How to Answer the Question “Why?” When Life Gets Unbearable
“Why did this happen?” I would wager this is one of the most commonly asked questions, that often yields little to no answers.
We hurt. We feel it. Deeply. Our hearts bleed and souls scream in pain. There are so many things that can cause such a similar sensation to many people. Death — of a friend, parent, sibling, husband, wife, child — and life just stops. Illness in ourselves or others. Natural disasters — fire, flood, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions — when everything is lost. Heartbreak. We love and are not loved in return. Abuse, manipulation, lies… the list can go on forever.
Some of these touch our lives more often than others. Some hurt significantly more while others may not seem like a big deal. I don’t know your full story. No one really can. Which just kind of makes it all the worse. Feeling so isolated, knowing that no one can ever truly understand how these tragic events have impacted your life.
But there is good news in all of this. I may not get how this has impacted your life, but I do understand pain. It has been a fairly constant companion and I have felt it in so many variations.
I have attended funerals for grandparents, a brother, friends, kids I used to babysit.
I know what it’s like to live without a roof over my head, afraid of where I was going to sleep, how I would come by another meal.
Even having a roof over my head, I have lived eating only ramen noodles for a week and have when that ran out, felt real hunger.
I have been wrongfully accused of things I didn’t do.
I have been lied to, taken for granted, abused, manipulated.
I have an incurable neurological condition that causes awkward situations and physical pain.
I have watched loved ones struggle with cancer, autoimmune diseases, infertility, PTSD, and addiction.
I have dealt with depression to the point of suicidal thoughts. I deal with anxiety and insecurity.
Honestly, I could probably keep going. And I’m sure you can come up with quite a huge list yourself.
You know, it’s ok to not to be ok.
It’s normal to struggle and fear and though we feel so isolated and alone.
But that never answers the question, “Why?”
“Why did this happen?”
“Why me?”
As I reflect on the past few months of my life and how difficult they have been, these questions do come up. And I’m starting to see answers.
Why? Examples
It’s important to remember that these answers have taken time. Lots of it. Often times, it even takes years to fully get answers to these questions. But I am apparently stubborn and demanding in finding out why I have to struggle so much.
The first time I had to break off an engagement, I was devastated. Circumstances being what they were, I could not stay in this relationship, but I had loved him and was heartbroken as certain events unfolded.
Why? Why invest so much time, effort, even money for wedding planning into this relationship to have it end so abruptly? I kept wishing I had known the end from the beginning and avoid the entire situation altogether.
I had a roommate who had also become engaged and had to break it off shortly after mine. We cried, ate ice cream and commiserated together as we worked towards healing our broken hearts.
Several months later, this roommate confessed something to me. She told me that as bad as the situation was, she had been nervous about breaking off the engagement. She had never really seen that before. She could have easily justified it as pre-wedding jitters while ignoring the red flags to go through with the wedding. But she told me that seeing me do it gave her the strength to put herself first and get out of this dangerous relationship.
That was about a year after I had broken it off. Several years after that, her words came back to me as I faced another decision to break off an engagement with another man that I loved deeply. There were different circumstances from the first one, closer to what my roommate had dealt with, and it was her example that helped me to pay attention to the red flags.
Looking back, it’s interesting to note the circle of events and how many “whys” get answered the more time passes.
Why? Empathy
I still remember the first time death was a reality in my life. The first day of kindergarten, a group of children got really excited to go to school for the first time and ran towards the bus. For one little girl, this was a fatal action. At five years old, I had to grasp what death meant and why I couldn’t see my friend anymore.
As I got older, I saw it come more and more frequently with a stillborn brother, my piano teacher, tragic deaths of high school students in their prime — many of them friends, girls I used to babysit, co-workers, grandparents.
I am still young and the number of friends that I have lost due to tragic accidents — whether medical or physical conditions — is high. It was hard to understand why it is so hard to make friends and when I do make friends, they get taken from me far too soon.
Yet having been through this experience so many times, I am starting to see a pattern in myself. It seems so unfair for such a young life to be taken and for life to just stop.
It stops for the survivors, too.
Grief can be overwhelming. Asking what you can do to help is a sweet gesture but with pain that strong, I never knew how to answer. I lost motivation to do any and all things. My life also stopped. I felt guilty scheduling fun activities, especially knowing my friend who had passed wouldn’t be there and what a reminder that was. I lost my appetite. I started running on the bare minimum and barely mustered the strength to handle commitments such as a job.
But having been through this, knowing the pattern, I am better able to take care of others when they are put in the same situation. I tell them I am coming over with dinner, so they don’t have to cook, and then tell them I am doing the dishes that have piled up or cleaning the neglected rooms, they just have to show me where the cleaning supplies are and where certain items go.
I know the pattern. I know what is happening and can step up to take care of the things that fall by the wayside. I also give them an opportunity to have a listening ear or a distraction, however they choose to cope.
Coming back to this idea at the beginning that I can’t fully understand what this person meant to you and each person will have a different way to cope and process, I at least don’t have to ask, “Is there anything I can do,” while leaving things as is when the response is, “I don’t know.”
Why? Strength
Life is hard. It continues to get harder the older I get. Meaning that if I had not had the challenges that I have dealt with in the past, there is no way I could cope with what is going on around me now.
Just as you can’t build a house without a foundation that you then add on layer by layer, you can’t deal with things today if you are still dealing with things that happened years ago.
Each challenge that you survive gives you more strength and power. You come out of things a better person. It makes you more capable and able to handle whatever life can throw at you. During that second broken engagement, I know I would be ok, because I had essentially done it before. Even if circumstances were different.
Because I have been through so many difficult things, I know I am strong. In rain or shine, I know that I am capable of so much more.
I know that I can do hard things.
I can do hard things when times are good and I have everything working for me. I can do so much more with my life than I ever thought possible, because of what I have seen what I can do when I am barely able to function and surviving is the main mindset.
Conclusion
We can get answers to that ever-present question of why if we are paying attention. We can see the connection between different experiences that when looked at together, make a much more beautiful and meaningful experience.
Also good news, I heard this quote this morning and thought it was appropriate: “Because things are the way they are, they will not stay the way they are.”
As things change, it gives you an opportunity to grow and change as well. We can find the answers why as we continue to go forward, using our unique gifts and talents.
Don’t think you have any? I made a free guide to help you see those. It’s completely free — CLICK HERE and I will send it right to your inbox.
