’re not alone in these things.” It doesn’t matter if it is a scraped knee or an imprisonment where you were beatened everyday. For us, pain is pain. We honor the survival of others. We don’t demand that they forgive, though many of us have (and it is not uncommon to have to come around to forgiving again and again for the same incident): we merely affirm the humanity and the pain of the other.

Every one of us would rather not have gone through the experience. I’ve reexamined a few incidents in my life and I’ve concluded that they did not make me a better person. (For example, here and here) What made me a better person was a combination of people who loved and understood — who affirmed my humanity–, a few meaningful books, and plain serendipity along the way.

Butuki also writes:

Over the last two years a nameless fury, fueled by the state of shock that the world went through, raged through me, over childhood injustices, over failures on my parents part, over my marriage, over growing older without having stepped into that state of grace that I always imagined I would have by now.

And then, last winter, it petered out. The rage just seemed a tendril from the past that I had to learn to let go of. To learn to forgive and move on. A sense of tranquility, yet not complacency, wafted through the clouds. And it was as if I had woken from a long sleep.

In my experience, the rages come and go. These will come back, sometimes just for a short time and sometimes for a longer stay. My word to the young, especially those who suffer from post traumatic stress and mood disorders, is to expect this and not fear it. Don’t layer the added guilt of believing that it is silly to hurt, that the pain cannot be real because there’s no visible lump or bruise or bleeding wound. Know that you can reach out to others like yourself and that they will understand. And that there are loving people in this world who, though they haven’t been through anything like you have gone through, still make room for you and help you to do good things for others and for the world.

As for the rest, the stupid fools who think it is all imaginary (when it is truly in your head and giving you a headache and more): just tell them to go fuck themselves. Live as the living comes.

Remember joy is every bit as real as despair. Seek it now, in the place that you are.

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For two other views on getting older, see Robert Brady and Lisa Thompson.