As an 8 year old, I knew how to throw a good tantrum. In retrospect, I often felt like I needed to in order to feel understood. It would feel like no matter how hard I tried, my parents and I spoke in two different tongues. We would rarely understand the other, except when we did a creative activity together. I was a skilled apologist at my nascent age, and could form coherent and lengthy-apology letters, slipping them under my parent’s bedroom door whenever I was grounded. My father found them entertaining, and my mother found them wearisome.
What I didn’t know back then, was that no matter how hard I tried, my parents would never understand exactly what I meant, and more letters explaining myself would not resolve this predicament. Eventually, 8 year old me fell in love with reading, and mellowed down. I guess I’d found the understanding that I so deeply sought back then, in those fictional stories. Escaping into a world of make-believe helped me feel grounded, as in my immediate reality, my intentions were often misinterpreted as disruptive or disobedient. I don’t blame my parents, if anything, I feel for them. They were younger than I am now, trying to navigate their first adult jobs, marriage, and an unruly girl child in a country like India, where unruly girl children weren’t taken to so well. They wanted to protect me and I wanted to run wild. They tried their best with me.
Much later in life, I still struggle to feel completely understood, by some friends, family, and even my partner at times. There are very few special people, who I feel can completely see me, and ironically enough, I met most of them in my late-twenties, with the exception of my childhood best friend, who I’ve known since I was 3. Over time, I’ve given up the futile effort of trying to explain myself. Now, I speak to communicate, and not to be understood. I ask questions to gather the information that what I am saying IS in fact what the other person is understanding. I don’t assume that I am always understood, and here’s why—
Our individual life experiences are limited to specificities. Those of specific environments, certain privileges and certain social circles. We can not expect to fully understand the thoughts and feelings of another (even our own parents) who grew up in a different place, with a different set of values and beliefs, a different set of social-skills, and a different capacity for empathy. Outside of our very obvious sociocultural and relational differences, it is also imperative to note that we each have a different capacity to experience certain emotions. Somebody who has not experienced a divorce, will not fully understand the length of time that it may take to recover from one, or the grief and distress that come with it. Similarly, somebody who has grown up in an emotionally unstable environment, may respond differently to chaos and instability than somebody who has grown up in an emotionally stable environment.
Just because I went through a shitty breakup, doesn’t mean that I will understand years of emotional abuse, but that also doesn’t mean that I can not empathize with somebody who has experienced both.
I say the above, because I am making my case for why we should not blindly expect our loved ones to just “get it.” More often than not, they won’t. I operate as a therapist, a social worker, and a human-being, under the assumption that “pain can never be compared.” There is no such thing as one person’s pain being greater or more meaningful than another’s. Of course, there are levels of distress that we may experience, but it is unkind to place our own threshold of experiencing distress upon somebody else. If we have not lived their life, we can not understand their strife.
We do not have to be starving under an evil regime and the constant threat of violence to be deserving of basic human empathy.
Last night, I thanked my therapist sincerely for having the patience to hear me talk about the same thing in our sessions over the course of several months. She was deeply appreciative for my gratitude. I know that it is literally her job to be an empathic listener, but I still do not take it for granted. I have experienced the ending of friendships, and the intense loneliness that follows, for a while now. It takes a lot for me to open up and talk about how I’m truly feeling with another person, without fearing a negative response. Therapy has helped me understand that I am deserving of human empathy and kindness, and the people who truly love and care for me, will show me that empathy with the presence of healthy and respectful boundaries.
Written and spoken word are beautiful because they try to bridge a gap that exists because of the unchangeable circumstances of our individuation. However, these too are a privilege. Everyone has not grown up learning to use all of their words. Everyone has not grown up knowing how to properly interpret another’s words. We are unique in our different capacities of interpretation, and while navigating these inherent dissimilarities, the greatest gifts that we can bestow upon another person, are our empathy and our patience.
So before you snap at somebody today because they just don’t get it, I ask of you to take a moment to pause. In what way can you provide them with the human understanding that they are deserving of? And if you are unable to do that for them in the moment, then how can you act from a place of empathy?
Love & light,
AB.