I hypothesize that pain and suffering is cyclical and contagious, that our pain and suffering can infect others around us, that the root of pain and suffering is deeply rooted in the personal past. I suppose the practical question would be, how do we release all our personal pain and suffering without infecting others?
I agree that the root of emotional pain and suffering is deeply rooted in the personal past but it can easily be triggered by present events. I have PTSD and I think it dates back to my father's sudden death when I was 12 yrs old, and since then it has been triggered by the many sudden cat losses I have endured over the course of 20 years. The grief is horrible even when the death is not sudden, but it is much worse when it is unexpected and sudden.
The way I keep my personal pain and suffering from infecting others is that I never inflict it on others, unless they express an interest in coming to my aid of they hear my story. Otherwise I do not talk about my excruciating emotional pain, except sometimes with my husband, but that is his job to listen to me.
I normally do not tell my cat illness and loss stories on the forum because I imagine how it might trigger someone else's emotional pain with their pets, and I do not want to do that. My pain is so great, I often wish I was dead but I normally suffer in silence.
Let me put it this way, if I had no cats I would have nothing to complain about at all, except my disheveled house and yard and a tenant who is thousands of dollars behind on his rent, but those things pale in significance because I love the cats more than anything else in the world, and besides, I have so much money that I could easily hire someone to fix and clean the house and yard and I could take the rent loss. However, this is the last tenant who is going to take advantage of my good graces because if he does not pay as he promised it will go to court this time.
I won't recoup all the money because it is far more than I can get in small claims court, and I do not want to bother with a higher court.
If I truly had free will, I could find homes for all the cats and sell the three houses I own in full and move to some exotic location and live happily ever after, but alas, free will is circumscribed by so many factors, not the least of which is my love for the cats. It is also circumscribed by the fact that I do not think I deserve to be happy, old baggage I brought with me from childhood. Then there are also the religious beliefs, those also cause guilt if I want anything for myself.