Thursday, April 13, 2017

The Empathy Exams Journal 1



“There are things I’d like to tell the version of myself who sat in the Planned Parenthood counseling room. I would tell her that she is going through something large and she shouldn’t be afraid she’s ‘making too big a deal of it.’ She shouldn’t be afraid of not feeling enough because the feelings will keep coming—different ones—for years. I would tell her that commonality doesn’t inoculate against hurt. The fact of all of those women in the waiting room, doing the same thing I was doing, didn’t make it any easier” (Jamison 11).

In something as difficult as an abortion, feeling like your feelings are valid and deserve to be seen becomes difficult—like the most difficult thing in the world. But those feelings deserve to be seen because it is a difficult thing and no one else can help you through those feelings. Just because someone else goes through the same things as you do not mean that they know who you are feeling, that you and the other person feel the same thing. 

I chose this passage because I’ve noticed how a lot of people struggle with showing their emotions. People don’t know how to show that they are struggling, and they end up hurting alone, without anyone knowing that they are suffering. I think people should always know that their emotions are valid, that they are allowed to feel those things, but people struggle with it, and I know that I have struggled with it, as well. Just because you are around other people, should not mean that you aren’t allowed to show your emotions and show that you are suffering.

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