There isn’t a league table for suffering
IT’S good to be back in the saddle, while re-learning things you take for granted, like getting out of bed, going to the loo, walking (with sticks) and climbing stairs.
So — back to work. My last column featured a nearly 80-year-old unsure whether to let her family give her a party.
And among all your lovely, kind wishes for my hip replacement came this wee blast from Joan N:
‘I was incensed at your reply to the lady having her 80th birthday. We are talking about someone with her own bungalow, no money worries and a lovely family, so don’t you dare tell readers that every “problem matters to the person who is experiencing it”.
‘This lady does not have a “problem”. She has a “dilemma” which thousands of people would walk over hot coals for. After all your years of advising readers on their “problems”, do you still not know the difference?’
Joan got me on a bad day when I’d just got back from hospital and was miserably struggling with physiotherapy exercises. So I called her out for unnecessary hostility, and finished: ‘You clearly have problems of your own — but that doesn’t excuse your tone.’
I do understand how readers facing terrible issues will always tend to place themselves on a ‘league table’ of suffering — shouting that their pain is worse than yours.
Nevertheless, I’m correct to point out that any problem really matters to the person experiencing it. Some are luckier than others; some are more resilient, and so on. We don’t have to make comparisons.
Instinct told me Joan’s rather rude email was inspired by her own situation. Indeed, she wrote back to explain: ‘I, too, have a problem; a life-limiting medical condition that I live with every day. I have no family to help see me through it.’
She was sorry — as I am. So I wish you courage, Joan, and I thank you sincerely for helping me make this point.
Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 9 Derry Street, london W8 5HY, or email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. Names are changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.