ABSTRACT
Respondents' stories of suffering were filled with a second pattern that mimes the first—that of suffering as loss, because lack of control is a particular kind of loss. Mrs. Janson indicated through her narrative of suffering in the mental institution, there must be a sense of self to suffer, yet to have no self is to suffer. The experience of suffering is constructed from extreme distress as well as from beliefs about the purpose and value of suffering, and whether the self is annihilated upon death or endures. In elders' narratives, there is a strong sense of hope to be reconnected, after brokenness, with self, others, and God, and ultimately to remain oneself. In respondents' stories, the opposite of suffering is integration. Patterns and themes in stories of suffering emerge from respondents' common humanity as well as through their shared time and place in a cohort history.
