Pain

[Kathlene]

I would like to open up a discussion about pain. What is it? where does it come from? How do we get rid of it?

 

What is your pain? How do you get rid of it? Deal with it?

 

okay, so we are all born into this strange planet called earth. Where is the letter of announcement when we are born that life on this earth will be pleasant? I often wonder this in my head. We all assume life is meant to be happy, and therefore pain is the bad thing that we must escape from.

 

What if....looking at a different perspective, life on earth is all pain, and that is the journey to endure it, and find moments of happiness in between? Who said life is meant to be free and easy? where does it say that anyway? Do we just make that assumption that that is the goal to living? to walk through life and find happiness as the ultimate goal? Why dont we ever make pain our ultimate goal? why? because it HURTS!!!!!!!

 

So what exactly is pain to me and to you?

I describe pain as loss, grief, something that hurts, something that can be unbearable, something that can engulf my entire being, something I definately do not look for, or cherish, or find happiness in.

So what is pain to you?

 

 

I envisage pain as a big black dark ball that can lodge itself in my life and make its presence known every minute of the day, or be a silent deadly thing in the background that is always there, and never ever goes away.

My first reaction to pain is to get rid of it, right this instant! Is that always possible?

Yeah, for some sort of pain just take drugs and bob's your uncle. For a brief period. It may or may not come back, unless you have dealt with why the pain is there in the first place.

 

What if the pain is lodged in your heart, and is suffocating you every day? How do you get rid of it? I want to run away from that black ball and stuff it under something so I dont have to deal with it. I either ignore it, do something that will ease the pain temporarily, or at the end of the day...deal with it. This is not always as easy task I can assure you.

 

Sometimes pain is so deep and abhorrent in our hearts that it sets up camp there for years and years. I once had that sort of pain, and it was obvious to everyone, and it hurt even more when people could see that black insidious thing in me and told me I was wrong to still be holding onto it. Sometimes, there are seasons for pain, and no matter how hard we struggle with it, it is there to stay for the time being and it is only when, and only then our hearts are reaady to let go of it, that we can do so. This for me is a grieving period.

I went through that with my divorce, and the trauma of my childhood.

 

So far as I can see some people deal with pain in the wrong way too. They turn to drugs, alcohol, food, anything that puts them into a state of not having to see that black ball and having to deal with it. So are we meant to deal with that pain and wrestle with it and get rid of it? or welcome it like an old friend and let it set up house in our life and be a constant companion.? Im not sure if I have the answer to that. My personal reaction to any pain is to run away from it, and not face it head on.

 

I guess for me what it boils down to is when I have pain, how do I endure it? Am I supposed to endure it? for what purpose? Is there even a purpose in it? Why is it there in the first freakin place anyway?

 

I have caused pain to so many people in my life, its not funny. If you are reading this and think that you havent, think again my friend. I think we all at some stage cause someone else pain, whether knowingly or not. I feel so embarrassed and sad that I was and am still ccapable of doing that to someone. I always have to assess my life and attitudes to see how I can fix that too. Then there is pain other people have caused me. It has come to stay and party in my head and be a constant reminder of something that hurt me deeply. I dont want that sort of pain to stick around, so I give it the boot. How? I guess I forgive them. I give up my right to hold onto that pain, and let it go. That is a huge ask of anyone. But if I want to live healthy and pain free, I gotta do that. If I have hurt anyone I need to seek their forgiveness too.

 

I think I might stop here. I really dont know what my point is in this thread, but I am interested in hearing about your pain and how you deal with it.

[Kuroikaze]

 

I guess for me what it boils down to is when I have pain, how do I endure it? Am I supposed to endure it? for what purpose? Is there even a purpose in it? Why is it there in the first freakin place anyway?

 

 

Pain exists as an evolved trait to help us recognize those things which are harmful to us. Even emotional pain has a basis in this. Pain is useful because without it we would all be dead.

 

We endure it because we prefer it to the alternative of non-existence, at least that's how I look at it.

[ghost_warlock]

When I'm in physical pain I usually try to just ignore it. When the pain becomes too intense or if I've been in pain past a variable duration I take some pain-killers.

 

When I'm in emotional pain, I usually just try to ignore it or find some way to distract myself (excercise, read, play games, etc.).

 

I don't believe 'spiritual pain' exists; seems to me someone made it up and it's actually just a type of emotional pain (lonliness comes to mind most of all).

 

The purpose of pain, as Kuroikaze said, is to help keep us safe. If pain wasn't as unpleasant, say we get some sort of mental red flag instead that we could choose to ignore, then it wouldn't do a good job and wouldn't have been favored by natural selection. In addition to serving as a warning not to do certain things (e.g., touch a hot surface), pain can also be a sign that we're injured in an otherwise non-obvious way. In ages past this kind of pain would probably keep us from engaging in activities that were likely to make things worse (such as running on a sprained ankle).

[mwc]

I would like to open up a discussion about pain. What is it? where does it come from? How do we get rid of it?

 

What is your pain? How do you get rid of it? Deal with it?

Do you really mean suffering as a synonym for pain because that seems to be what you're really describing. I real a study on this awhile back and found a little bit that looks related to it from wikipedia (on their suffering page):

Pain and pleasure, in the broad sense of these words, are respectively the negative and positive affects, or hedonic tones, or valences that psychologists often identify as basic in our emotional lives.[15] The evolutionary role of physical and mental suffering, through natural selection, is primordial: it warns of threats, motivates coping (fight or flight, escapism), and reinforces negatively certain behaviors (see punishment, aversives). Despite its initial disrupting nature, suffering contributes to the organization of meaning in an individual's world and psyche. In turn, meaning determines how individuals or societies experience and deal with suffering.

 

mwc

[florduh]

People handle unpleasantness in various ways, depending on their psychological conditioning.

 

When things go badly, the Buddhist might say he needs to let go of his attachment to outcomes. One who thinks of himself as generally spiritually enlightened tries to remember that everything happens for a reason, when one door closes another opens, yada yada yada. The Christian usually falls back on the belief that all things work for the glory of God, and/or He works in "mysterious ways" and there's a better life awaiting beyond the grave.

 

I just accept the inevitable and do what I can to mitigate the things I can change. Helping someone else through their pain helps to relieve your own and gives perspective. The same kinds of misery visit all of us at some time because this is a random universe we live in. A lot of words just to say "shit happens".

[chefranden]

I guess for me what it boils down to is when I have pain, how do I endure it? Am I supposed to endure it? for what purpose? Is there even a purpose in it? Why is it there in the first freakin place anyway?

 

What? Jesus hasn't fixed you?

 

Well don't hold your breath. That medicine just doesn't work.

 

I'm 60. My experience is that you don't get rid of pain. The best you can do is reduce it to tolerable levels.

 

But lets say you could make life perfect, via Jesus or ecstasy. Then what? Well you would die of course. No point in making supper if you aren't hungry. No point in going to get that glass of water if you are not thirsty. Pain is life.

 

Misery's the river of the world

Misery's the river of the world

Misery's the river of the world

 

The higher that the monkey can climb

The more he shows his tail

Call no man happy till he dies

There's no milk at the bottom of the pail

Tom Waits

[Kathlene]

I guess for me what it boils down to is when I have pain, how do I endure it? Am I supposed to endure it? for what purpose? Is there even a purpose in it? Why is it there in the first freakin place anyway?

 

What? Jesus hasn't fixed you?

 

Well don't hold your breath. That medicine just doesn't work.

 

I'm 60. My experience is that you don't get rid of pain. The best you can do is reduce it to tolerable levels.

 

But lets say you could make life perfect, via Jesus or ecstasy. Then what? Well you would die of course. No point in making supper if you aren't hungry. No point in going to get that glass of water if you are not thirsty. Pain is life.

 

Misery's the river of the world

Misery's the river of the world

Misery's the river of the world

 

The higher that the monkey can climb

The more he shows his tail

Call no man happy till he dies

There's no milk at the bottom of the pail

Tom Waits

 

Haha Chef..I wasnt actually making any claims about Jesus here. I was just simply curious to know people's lives and how they deal with pain. I want to know what your journey's are so I can perhaps see where I have gone wrong, or where I can go right. I admire and respect a lot of you in here, and I want to hear about it.

[Shion]

Pain is apart of life. One can either accept that it hurts and either stop doing what hurts, or if it is emotional deal with it and let it go. There is nothing unnatural about pain. In some ways it is better to be in pain, for then you know you are alive, you exist, which is more comfort than can be garnered from the 'spiritual' honey coated pandering of any 'holy' book, script, scroll or sermon. And there are some emotional scars that don't go away and won't. They are scars. Trying to erase them in a sense under mines the experience and disrespects the self, for it is shoving life in a system of dualism that does not exist in reality.

 

I think and experience the pain and when it is time to move on, I do, an old hat. The scars are left, but I don't have to go there if I do not wish to.

[oddbird1963]

Kathlene,

 

It doesn't seem as if this thread is about physical pain, like from a debilitating injury on a construction site or in a car wreck. It doesn't sound as if this thread is about pain caused from disease or neurological compromises and deficits.

 

It sounds as if this thread is more about psychological or existential distress and suffering caused by difficult relationships and dire and unwanted circumstances. That is my reading of the OP anyway.

 

Such pain is an inevitable consequence of change. Our jobs change, our financial circumstances become more demanding, we awaken one day to realize that we have let ourselves down in the long-term course our lives have taken. Our perspectives on life and the people in our life can change, creating deep dissatisfaction with the way things are and where we think things are going.

 

Change causes stress which can have varying degrees of intensity. The pain deepens, or widens or downwardly spirals, or spikes (whatever metaphor you care to use) until we seek relief - we make further changes to try to lessen our pain or bring happiness. But in making what we see are necessary changes, other people have to experience our change. And, without any intent to do so, we cause others pain. As a result, others will return to us pain in some measure. Not because we did something wrong, but because many times our friends and family resist change and try to keep things from changing.

 

Pain is an inevitable consequence of being in the world. We cause pain to others while at the same time being pained by others.

 

In this conundrum of the cycle of pain , efforts to relieve pain, pain caused by the changes sought in the relief of pain, the suffering radiates outward like ripples from a stone tossed into a lake.

 

But of all the pain we endure, there is one type of pain that is the hardest to relieve: the pain of knowing you are not the person you know you can and should be. However you determine who you should be, make the changes necessary to become that person.

 

Pain is inevitable. You are going to get hurt. You are going to hurt others, even with absence of any malice.

 

Most kinds of pain are treatable or consolable. But not the pain of feeling you have lead an empty and wasted life. And nobody can console or relieve you of that pain but you.

 

I think Polonius in Hamlet Act 1 Scene 3 said it well,

 

"This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man."

[godlessgrrl]

What is pain?

 

Pain is what I experience when my body receives damage and my nociceptors send impulses to my brain alerting me to said damage. How I deal with it depends on the cause and severity of the damage (and the resultant pain): I remove myself from the damaging agent, apply ice, take painkillers, that sort of thing.

 

But as others have noted, I too suspect that you're not talking about physical pain so much as emotional pain, aka suffering.

 

In my world, emotions are a product of the mind, which is a product of the brain, which is part of the human body. It's experienced subjectively as something rather more ephemeral than direct physical pain, but I don't see much reason to treat it that differently, at least fundamentally. Physical pain asks for relief, so does emotional pain. Physical pain is a mark of damage, so is emotional pain. Physical pain has remedies, so does emotional pain.

 

So when I'm subject to emotional pain, I do many of the same things I'd do if I were experiencing physical pain: figure out what the damaging agent is, remove myself from it as much as possible, take time to heal, apply painkillers if needed (which could be anything from eating right to seeking therapy to taking drugs). I don't see much point in holding on to emotional pain endlessly; nor do I see much point in taking excessive measures to avoid it. Pain is part of life and it will just come to me sometimes. I'll work through it and then it will end.

 

Pain is no great love, but neither is it my enemy. It's just a signal, a sign that my body is trying to tell me something. If there is a "purpose" to pain, I suppose it's there to tell you something's wrong.

 

Not much more to say about it than that, right now.

[Objet_trouve24]

I would like to open up a discussion about pain. What is it? where does it come from? How do we get rid of it?

 

What is your pain? How do you get rid of it? Deal with it?

 

My favorite questions ever.

 

Pain, both physical and emotional, is a necessary function. We need pain, both physical and emotional, in our lives so we can not hurt ourselves or other people.

 

People who don't feel physical pain have a disorder called Hereditary Sensory Autonomic Neuropathy. Watch this video and you'll understand exactly why physical pain is absolutely vital to living a healthy, happy and productive life:

 

Many psychological disorders list apathy as a symptom, dissociative identity disorder springs instantly to my mind, as I know someone with the illness. Feeling sad, hurt and fearful is part of the human experience. Without it, you quickly lose your very sense of identity. It makes it hard to interact with others, makes it hard to care if they feel pain. I've heard it described as "I felt like I was playing with a marionette puppet", "I saw myself as nothing but a robot", "I looked inside myself and felt a void", "It was like I was playing a video game, and my body was the nameless hero. Consequences meant nothing, I could always restart like nothing had happened, or not play the game at all.".

 

It comes from the same place as the urge to reproduce, or the urge to create something bigger and better than ourselves. Pain helps us survive. Without pain, we'd starve, break our bones, or not be capable of building relationships.

 

We should under no circumstances seek to get rid of it. Avoid some of it, of course. Don't try to stick your hands on a stove burner. But all of it? God forbid. I know teenagers who cut themselves because they are so uncomfortable with emotional pain, they distract themselves by creating pain they feel they have more control over. Cope with it, absolutely. It's like fire. It hurts to touch it, so we learn to tame it, not try to avoid it at all costs.

 

What is my pain? Same as anyone else. I got in a fight with a friend and he said mean things to me (I move on and make friends who will treat me better). I feel lonely when I'm alone for too long (I call an old friend I haven't seen in a while). My knees hurt from old injuries from being mugged (I do physical therapy and wear lidocaine patches while the bone bruises are healing). In other words, my pain, and desire for pleasure is part of what motivates me to improve my way of life. To get off my lazy ass and do something! My deepest pains changed my life for the better (I wrote it out in my testimony the other day), and I am grateful for it.

 

I tried to get rid of it at one point by taking hard drugs and sleeping around. That didn't get me anywhere good. I use medications now, not to avoid pain, but to make it manageable, to learn to cope with it. I think it should never be used to make it all go away.

 

I urge you to watch that video. I can't impress upon you how important pain really is.

[Objet_trouve24]

PS. In case I didn't make myself clear enough, whether you're asking about physical, emotional or spiritual, my response applies to all pain. Same reasons for why it's important.

 

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." (thought that might be relevant )

[Objet_trouve24]

Many psychological disorders list apathy as a symptom, dissociative identity disorder springs instantly to my mind, as I know someone with the illness.

 

I'm a dumbass. I was thinking about something else and typed the wrong disorder. Depersonalization disorder is a type of dissociative disorder, dissociative identity is more like multiple personalities. So, my bad. Here's more on depersonalization: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization_disorder

[Brakeman]

I think a lot of emotional pain comes from a base level of disappointment. For example a small child can be perfectly happy going into a store, but can come out completely wretched from being denied a toy that caught their fancy. I don't think we, as adults, are any better. We often make the same mistake, wanting our lives to be so much different than what they are.

 

A favorite story of mine from a biography I once read was how this army surgeon in a forward mash unit in Korea had operated on a US soldier and had removed his leg. When the soldier awoke in post-op he caused a horrible ruckus, demanding a gun so he could commit suicide.

The Surgeon came to the soldiers bedside and lost it, he began to beat the soldier with his fists, surprising everyone. When the orderlies separated them, the surgeon dropped his pants and shook his prosthetic leg at the soldier. The soldier got the point.

 

One man's junk is another man's treasure.