What I See in Suffering

I purposefully used suspense and thrill in my books to keep readers on the edges of their seats and invested in turning one page after another. But beneath all the fun lies another reason for including spectacle. The foundational reason my books include so much pell-mell running, desperate car chases, hungry, man-eating monsters, and dark matter is because my books are my art. 

Art is the artist’s internal world manifested in the external world, translated through the medium of the artist’s choosing (in my case, writing) so that the internal can be experienced by those on the outside. 

My internal world has been largely shaped by the helplessness, close calls, and many sorrows of my life. 

I hesitate to say that I’ve seen much pain and suffering. On the one hand, I have. On the other hand, in comparison to others who have seen far worse, I haven’t suffered much at all. It can always be worse, as they say, and I can easily name several people within my own personal circle of friends and family who have gone through terrible things that I could never handle.

But, at the same time, suffering is not a competitive sport, and I do come from an unhappy, broken home. I know what it’s like to be tight, if not desperate, for money. I’ve lived in rat and mold-infested spaces. I’ve been sexually harassed in the workplace and then professionally bullied when I spurned those sexual advances. I was in a relationship that was both physically and psychologically abusive. I have 5 children in heaven. 

I know abandonment, injustice, desperation, and loneliness on a very real and personal level. I know how much of a struggle it can be to survive in this harsh and broken world of ours. That’s the real reason my Eyes of Awakening saga is what critics have called a “thriller” of a series. My art, my books, are my nail-biting traumas and narrow escapes funneled into a fantasy world and written in a fun way so that all my suffering is no longer too awful to digest but worked into a palatable story that still carries all the hard-earned lessons found within the terror and darkness of trauma. 

I infused my books with many hard-earned life lessons, but one lesson that I particularly wanted to share with my audience is that despite all the horrors this world can throw at you, great good can still come out of great evil. It shouldn’t be possible. And yet, time and again, I’ve seen how out of darkness, light still can and will miraculously appear. 

This is not to say, though, that terrible things are in and of themselves good. They are not. Just because good can come out of evil does not mean that black is not black. Black is black. Evil is evil. Good does not have to exist within evil in order for good to be born out of evil. That’s the miraculous bit of it. 

I make a point of saying this because I’ve often seen suffering wielded as a weapon against sufferers. Victims of terrible injustices and awful circumstances are often blamed for the abuses they’ve been dealt, and then to add insult to injury, they are told that they are being ungrateful or weak if they fail to learn and grow or even be grateful in the midst of their suffering. Sufferers are told that it’s hardship that builds character, that teaches you the real lessons you need to know in life as an adult. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, so you should be glad that life (or God or the universe or karma, etc.) put you to the test. “Stop your whining and stop making it sound like it was worse than it was. Life isn’t fair. You’re old enough to know that by now. Besides, no one suffers without deserving it at least a little. You must have done something to deserve it in some way, shape, or form. And if you didn’t, then, well, you must have the bandwidth to build a bridge and get over all of it without a problem. You don’t need our help. In fact, you don’t deserve help. Get yourself out of the trouble you’ve created. Be strong! Why can’t you do better?”

How those words sting, being the salt that they are, the salt that’s rubbed into the deep, deep wounds that were inflicted onto the sufferer through no fault of their own. People often lack wisdom when they speak to those who are suffering, and sufferers, who are only searching for a gentle word of comfort or encouragement, often find scorn and judgement instead.

However, it’s not the lack of wisdom and tact that anger and sadden me the most. I’ve come to accept that the vast majority of the time, normal people simply don’t understand abnormal suffering. They are ignorant, and it is what it is. 

What I do resent, though, much more than ignorance (which, at the end of the day, can always be enlightened if the ignorant person is willing to learn) is when people with normal, calm lives project their mundane forms of suffering onto true horrors, minimizing catastrophic tragedies in the process and rubbing said salt into the wounds of those who need help the most. Instead of exercising humility and trying to understand suffering on the sufferer’s level, they insist they already know. In fact, they know so much, they have a right to pass split-second judgement on the sufferer without even trying to hear or understand their story. 

I hate it when people, in their pride, refuse to try. I hate it when people are so arrogant and cold that they minister condemnation when love and patience should have been freely given. It’s a special kind of emotional torture to endure when every which way you turn, every source of comfort you reach for in a supposed friend simply spurns you and tells you that you’re overreacting or underreacting or acting in some kind of way you ought not to be acting when all you needed was the shoulder of a friend to cry on. 

I do not believe that you have to be thankful that awful things happened to you, and if you are suffering unjustly due to immoral people or cruel circumstances, I hope you don’t feel pressured into being grateful. I hope you allow yourself to grieve and know that it’s okay to be sad when you go through hardships. 

Sure, there are hardships in life that are character-building tests, and the person going through those hardships are not suffering so much as they are simply learning from their own bad decisions. For example, if you willingly partied every night in college and failed all your final exams your first semester, and those Fs spurred you to stop partying so much and study more for the rest of your academic career and later get and keep a good job as a result, that is a hardship that occurred due to your own lack of discipline and was well worth the pain. Yes, Fs are painful, but they acted like that first, brief touch of fire on skin. Painful, but necessary. And most of all, deserved. You were the one who chose to party all night, night after night, after all. You chose not to study, so you got Fs. Decisions have consequences. You should try to live your life responsibly. Lesson learned. 

Or perhaps you chose to indulge in three packs of instant ramen every night for years on end simply because you didn’t want to cook basic, healthy meals, and now you’re having trouble shedding unhealthy weight you wish you didn’t have. (You might be chuckling right now if you’ve read Eye in the Blue Box.) 

But such instances cannot be used as a blanket paradigm for addressing all forms of hardships and especially not for heinous forms of suffering in which the victim truly is not to blame. Guilt, especially misplaced guilt, never helps or heals. It only breaks down those who are already broken. In doing so, you condemn the lost to death.

Sometimes, life really is just that hard, that terrible, that unjust, that frightening and strange. Sometimes, a suffering person did everything right. They tried their utmost best but were still penned into a corner and told to survive impossible circumstances. Sometimes, life really is that horrific for people whose only supposed grave sin was acting like any other human would act in such awful situations. It’s just the reality of living in a broken world. It’s not that God or the universe is rightfully punishing that person or that they somehow deserved awful treatment, as some arrogant and calloused people might have them believe. It just means life can be really, really hard. 

If you’ve had the misfortune of getting unfairly reprimanded and condemned by people who lack compassion, I just want to say that it’s completely okay to say that what you suffered through was awful and unfair. Because it’s the truth. But I hope the knowledge that you were not to blame and that you couldn’t have done anything better will give you peace of mind like it did for me.

I personally don’t know why I had to go through a lot of the things that I did, but I do know that I was not to blame for the worst parts. It was not my fault that a creepy superior set his eyes on me. It was not my fault that the man I loved used and manhandled me. I just had the rotten luck of suffering more often and more terribly than others at certain times. But that’s just the way life can be, as unfair as that truly is. 

I also don’t have to be thankful for all my suffering. I don’t have to be thankful for my parents’ divorce. I don’t have to be a good, strong girl and learn a lesson from sexual harassment in order to be worthy. I don’t have to be grateful that my children are dead. I am allowed to mourn and speak the truth. And the truth is that there is nothing innately good about divorce, assault, death, or anything else of the like.

But I also know that I can grow, even despite such awful events. It’s not a forced, condemnatory kind of learning or growing. I am allowed to be proud of simply surviving my ordeals. I am allowed to seek and prioritize rest and shelter instead of listening to society and forcing myself to do more and do better when I am so badly injured as it is. But I also acknowledge that the light that so often miraculously shines out from the dark is the wisdom and growth that appears after suffering. What was meant solely to be evil can still be redeemed and transformed into something beautiful. Now that is something I can be thankful for.

For example, when I see other survivors of abuse step forth and speak boldly to raise awareness, I’m so inspired and encouraged. Obviously, I wish they’d never gone through such things, and I don’t believe they had to go through those particular things in order to grow into stronger people. Strength doesn’t absolutely need to be founded on the experience of sexual assault (and I think it’s crazy that people so often point the finger and demand that victims believe that). But I also cannot deny how beautiful such women are when they not only manage to survive but also thrive despite all the evil they were subjected to. Their strength and willingness to help others are the light that shines forth through the broken darkness, and I’m thankful for their beauty.

For me, part of the light that grew out of the darkness of my sufferings was my books. 

I wish I’d never gone through all the terrible things I’ve gone through, and I know it’s okay to wish that because I wouldn’t wish any of it on anyone else. I’m not thankful for the evil I’ve had to survive, and that’s okay. After all, why should I be thankful for evil? 

But I can be thankful for good. 

Somehow, all my experiences snowballed into creative energy that produced two full-length, proper books that I’m very proud of. I wouldn’t know how to write suspenseful, visceral action if I had never gone through such real, harrowing experiences in my own life. I wouldn’t be able to weave in themes addressing human suffering and the great healing which the love of true friends can bring to those who are hurting. I wouldn’t have been able to write something original if I hadn’t led such a strange and singular life. I might not have had the discipline and drive required to write books if I’d never had to learn the grind of survival. I never would have experienced the outpouring of love I received from family, friends, and even acquaintances, who all cheered for me, congratulated me on publication, and even bought my books. 

This bitter and broken world will try to break you. It wants to bring you down to its own shattered level. But I hope my books are proof that from brokenness, light can and will still shine. Bad things will always happen, even when it’s not your fault. That is, unfortunately, a part of life. But do not lose hope because there is always a part 2. It seems impossible when all the suffering is swirling and destroying and threatening to bury you alive. But there is always something beautiful that will miraculously take root in that blackness and grow through the shattered pieces. 

Even when there is so much loss and suffering, evil cannot ever truly thwart good. 

It cannot vanquish hope.