
The Transformative Power of Suffering - gscott
https://www.nextavenue.org/the-transformative-power-suffering/
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I got very sick almost a year ago, a few times in the ER, spent months in bed.

There's no silver lining to suffering. Your mind doesn't work. It's hard to
concentrate. Sex isn't very enjoyable. It's next to impossible to exercise
well. You're constantly irritated and lash out at the people around you. You
don't get used to it. You adapt, sure, but it sucks big time.

F##k suffering.

(I'm getting better btw, doctors still don't know wtf happened to me).

~~~
nerdponx
I came here to say something similar to this. It's possible that you might
learn some things about yourself and about the world through the experience,
that you otherwise might not have learned. But if it goes on for too long
(and/or it's too severe) it just ruins your life.

------
Xcelerate
I admire his attitude toward pain and wish I could have that same attitude as
well. Like the author, I have a herniated disc (more specifically a disc
protrusion) caused by a sudden weight lifting injury 4 years ago when I was 23
that damaged L5-S1. There's not really any hope of it healing on its own, and
surgery is far too risky. It's just constant pain pretty much all day every
day. Some days aren't too bad—other days are really bad. But the pain is
always there, and I think that just knowing it's going to be there tomorrow,
the day after tomorrow, and every day after that for the next 50-60 years of
my life is really the worst part of the injury.

I closely follow the latest studies on disc regeneration, but unfortunately
medical research is still in the dark ages in that field, and no significant
breakthrough is likely to make it past clinical trials anytime in the next
decade.

So... sorry for the rant, but if there's some deep wisdom to be gained from
suffering, I still haven't figured out what it is.

~~~
onecooldev24
If I may ask, which weight lifting exercise caused the problem?

~~~
Xcelerate
Redacted (was just sharing for a few minutes)

~~~
Hnrobert42
I am very sorry for your accident. Thank you for sharing though. I feel like
it will make me a safer lifter.

~~~
foota
@amelius, while I understand the curiosity I think that would be an intrusion
of the poster's privacy, when they specifically removed it.

~~~
amelius
Yeah, it's an awkward situation, I understand, but the user is scaring the
crap out of people, then retracting part of the essential information. I'm
still hoping they will post the information somewhere in an anonymized form,
so the bodybuilding community can learn from this accident.

~~~
Xcelerate
Sorry, didn’t mean to scare anyone. I mainly removed it because it was kind of
embarrassing. The injury was caused by trying to set a barbell down on the
ground myself rather than calling for help when doing bench press. Not
something that would happen to most weightlifters.

~~~
throwaway37585
Just wanted to say there's nothing wrong or embarrassing about sharing our
mistakes. Take heart in the likelihood that, by sharing this, you've probably
saved a reader from a similar injury.

------
vinceguidry
This is a difficult topic to write and talk about.

But rather than a religious approach, I think it's best to talk about this
from a psychology of trauma approach. In _In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body
Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness_ by Peter A. Levine, the author
describes the mindset that exacerbates suffering and also the mindset that
leads to faster healing.

> trauma is neither a disease nor a disorder, but rather an injury caused by
> fright, helplessness and loss that can be healed by engaging our innate
> capacity to self-regulate high states of arousal and intense emotions.

There's some kind of magic alchemy that suffering allows us to access that not
just causes us to physically heal faster, but also allows us to better
transform normal, everyday living. And the quoted text, "innate capacity to
self-regulate high states of arousal and intense emotions," is precisely where
that alchemy happens.

High levels of arousal and intense emotion doesn't just happen when we're
suffering, it also happens as a natural consequence of interpersonal
relationships. But when we're suffering, the high levels of arousal and
emotion _don 't go away_, which allows us to experience them enough to learn
how to regulate them.

Then when the suffering is over, when things get heightened during daily life,
the regulatory capacity that suffering built serves to make the feelings flow
easier. That's the transformation described.

------
mapcars
There are things which pain helps to discover and understand, so it is with
any other experience. But coming from a yogic background I see his
understanding as quite limited.

Especially that he tries to "glorify" pain as a "true teacher". Maybe it
worked for him like this, but it doesn't have to be so, joy and happiness can
do the same if properly handled.

~~~
amelius
Yes, especially mental disorders (which can cause quite a bit of pain), can
send one into darker and darker places, ruin relationships and cause further
trouble such as personality disorders. Of course, the survivor bias stories
may tell things like "depression made me a better person", etc., but most
people are not so lucky.

------
hprotagonist
if suffering has a transformative power, it’s that you are compelled to learn
humility.

With luck, from humility comes empathy and compassion. Unfortunately, you’re
just as likely to get fear and despair.

That doesn’t make suffering belong to any privileged ethical class— it still
sucks!— merely that in responding to the normal fact that “time and chance
happens to everyone”, we can extract the opportunity to grow and get something
out of it other than pain and despair.

------
Elrac
Just what we needed - a Jewish Mother Teresa.

I'm empathetic to his suffering and applaud that he's managed to find a way to
see a bright side. But when anyone goes from there to claiming that being in
constant pain somehow makes you better, I see that as going overboard.

It's that attitude - with a stronger religious slant and a good touch of
stinginess - that led MfT to have her "hospitals" re-using dulled injection
needles and not providing effective pain relievers. And blathering nonsense
about the beauty of suffering. The idea that suffering is a good thing is
pretty much the most perverted idea humans have come up with.

~~~
mockingbirdy
Related SMBC: [http://smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-06-27](http://smbc-
comics.com/comic/2011-06-27)

Fetishizing suffering if there's no way to mitigate the pain is actually a
better strategy than being aware that it just sucks. If you can't really do
anything about it, I think I would also start to talk like this. It's similar
to "We're poor. Therefore, living in poverty is a virtue" \- it's a reaction
to a situation we're forced to be in. Seeing positive aspects in them gives us
a way to cope with it - it's simply a coping mechanism so the mind doesn't
lose its will to live.

I'm not a fan of re-using injection needles, too. That's the problem I see
with this coping mechanism: You have to be careful. You shouldn't use this
thinking to lead your actions, it's only good for situations where you're not
able to change anything or control it (like chronic pain).

~~~
TeMPOraL
Another problem with coping mechanisms is that they can prevent you from
solving the underlying problem. They're good when they're absolutely needed,
but we should be wary of transplanting them into situations that do not need
them.

------
todluv
Can't read the article yet (server is overloaded?), but I just came across a
great video by MindSmash that addresses this subject very well. "There are no
beautiful surfaces without terrible depths." \- Friedrich Nietzsche
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DhZuBhX6Fw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DhZuBhX6Fw)

------
agumonkey
Something I experienced is that a form of anger toward life is good when
you're in mental pain. Not destructive anger but more proactive anger. It
refocus your mind out of whatever clogs it and release 'energy' (simplest
sense, you're a lot more able to act) as you feel less pain too.

------
bena
This is all trite fluff.

I disagree with the premise that suffering confers upon anyone special
knowledge.

The same lessons, the same worldview, the same whatever, can be reached by
people without the suffering. People like to say that everyone is different,
let's not pretend that there's only one road to enlightenment then.

The only thing specific situations can teach us is how to cope with specific
situations. Having a broken leg can teach you how to handle crutches better,
how to balance on one foot, how to a third thing because you are temporarily
disabled. But it cannot teach you how to be a better person. Now, a person
with a broken leg might require and receive help and notice that people are
genuinely nice and helpful and that changes their perspective on the world.
But there are plenty of people who feel that way with two perfectly fine legs.

We deify struggle and suffering to such a degree it's kind of sad. There's no
nobility in being in a shitty situation.

~~~
triviatise
I have a completely different world view.

Just like you build muscle strength through weight resistance, you build
mental strength through overcoming (or just living with) adversity. You may
not value that growth or may not feel it is worth the suffering, but that
belief is not fact, just opinion.

~~~
bena
That's not true though.

Given the exact same suffering, two people who have had similar lives will
react in different ways. One may break down completely, one may soldier
through.

Suffering doesn't build character, it reveals it.

You're doing the very thing I was saying we do too much of: glorifying
suffering.

You're also trying to dismiss me by saying what I'm saying is opinion while
also trying to say that I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, then it's not technically an
opinion I hold. It's just bad information.

But you posit that you build mental strength through adversity without
actually demonstrating that it's true. Then you claim my position is that I
don't value the growth or feel it is worth suffering. That is not what I said.
That is a deliberate misrepresentation of what I was saying.

I was saying suffering does not teach anything special that cannot be learned
elsewhere.

I also like how you choose to engage me, rather than the people who shared
personal anecdotes of suffering without being granted any special wisdom or
knowledge, effectively saying what I said: suffering is not a teacher,
suffering is just suffering.

