Some Days Just Plain Suck

And That's Okay

Some days just plain suck. Some days, the most authentic response to the present moment is to scrunch your face up, let your nose run freely, and have a good cry. I had about ten good cries, perhaps more, this past Saturday. I needed them.

This wasn’t my first Covid-19 bawl fest. I had one when my doctor first suggested that I might have cardiomyopathy (it turns out I don’t—whew!). I had another when I found out I would have to wait two months to see a cardiologist. I sobbed over my first relapses. This most recent round of tears was prompted by a confluence of calamities, some Covid-related and some of the old-fashioned why-are-people-so-selfish variety.

At first, I tried to ignore the pain—tried to distract myself from it. I reached for my phone, as if social media or the news could bury or fix what felt broken. Pre-covid, I would have headed out for a run, worked in the garden (heat index of 105, be damned!), made plans with a friend, gone rock climbing, or had a beer. None of these escapes were available to me.

It’s obvious and understandable that a drawn-out struggle with Covid-19 generates some combination of pain, frustration, grief, anxiety, loneliness, depression, fear, anger, or shame. These emotions are difficult to manage in the best of times. And as you have probably noticed, we are not in the best of times. Long-haul Covid-19 and the accompanying lockdown have stripped us of many of our go-to rituals for self-soothing. Perhaps you can’t tolerate the hot showers you used to enjoy, can’t engage in the sport you love, can’t share a hug with your best friend, can’t travel to visit family, or can’t participate in the work that added meaning to your life.

What do you do when no escape is available and no distraction is shiny enough? Where do you put your pain when it can neither be buried nor bedazzled?

About two weeks into my illness, when my struggle for breath was at its worst, I lay in my bed, terrified and desperate for air. There was no numbing or distracting my way out of the pangs of fear and uncertainty. There was nothing to do but move through my suffering one stunted breath at a time.

Once I realize that I have to feel my pain—that distraction and numbing aren’t on the table—something in me usually shifts. It’s as if I split myself in two. One of me—most of me—is the sufferer, feeling the full weight of pain and uncertainty. The other me—small but not insignificant—sits next to her, offering kindness.

“Just take it one breath at a time,” Second Me offered, watching me struggle for air. “This is scary, but you’re not alone.”

You’re not alone. We’re never alone in our suffering; suffering is central to our humanity—it connects us to the whole. In that very moment, people like me were filling the ICUs in Italy and New York City. In that very moment, others were lying in their beds, struggling for breath, many of them in much worse shape than me. I imagined their faces and imagined their fear—fear that felt a lot like my own. My desperation shifted. I wasn’t desperate for air for myself, I was desperate to share the air I had with others who needed it more. I willed them to know that someone was thinking of them, breathing with them. With each inhale, I imagined drawing in oxygen on someone else’s behalf. My own lungs didn’t magically expand or open, and perhaps my wishful breathing did nothing to help anyone else either. But for a brief moment in time, I expanded and opened. I fell asleep, cradled in my connection with the whole of this beautiful, terrifying world.

I tried to will my way into that place of connectedness this past Saturday. Second Me said all the right things—things like “this is really hard,” and “it’s okay to cry.” (In case you’re wondering, it’s also okay not to cry. Tear production gets a bit out of whack for some long-haulers.) Nothing Second Me said seemed to comfort First Me, though; if anything, it egged her on. She just kept on crying. Frankly, it was getting tedious. I’m learning to let myself feel what I feel, though. This is not because I’m a masochist, nor is it because I’m particularly brave or noble. It’s simply a question of strategy. I’ve learned that I can’t move beyond pain until I’m willing to move through it.

Moving through pain does not mean recounting the details of everything that has hurt us or anticipating the perils ahead. It doesn’t mean stewing, nor does it mean justifying our pain to ourselves or anyone else. Instead, moving through pain means that we allow ourselves space and time in which our feelings—not our million thoughts about those feelings—get to be front and center. This full-body, emotionally-charged moving through can be excruciatingly slow. Most of the time, though, I find that it’s enough to give myself one solid day of full-throttle, filter-free feeling. I try not to rev the engine of my pain—try not to add to my suffering by spiraling into negative thoughts, obsessing over the past, or anticipating the future. In fact, I try to do as little thinking as possible.

If you have a Second You—a compassionate inner voice willing to be with you in your pain—the experience of suffering becomes less daunting. It can even become an opening into growth, connection, and transformation. In our lowest moments, we still have the opportunity to treat ourselves with kindness—to recognize that our pain connects us with a world beyond our aching body or noisy brain.

After at least ten good hard cries with no hint of transformation on the horizon, I decided that the kindest thing I could do was give myself a change of scenery. This choice wasn’t made in an especially calm or calculated way. It erupted as a chaotic (but self-compassionate) declaration that I simply could not make portobello mushroom burgers, that my kids and their dad would have to fend for themselves, and that I would be back at some unspecified time in the future. It was too hot for me to walk anywhere, so I drove.

I drove and drove and drove. For a while, I cried while I drove. Bit by bit, though, my emotions ran out of gas. Bit by bit, I found myself more captured by the blue of sky and the green of trees than by the red hot of feeling. I drove until I landed, accidentally on purpose, in the parking lot of my favorite Thai restaurant. I called in an order. My favorite waiter brought it to my window.

I felt all the feelings, I cried all the tears, I ate all the Szechuan eggplant. By the time I got home, I felt braver and stronger. Why? Because I knew that I could trust myself to be there for me, in sickness and in health. Amidst all of the uncertainty and chaos of long-haul covid and a global pandemic, I trust myself to exercise self-compassion. That, for me, is what lies beyond pain—a quiet confidence in myself and in my connection to the whole. It is the reason for moving through my pain rather than dodging or stalling. Beyond each experience of pain is the renewed confidence that I can trust in my own self-compassion.

If I could hand one gift (besides complete and immediate physical healing) to everyone else on this crazy long-haul journey, it would be that: the gift of self-compassion. I can’t, of course. Self-compassion must be learned, practiced, and nourished over time. Developing it might be harder if you’ve experienced a dearth of compassion from others in your life. Regardless of our backstories, though, the place where we are best able to develop self-compassion is right now—smack dab in the middle of our suffering.

Maybe this is why some days suck. Maybe some days are supposed to suck, because it’s way down in the suck that we shed extraneous layers of self that aren’t serving us. It’s way down in the suck, with bits of our old selves sloughed off, that we can crack open to a more compassionate version of us.

If you need a compassion boost this week—whether toward yourself or toward others—check out the resources below. And as always, I’d love to hear from you! How are you faring in your journey? How are you showing kindness to yourself?

Covid-19 Long-Haulers and the Burden of Doubt: A Self-Compassion Guide for Long-Term Patients

Self-compassion.org, a resource provided by psychology professor Dr. Kristin Neff

10 Ways to Cultivate Compassion