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Alas, physical suffering is familiar to everyone, but for each of us it is special. Fear, anger, longing – pain changes our relationship with the world and other people. But it can also be the key to self-knowledge.
“Our trip to Venice was supposed to be a romantic trip for lovers, but it turned out to be a nightmare,” recalls 37-year-old Marina. “Due to a terrible migraine, I could neither speak nor open my eyes and dreamed only of darkness and silence. There was no one and nothing around – only a continuous pulsation of pain. But Marina’s companion assessed the situation in his own way. “He decided that I just didn’t love him, and the migraine had nothing to do with it.” In those days, Marina made a discovery for herself: it is extremely difficult to tell others about her pain.
At such moments, we feel “extremely lonely,” explains philosopher Arne Johan Vetlesen. Pain has a very special power over us: it not only causes physical suffering, but at one moment deprives us of “all abilities, achievements and aspirations, reduces our faith in our omnipotence, throws our “I” off the pedestal.”
Who has never had a headache or, say, a toothache in his whole life? But still, physical suffering remains special, its own for each of us – how strong our pain is, it is impossible to explain to others …
For us, it will always be our own, special: how strong our pain is, it is impossible to explain to others.
It’s not easy to describe her. The pain can be throbbing, dull, dull, sharp, burning, aching – doctors, trying to determine its nature, use a variety of words.
Pain generated by the same cause may be exorbitant or almost imperceptible. “What a person feels cannot be measured – it is a purely subjective phenomenon,” explains neurologist Galina Dyukova. Perception depends on many factors: age, upbringing, cultural traditions, and even the situation in which a person finds himself. “A wounded rescuer may not feel pain at all if the chances of saving others are still great,” the neurologist gives an example. “Conversely, his suffering will be greater when the chances to help fade.”
The sensation of pain in women and men also has its own characteristics. Women are more accustomed to it, because pain accompanies them all their lives (during menstruation, during childbirth). “But it is they who begin to feel it earlier and endure it harder,” says Alain Serrie, president of the French Society for the Study and Treatment of Pain. “The sensitivity threshold of men is higher, but it is more difficult for them to cope with the anxiety that instantly arises in them when they feel pain, because they perceive pain primarily as a danger signal.”
Representatives of different nationalities also feel it differently. During the same ophthalmic operations, the Italians experienced great pain, while the Irish claimed that they did not suffer from it *. The experience of experiencing pain also matters, adds psychotherapist Igor Schatz: “Those who are often sick are easier to tolerate minor pains, because they are familiar to them.” He also emphasizes that much depends on personal characteristics: people who are stubborn and pedantic cope more easily with painful sensations. It is more difficult for those who are inclined to exaggerate everything in life, to be capricious, to focus the attention of others on themselves.
Meditation as an analgesic?
Zen meditators are likely to be less sensitive to pain. Canadian psychologists came to this conclusion during an experiment involving two groups of subjects: the first included people practicing Zen meditation, the second – those who were not familiar with this practice *. Heating plates were applied to the calves of the participants, the temperature of which gradually increased until the person could endure. In the first group, the endurance threshold was much higher. The subjects controlled their breathing (taking about 12 breaths per minute) and due to this they were able to reduce the intensity of pain sensation by almost 20%. Some of them managed to withstand the touch of a plate heated to 53 ° C. Scientists explain this by the fact that regular meditation leads to changes in those parts of our brain that regulate pain.
Read also: What I learned from illness
* J. Grant, P. Rainville «Pain sensitivity and analgetic effects of mindful states in zen mediators». Psychosomatic Medicine, 2009, № 1.
About it
The Philosophy of Pain by Arne Johan Vetlesen
Norwegian philosopher, professor at the University of Oslo bravely analyzes the phenomenon of pain. In his opinion, modern society makes a metaphysical mistake, considering physical pain exclusively in a negative way and unjustifiably attaching paramount importance to mental suffering (Progress-Tradition, 2010).
Far from others
Pain is our common, but not unifying misfortune. On the contrary, it isolates us, closes us in the inner world, from which we can no longer reach out to others (just as it is impossible for others to make contact with us). In addition, Igor Shats continues, “severe and prolonged pain is destructive for a person, it often makes him irritable, aggressive, bilious, he begins to look at the world gloomily.” And this, in turn, can cause misunderstanding and rejection among loved ones. So the suffering of one leads to the suffering of another.
Parents of sick children are especially acutely aware of their inability to reduce suffering. “A year ago, when my daughter was 10 months old, she underwent a complex operation on her intestines. How I was tormented then because I could not help! She didn’t want me to pick her up,” recalls 30-year-old Maria. Even small children are separated by pain from everything that is not connected with it, away from other people. In a sense, it is a physical boundary between a person and the outside world. And this gap is simply unbearable for mothers. They are deprived of intimacy with the child and seek to feel the pain themselves, as if this could reduce his suffering. “The pain experienced by the child reinforces the fundamental guilt of the mother, who “threw”, in the words of the philosopher Martin Heidegger, her child into the world,” emphasizes the sociologist and anthropologist David Le Breton**.
Knowing yourself in a new way
For women, the sensation of pain is more familiar than for men, but they begin to feel it earlier and endure it harder.
In suffering we are always alone – and thanks to it we are acutely aware of our specialness, difference from others, identity. “Where it hurts me, there I am,” said the Swiss writer Fritz Zorn. “During severe attacks of pain, you are aware of your body as much as it fills you with pain.”*** Irina, 57, experienced this when she got breast cancer. “My body reminded me of myself in the most cruel way. I constantly felt the “beast” that settled under my arm. I could even feel the outline of the incision I had during the operation. And even when the pain finally subsided, these sensations did not disappear. I still keep listening to myself.”
This sensitive presence within oneself can reveal to us a new dimension of our existence. Tearing us out of our habitual sense of ourselves (what we were “before the pain”), suffering forces us to go through a greater or lesser metamorphosis: at worst, it destroys us with hopeless pain, at best, it forces us to pose new questions.
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“My way of experiencing physical pain communicates something deep and important about who I am, that is, pain is a way of expressing my individuality, my difference from others,” writes Arne Johan Vetlesen. Pain tells us about ourselves and about our freedom. Why do we endure? Why don’t we want to endure? What happens in the very depths of our being when we feel that we are disarmed, immobilized by pain, or, on the contrary, we feel our own strength and freedom more acutely?
Acute pain can sometimes make you wish for death, but it can also exacerbate the desire to live fully and actively. Or teach to appreciate the moments of life without pain – as is often the case with chronic patients. “Any test, if we pass it and do not break, makes us stronger,” Igor Shats reflects. – Having experienced pain, we learn a patient attitude towards ourselves and others, the ability to understand the suffering of another, to appreciate what we have. This important life experience can make us better and cleaner. What we have experienced increases our self-esteem and gives vitality.”
In the most extreme cases, pain can become a challenge – when a person needs to learn to coexist with it. “I will always be in pain,” Irina shares, “but the pain can be stronger than me or weaker. I live with it and learn to adapt: I don’t carry heavy things, I avoid certain movements. I am proud that I went through this ordeal, but I would like to return to my old life without much worries.”
Find the meaning to overcome it
Even when suffering is constant, one can try to give it meaning – for example, with the help of psychotherapy, meditation, yoga.
The testimonies of those who have experienced physical torment tell one thing: they are easier to deal with if you can find meaning in your test. However, there are many less extreme examples around us: athletes for whom pain is a measure of the intensity of training; women who refuse pain relief during childbirth. “When motivation is clear, when a person knows why he endures pain, it is, of course, easier to endure,” confirms Igor Shats. But even with chronic pain, you can try to give them meaning: psychotherapy, meditation, and yoga help many in this.
This is possible even on the verge of death. Sometimes doomed patients say that illness and pain have revealed important truths to them. Pain changes our self-perception and our relationship to the world. It can also become our strength. Meeting her is a special journey to the depths of your own “I”, very secret and very personal.
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* American Sociological Review, 1966.
** D. Le Breton “Experiences of pain” (Métailié, 2010).
*** F. Zorn “Mars” (Gallimard, 1982).