Empathy
 

I would never wish back pain on my worst enemy, but it would be nice if other doctors could exp. this for 1 day. Might change their views on treating people in pain.

Lee Lipsenthal, M.D.: Does Chronic Pain Turn You Into A Narcissist?

Your post has opened an abyss that absolutley everyone on this forum (and others) can relate to.

Only those who have walked in your shoes can truly understand what your life is like and how it has affected every aspect of that life.

I reconnected with a dear friend from our school days, who suffered daily from a disease which since has taken her life. Our connection was on a different level but much deeper because we understood each other.

After recently suffering a cancer scare, I understood so much more of what my breast cancer survivor friends went through. It's not that I wasn't supportive, but where I took their suffering as something they simply had to endure, and their survival as a given, their entire lives were rocked to the core, staring at their mortality on a daily basis, living with the scars as daily reminders, all the while giving a piece of their humanity to becoming a statistic. And just as our minds take us back to that dark place everytime we feel a little twinge, their minds to even further. I called or wrote them all.

Yes, even the most compassionate doctors can sympathize but a true understanding can only come from personal experience.