Thoughts on pain

Grizzly · 2011-04-08

Saw this today and it got me to thinking. Last year I was on an 8 out of 10, but yes, according to this it was maybe a 1, and when I think about the pain that friends have gone through with cancer over the last year I have nothing to complain about. But on the physio table today for my weekly torture session, and I don't use that term lightly, I got to thinking about how (and I don't know any other way of putting this) intimate pain can be. No, I'm not going all S&M on you here, my motto isn't "No Pain, No Gain", it's "No Pain, No Pain". But I can see how for some people pain is what can ground them to this existence, provide proof of their tangible reality. Maybe thats what the attraction is to boxing and the more violent sports. When all you can focus on is pain your life is made far simpler and your concerns are reduced to a singular focus. It's that focus that is lacking in most lives and I think it can be for some people an intoxicant - much like "falling in love" provides a simiilar all-consuming focus. I've gone to this weird space in describing my pain. The absence of pain is not being pain-free for me at the moment, it's like there's a void where the pain used to be, a receptacle there that can be filled up again with pain, a potential for it to be held again. Something like that Spinal Tap dial that can go to 11, it's down really low but somehow I know that it can be cranked up again. Oh well, time get a tea and get to work.

473 Views 10 Replies 7 Participants Last post by GaReb770, Apr 10, 2011

Grizzly

Discussion Starter · Apr 8, 2011

Saw this today and it got me to thinking.
 
<a class="H-lightbox-open" href="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/82090/width/1000/height/800/flags/" target="_blank"><img alt="pain_rating.png" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="16642" data-type="61" src="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/16642/width/740/height/217" style="; width: 740px; height: 217px"></a>
 
 
Last year I was on an 8 out of 10, but yes, according to this it was maybe a 1, and when I think about the pain that friends have gone through with cancer over the last year I have nothing to complain about.
 
But on the physio table today for my weekly torture session, and I don't use that term lightly, I got to thinking about how (and I don't know any other way of putting this) intimate pain can be. No, I'm not going all S&M on you here, my motto isn't "No Pain, No Gain", it's "No Pain, No Pain".
 
But I can see how for some people pain is what can ground them to this existence, provide proof of their tangible reality. Maybe thats what the attraction is to boxing and the more violent sports.
 
When all you can focus on is pain your life is made far simpler and your concerns are reduced to a singular focus. It's that focus that is lacking in most lives and I think it can be for some people an intoxicant - much like "falling in love" provides a simiilar all-consuming focus.
 
I've gone to this weird space in describing my pain. The absence of pain is not being pain-free for me at the moment, it's like there's a void where the pain used to be, a receptacle there that can be filled up again with pain, a potential for it to be held again. Something like that Spinal Tap dial that can go to 11, it's down really low but somehow I know that it can be cranked up again.
 
Oh well, time get a tea and get to work.

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jebba

· #2 · Apr 8, 2011

You know, my bizarre but loveable church had a sermon on pain a few years ago. How it's impossible for an outsider to measure. And it's difficult for someone in pain to engage with their world.
 
When people advocate unmedicated childbirth, I think alot of what people try to do is get their mind ready to tolerate pain. But I don't think the level of pain is the same for each person or even each birth. I had an epidural with #1 and no meds with #2. The pain I was in before the epidural was waaaaay worse with #1 than the entire unmedicated birth with #2 was. But my number 10 on the pain scale is actually a tie between childbirth #1 and when I had a wart burned off the bottom of my foot by a podiatrist in Damascus.
 
 
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<div> When all you can focus on is pain your life is made far simpler and your concerns are reduced to a singular focus. It's that focus that is lacking in most lives and I think it can be for some people an intoxicant - much like "falling in love" provides a simiilar all-consuming focus.</div>
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Similar, in some ways, to depression. When getting out of bed and taking a shower is all that can be accomplished, suddenly other things lose their tangibility. In some ways, it is liberating. At least, when you come out of the experience, you find satisfaction with just being "okay."

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jebba

· #10 · Apr 10, 2011

Goodness, 4boys!
 
This is off topic, but here's a fascinating New Yorker article about neurological sources of itching:
 
<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_gawande" target="_blank">http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_gawande</a>

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