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Sept. 23, 2011
Count your blessings
How to be thankful while allowing in self-pity.
ELLEN FRANK
It is my belief that you can count your blessings while simultaneously wallowing in self-pity, and I believe we often need to do both. I have been trying to write about self-pity for a long, long time. The problem was that I would sit down to write and I’d get totally stuck. I write from my life and from my experience, and much of what I write is personal. Try as I might, I could not write about self-pity. Not one story would make it to paper.
And then it happened. The computer crashed. Now, here I was dealing with a loss that everyone could relate to. Friday, the computer just would not boot up. Saturday and Sunday, I spent in a somewhat catatonic state of worry that I might have lost everything. Sunday evening, the computer was back, with most of my data intact, although some files and my address book were gone.
And, so, the search began. What do I still have? What have I lost? And, suddenly, it seemed so very familiar. Sitting in front of the monitor, here were all the blessings, clearly visible. Then I tried to open a document and it was gone or just plain wouldn’t open.
All so familiar, and empathy was easy to come by. I talked to my 14-year-old grandson, Nati, and he was duly horrified, “Oh my G-d!” he said with deep feeling. The thought of losing files and cyberspace life was something he could grasp, no problem.
And it’s all so familiar to me because this is my life with chronic illness. Every day, I wake to the big search: What do I have? What have I lost? How do I manage?
Nobody wants to wallow in self-pity. We know wallowing is bad, that we should count our blessings. But when you have slept fitfully, wake up stiff and hurting, trip over nothing and drop your first cup of coffee on the floor, it’s easier said than done.
Yes, we all know, also, that it’s important to count your blessings. It’s important to practise gratitude. Oprah says to keep a gratitude journal. Acknowledge life’s gifts. Greet the day with joy. Things could be worse. This is all true.
This brings me to the question: How do you count your blessings on the days you are wallowing in self-pity? Can we do both? Can you count your blessings without discounting that it is, indeed, a crappy day? I think so. I think we have to find a way to do both, because we can deny neither.
I have every right to wallow in self-pity! I get knocked over and have to get up and dust off and sort things out and move on. I do. Then I get knocked over again, get up, dust off, move on. Then I get knocked over again. Endless cycle. Sound familiar?
Is wallowing in self-pity the “why me?” syndrome? Sometimes. And, I can agree that “why me” can be a useless exercise. When asked, my daughter says there is no healing power to self-pity. It just makes you feel bad. She insists self-pity is a never-ending pit.
Yet sometimes I insist I have a right to self-pity. But what I really mean is that I have a right to grieve my losses – and that I don’t always know how. My daughter says that the difference between grief and self-pity is that grief has a purpose – mourn and move on.
I think I insist that wallowing is OK because, for me, it is much easier than sitting down to grieve. Is that about fear, or habit, or did I just not learn my lesson?
When I was a child, my grandparents lived in the same house with my parents and me. I was close to my grandfather, who was the adult who was home when I came home from school, the adult who was always there for me. Then, when I was 12, my grandfather was in his room and all my uncles and aunts were in and out of the house for a whole week. I knew he was dying and it had something to do with his heart. The grown-ups sent me away because I was just a child. I clearly remember insisting that they should wake me if he was dying in the night. I wanted to be with him in the end. They didn’t. I woke one morning and he was gone. The funeral happened. Day four of the shivah, they sent me back to school. By afternoon, they got a phone call from the school that I seemed to be upset and angry and was just sitting and kicking the desk. I still kick the desk.
Truthfully, counting my blessings is the easy part. I am one incredibly lucky, very blessed woman. Three children, seven grandchildren who all get along with each other and with me, the matriarch. A large, loud, close, extended family and friends who have been in my life 30 and 40 years. My healthy, loving Jewish community. My list goes on.
Wallowing can also be easy. I can joke about it and it provides endless stories. Grieving is less easy – I still don’t know how. I just turned 64, it is a new year, possibly this is the year I will learn.
Maybe I/we can learn to set a timer on our self-pity and move along more quickly to the grief. Maybe we can find, maybe we already have, Jewish rituals to deal with the computer crashes of life, to deal with loss, to deal with the fears and uncertainties of our health status, in order to deal with the next crisis. Onward and forward as this new year begins. Shana tova.
Ellen Frank is a writer, activist, mother, grandmother and retired travel agent. She has lived with multiple sclerosis since 1988. She is the author of Sticks and Wheels: A Guide to Accessible Travel on the Lower Sunshine Coast (Ouzel Publishing, 2006) and features information on accessibility services on her website, sticksandwheels.net.
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