When I wrote this essay about my discomfort with laughing at the pain of others, I just felt like I had something I needed to get off my chest. I wasn’t expecting it to resonate with strangers the way it did, but clearly something hit a nerve.
have been accused of being too much of an empath. I cry when I see other people cry. I’ve gotten physically ill listening to people describe particularly painful injuries or medical procedures. A few weeks ago, while catching up on the excellent Every Little Thing podcast, I sobbed as host Flora Lichtman played audio clips of people witnessing the summer 2017 solar eclipse because I was so in awe of their awe. I am, I’m certain, an embarrassment at weddings and funerals, and I cried myself to sleep twenty minutes in to the movie Up. (I was extremely confused to wake up to a talking dog.) I gave up on my earlier aspirations to be a clinical psychologist when I realized that I’d only ever be able to keep up a professional poker face if all my patients were happy. And any time someone suggests I consider running for office, I know that I’d wind up bawling at a town hall when one of my constituents tells me their tragic tale—and as a woman, that would be all it took to ruin my political career. I will, I’m sure, be the world’s most embarrassing mother.
The full essay, which was inspired by the famous video of a Philadelphia Eagles fan colliding with a subway support column, is available on Medium.
I’ve written a lot about the pelvic pain disorder I was diagnosed with in 2013, so writing about pelvic and sexual health has become a passion of mine. After reading an article about the lack of knowledge most mothers have around what childbirth does to their bodies, and how frequently their concerns are ignored by their physicians, I wrote: