pain points

A few weeks ago, I thought about writing a post about my tendency and the tendency of others to compare our pain to other's pain. As so often happens, the topic arose on other blogs before I had a chance to write about it. Several blogs touched on the topic, which could be summed up as "whose pain is worse?"

Sometimes I think my own pain is pretty bad, but of course there is always a worse story. How valid is my pain? How does it compare to others?

It seems like there is usually some small part of me that is keeping a mental score sheet of who has it better, who has it worse. What if I took it a step further? What if there was a pain point chart for infertility? What if it went something like this:

Category I. This category is about time. I think so much of the pain of infertility comes with time. How long has your life been in this state of uncertainty and disappointment? Can you even remember a time when you believed that everything would work out the way you planned it? Points in this category would be awarded as follows:

100 points for the first year of no successful pregnancies
200 points for the second year
300 points for each subsequent year of infertility

Category II is about treatments and conditions.

100 points for each unsuccessful IUI -including chemical pregnancies
300 points for each failed IVF-including chemical pregnancies
100 points for male factor
100 points for female factor
200 points for unexplained infertility (the extra points for unexplained infertility are due to the lack of treatment plans available, but equal the same as male/female factors combined)

Category III Miscarriage
This is a tricky category because I know how painful it is to have a miscarriage and sometimes I wish I had never conceived the pregnancies that I lost, but I know that those that go through years of negative pregnancy tests wish they had the knowledge that they could even get pregnant. So I'll award points as follows:

100 points for each first trimester miscarriage
150 points for each second trimester miscarriage
100 points for each year (not including the first) that no confirmed pregnancy is achieved

Category IV
10,000 points for those that have lost a living child

Category V
You must deduct 500 points for each living child you have.

Category VI relates to external factors that you have to deal with on a weekly and/or daily basis
50 points for each child that is born to other family members while you are suffering from infertility
50 points for each child born to best friends (up to three friends) while you are suffering from infertility

And so on...There are a million more possible points to be allocated, but the whole idea just gets sicker and sicker. Because, needless to say, there is no measurement for pain. As much as western society feeds on competition and quantifying, it cannot be done when it comes to emotions. Nobody "wins" when it comes to grief. Pain just sucks, and if it dominates your life, it can be crippling. What I forget on occasion is that pain is not about what has happened to you, it is about where you are, how you feel. It's your view on the world. People that are clinically depressed and maybe even suicidal may have lives that from the outside appear perfectly okay. Does that make those peoples' pain less valid? Of course not.

My personal score on this idiotic point system would only be 350 (of course I had to do it - just because it was there.) Pretty low in the scheme of things, I have to admit. I know people who would have much, much higher "scores." But I don't feel any less sad because of that fact. And therein lies the biggest problem with comparison, it never makes you feel better. It's not about where you fall on the bell curve, it's about getting off the bell curve.

Comments

[anothrjen]

850 for me.

I believe that your pain is more important to you than anyone else because it's yours. It's all relative, and there's always going to be someone in the world who has it worse than you. Doesn't mean that your pain isn't important or relevant.
I have to make a conscious effort not to compare my pain or situation to others. (Doesn’t always work- but I’m trying)
good post!

[Joanne]

What a great post. I don't know if comparing pain is always about minimizing others', or trying to one-up other people with one's own pain. I think often it's a subconscious thing that helps guide how we interact with others sensitively. E.g., if someone's in a much better place than I am, I know he/she might not mind hearing about my sorrows at relative length. If someone's in a much worse place, I know to keep my stuff to a relative minimum and concentrate on him/her. These are extreme examples, of course -- I agree that often we're all going through our own, unique pain. Thanks again for a great post.

[Randomness abroad]

THIS IS COMPLETE BULLSHIT! this post sucks serious ass, i mean, pain is more than your lame ass and their childern, or lack-there-of. OH, MY GOD, i think ill add a million zillion points just for being pregnant with 7 babies and then shitting them out 8 months early( * cough* aborion * cough cough*) not that I care, its your view and im not going there. But honestly, if all pain consists of preganncies and failed attempts at children, you are seriously warped.

thanks again for clogging the internet with shit that I was stupid enough to waste my time reading.

[A sterotypical male]

Well, just becuase it was there, I took the test. Guess what I scored, a 0. I guess that means that I have never had to suffer pain in my life and everything is going swell. Just becuase life is hard in the aspect of child birth doesn't mean that we have to complain and pretend that our pain is more important to others. We all have pain. Deal with it! There is no point in going on about potential that was lost. But what would I know? I', a male. My evil penis prevents me from forming my own opinion and being able to understand emotions.

[waiting4baby]

Please, don't get your heads in a twit.

These posts about pain are on a blog about TRYING TO CONCEIVE. Their tenants would be the same translated to blogs about living with epilepsy, or soldiers returning home from war, or becoming a quadraplegic after being in an accident with a drunk driver. The pain referenced here is just a small, small, snipet of the pain that all humans feel.

Yes, pain is more than not being able to have children. But this blog is only about not being able to have children. Nothing else.

And, just because my husband has a penis and can't get pregnant, doesn't mean that his pain in our 2 1/2 years of trying to have children isn't as great as mine. Men want children too, and he would make a damn fine father.

[shelli]

as a lesbian, do I get extra bonus points for having to just basically skip Phase one? And do we then get extra points for over 14 medicated and failed IUI's? With donor sperm? different ones?

Great post.

Thanks

[BeckyZ]

I'm an even 1000, it seems...
I've often thought about this subject and have never been able to put it into words like this. Don't know if you'd call it a "game" but I rememebr discussing things like what bad things you would prefer to have happen to you, like would you prefer to be paralyzed from the waist down or lose your eyesight or whatever... I look at that exercise as a stupid, stupid waste of time because it can all be filed under "things that absolutely SUCK" and it doesn't matter which is served up to you, it all hurts. Same with this stuff. And extra props for "stereotypical male" for being everything he described himself as. And no you can't blame your evil penis. That's just the way you are, sweetie...

BeckyZ

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[A]

1450 for me. Great post.

I always struggle with this, having a close friend who has suffered recurrent miscarriages. I always think she wins that 'poor war' but because she has one child, and I have none, she thinks I win.

It's all relative.

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