When you suffer, do you linger on it, or shrug and move on?

Linger:

• you have to process your feelings. if you think you’re not lingering, maybe you’re going to feel the same thing, just spread out over time
• take steps to make sure you don’t suffer next time
• The Body Keeps The Score

Shrug:

• sometimes there’s no feelings to process!
• you start feeling sorry for yourself
• are you inventing trauma when there could just not be any there?
• that study where people who play Tetris immediately after a traumatic event have less lasting trauma

how do you know

argh how do you know

obviously this is a feeling question, not a thinking question. it’s only correlated with the objective thing that happened; two people can both be in an earthquake but only one has lasting trauma. depression goes down in wartime. clearly not only “what happened” but also “how does it feel” and “what does it mean to you” all matter. is the answer just “you have to learn this over time”? oof

why is this important

typing happily at my computer on a pleasant day, I can’t really tell you. but when I’m suffering, I absolutely can. it means the world to have someone (perhaps myself) helping me through it. sometimes that’s consoling me, commiserating, talking, even (maybe primarily) just being there.

there are a million slings and arrows every day. you’ve got to learn to shrug. maybe the “everyone’s in therapy, everyone’s on SSRIs, everyone’s still depressed” modern world is partially a result of inability to shrug.

but also: 1/3 of us are going to get cancer. you love your spouse? it’s more than half, 5/9 that one of you will. you have two kids you love: 80% chance one of you will.

maybe it’s not that bad; maybe that includes the “easily cut it off and you’re done” minor skin cancers, I don’t know. but maybe it’s worse: lump in every other disease that’s “as bad as cancer.” good chance you undergo significant suffering in your life. if nothing else, when you die: maybe a lucky few of us get the “hit by a meteor” death where one second you’re there and the next you’re gone, but most of us will have a hard time of it. and when you’re there, you hope your loved ones, and especially you, have learned to linger.