Life

Someone recently posed a question in a Facebook group I’m in. “What’s something people don’t understand until they experience it themselves?” Answers ranged from things like skydiving and total solar eclipse to parenthood and giving birth and more serious things like depression, homelessness and abuse. The answer I liked best was simple. One word. Life.

The truth is that we never truly understand anything in life until we experience it. I spent months preparing to give natural childbirth to my firstborn. I read books, spoke with my Certified Nurse Midwife, trained and did exercises in breathing and pain management. By the time I started having contractions I was ready! While I was absolutely prepared, I didn’t truly understand what it meant to give natural childbirth until the twelve hours of labor and half hour of pushing was on me. It was hard, it was painful, and it was even more amazing and beautiful than I could have imagined!

You may say it’s an obvious statement—that we can’t understand something until we’ve gone through it. Yet, how often do we make snap judgments and assumptions of people as if we have gone through it? As if we somehow understand something better than the person actually living it? I know I have. I’ve looked at others and thought, “They are so stupid,” for doing this or that, making this choice or not making another one. I may not have told people to their face, but I’ve thought it or said it to others—that someone is just downright wrong—about something I’ve never experienced. Yet somehow, I was just sure I knew what was best. I look back now and feel ashamed for being so judgmental and condemning.

On the other hand, have you ever eventually gone through something you judged someone else for and realized you were the one who was wrong? I have. In doing so, I came to understand that not everyone experiences things the same way. My depression and anxiety may look different than someone else’s. Someone else may be able to manage their mental illness without medication, but maybe I need it. Just because natural childbirth was the most amazing experience of my life doesn’t mean it was or will be for everyone who goes through it. My experience doesn’t invalidate the woman who hated it and decides on an epidural the next time she has a baby. And her experience doesn’t invalidate mine or mean I’m wrong for loving it so much that I decided to do it natural with my next one.

I have sometimes wondered how the world might be different if there was more understanding that we simply can’t truly understand something we’ve never been through. We can learn about it, hear about it—even prepare for it—but we can’t understand until we’ve stood at the gates and walked through. I also wonder how the world might be different if there was more acceptance that our experiences vary, which means the choices we make or beliefs we develop may also be different. I know this is something I am still coming to understand and am learning to be okay with. As I do, I find it easier to be compassionate and forgiving—the way I hope others would be with me in my imperfect state.