Pain
Written by Sean on Wednesday, April 23, 2008
I read an interesting article about a new art project that relates to pain. Basically, the project aims at getting people who are in chronic physical pain to represent their pain through art and painting. There’s some great stuff there. But it focuses solely on physical pain. What about emotional pain? Is it any less real?
So often, it feels like because the emotional anguish of BIID is "all in my head", people think it’s not real. My emotional pain is dismissed. The article says:
Pain doesn’t show up on a body scan and can’t be measured in a test.
It’s funny, because the kind of pain I have, we have, also doesn’t show up on a body scan, and neither can it be measured in a test. People who have physical pain are often not taken seriously. People who suffer emotionally are taken even less seriously. You can’t see it seems to mean it doesn’t exist.
My partner is having problems with her back, to the point that she’s been dealing with nerve pain, muscle spasms in her legs, etc. The doctors have been giving her the run around. Recently, I tried explaining to her that for me, BIID pain is much like her nerve pain. It’s there constantly. It affects my concentration. It affects my ability to function, to sleep, to be happy, or just even to be content. The pain tears me up inside. It gnaws at me like a dog on a bone. At the very best it’s a constant tingling, but usualy it’s a bit of a roar. All too often, it’s like a virtual hammer hitting me in the head, in the chest, in the stomach, in the legs, everywhere, and it keeps on hitting and hitting.
And doctors won’t help me.
It’s all in my head. Easy solution: I can shoot it off. No head, no pain. Oblivion, perfect oblivion.
But seriously, why is it that we have to prove ourselves in such a way? Those who have physical pain have to prove it, they aren’t taken as seriously as others, particularly if there’s no obvious cause for the pain, like broken bones, or some such. Then, those who have emotional pain aren’t taken seriously at all, because it’s all imagined anyway, isn’t it?
If they made a pill that made it all better, I’d take it. There’s no morphine for the soul. Or perhaps I should just take up drinking, drink myself to oblivion, perfect oblivion.
Tags: BIID, Depression, Doctors, Emotions, Pain
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3 Comments
You’re pretty much bang-on about the cutting thing. I had a phase (maybe not the right word to use but I can’t think of a better one at the moment) in my teen years where I had a big BIID attack. At the time, I didn’t know about BIID so I had no idea what the hell was going on; I just knew that there was a lot of emotional pain and I couldn’t get rid of it no matter how hard I tried. So the cutting started, to transfer emotional pain into physical pain.
It’s not definitely something I’d recommend, but you’re not the only one who feels like making the pain “real.”
3 On 26 April, 2008, Sean said:
Do note I have no intention to start cutting :) I was merely saying that I can understand the need to exteriorise the internal pain.
{shrug}
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1 On 23 April, 2008, Sean said:
I need to make the pain real. I punch my legs, doesn’t really hurt, but it reminds me they are there, and they are feeling. I have been known to punch walls, even to put my fist through the drywall. But I don’t do that since arthritis is eating up my joints.
In a way, I think I understand those who are “into” cutting. It makes the internal pain real. Maybe I ought to find a real hammer rather than a virtual one…