We’ve Got Pain All Wrong
By Liel Bridgford [8 min read]
Pain can mean many different things for each of us, and can include both physical sensations as well as emotional or psychological experiences. In this post I’ll focus on the physical sensation we get when we say ‘my leg hurts’. We all experience pain during our lifetime – no human can avoid it.
Despite how universal pain is, our capacity to describe and communicate about it is generally limited. Even medical professionals often resort to the simplified and useless request to rate our pain from 1-10 as the only measurement or decipherment of pain.
This common practice has been criticised by people with chronic illnesses, pain and disabilities. Some of the arguments against its use is the oversimplification of a complex phenomena that includes our physical, social, emotional and psychological world. Our experience and perception of pain are also influenced by our history, genetic makeup and social circumstances, amongst other factors. It is a multidimensional experience. Also, your 10 out of 10 is different from my 10 out of 10.
Take for instance the pain a birthing person experiences as they push out a baby from their body. It can include intense pressure, cramps, burning, stretching, sharp knives-like pulses and many other sensations. A number on a 1-10 scale does not do this experience justice. We also know that pain perception is impacted by anxiety, how we label the pain, our attitude to it, and many other factors that are often missed in modern Western understanding of pain.
This inadequate language, understanding and communication of pain means the way we respond to it can also be inadequate, ineffective or even harmful. Pain is simply labeled as Bad, and categorised as something that is undesirable, unattractive and unnatural, to be cured if possible, or at least halted.
This idea misses how pain helps us avoid injury, recover from previous traumas and indicate our bodies’ functioning. In some contexts pain is thought of as something to ‘push through’ and ignore in order to reach some external goal, like running a marathon. In cases of chronic pain, like mine, we think of pain again as something to ‘push through’.
The conclusion many of us get to is that pain is nothing to concentrate on – it is too painful to think about our pain, let alone explore it! What we end up doing is neglecting our pain.
We may dissociate to cope with extreme levels of pain, or use alcohol or drugs to numb it.Many of us have been told our pain isn’t so bad, or that it will pass by your wedding day, or worse of all – that it isn’t real. No wonder we have such a fraught relationship with pain.
What’s the issue then?
Having a fraught relationship with pain has an ironic impact on our body, mind, and our overall wellbeing.
Because we fear pain, we often get a stress or even a stress-survival response in our body when it happens. The fight/flight/freeze response that gets triggered by pain generates stress hormones that are damaging to our body in the long term, and prevent us from using our complex thinking capacities.
When in pain our brain is yelling DANGER DANGER DANGER at pain signals that may not by themselves be so dangerous.
When we’re so distressed, we struggle to regulate our feelings. We may lash out at others we care about, or use substances, gamble, or smoke – or do anything that distracts or numbs our intense emotional reaction and our physical pain. In short – seeing pain as something catastrophic and Bad, leaves us less choice over our actions when we’re feeling it.
The distress by our pain can even perpetuate our pain experience, making our perception to pain heightened.
Another way our problematic relationship with pain impacts our lives is a sense of isolation. Have you ever had the thought ‘No one has ever experienced pain like this before’? I have.
Many people who feel pain tend to also feel that they’re the only one going through that. Because we don’t talk about it, it seems like everyone else is living pain-free, which isn’t the case. This isolation can make us less likely to engage with others or in activities that will help us deal with the pain, or to live the meaningful life that we deserve. This is often exacerbated by real physical need to rest our hurting body parts, which often means we’re alone.
Ignoring the pain, something that many of us are told is a tough, cool, or even necessary thing to do, means that we actually end up trying to push it down. We spend a lot of energy blocking out pain signals from our body. This creates a lot of exhaustion and even dissociation.
The alternative
I was dissatisfied with the way my pain and I were relating to each other. I was tired of feeling angry, frustrated, and on the verge of tears when pain would flare up. I decided to Kultivate some alternatives – of more helpful ways to cope with pain.
Instead of seeing myself as a failure when I couldn’t walk, I gave myself permission to listen to my body. I changed the way I view mobility aids, and now see them as something to help me live the life I want, alongside my pain.
This is not to say that pain should be dismissed by ourselves or others – quite the contrary. Pain should be listened to, attended to, just like any other part of us. Acknowledging that we’re in pain, and giving ourselves kindness through it, can be our first step towards a better life.
We can also change the way we respond to others’ pains. Instead of viewing people as either ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’, we can understand that we all experience pain, at some points in our lives, albeit our differences. We can treat others who are in pain with kindness and empathy. Instead of letting pain get in the way of connection, we can embraec it as a connecting link.
Tips for getting started
Practical steps you can take towards Kultivating a better relationship with pain. Use this with a loved one or yourself:
Ask about pain - e.g. How’s your body been feeling lately?
Validate pain - e.g. That sounds painful
Ask how you can stay connected through the pain – e.g. Can we change our plans to still include you?
Ask what the person needs - e.g. What might help feel more grounded in this moment?
Practicing these steps with myself, and with people I care about, has helped me transform the way I experience pain. Now I sit down, focus on my breath, and listen to my pain like it is music. All I want is for there to be seating, so I can sit down and concentrate on the music – outside and within.
