The worst pain is emotional, not physical

“On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain? One being little to no pain, ten being the worst pain you’ve experienced.”

When doctors ask this, I oddly get nervous. Not knowing how they’ll treat me if I downplay my pain. But this is something I’ve grown used to and I still do to “not be a burden.”

I also know that I haven’t experienced the worst physical pain that I could.

But does the question apply to emotional or mental pain?

There’s a book quote that I’ve related to even since I read it which comes from “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green:

“I called it a nine because I was saving my ten. And here it was, the great and terrible ten, slamming me again and again as I lay still and alone in my bed staring at the ceiling, the waves tossing me against the rocks then pulling me back out to sea so they could launch me again into the jagged face of the cliff, leaving me floating faceup on the water, undrowned.”

I have felt physical pain, but nothing could ever compare to the heavyweight of death that can weigh on anyone’s chest at any given time.

It feels like your emotional walls are collapsing to the ground below, shaking the earth you’re standing on, and even flipping your world upside down.

Sometimes, it can be difficult to expand your lungs enough to get an adequate breath in your chest and tears usually spring to your eyes.

All you might want to do is scream to try and relieve the pain. If you do, it doesn’t help.

Or the first time you experienced the feeling you didn’t understand what it was and that you would never see your three-year-old brother again. Why would a six-year-old know that?

But the feeling was still there.

That dreadful weight reappeared four years later when your mom picked up her phone at the dinner table, saying it was her sister.

The second she answered the call, you placed your silverware on your plate as your chest tightened. Your mother eventually left the room to talk, and you just had a feeling that something bad happened and you instantly lost your appetite. Another child lost, being your teenage cousin.

The pain follows and returns each time you think about the tragedies that have passed and even if something doesn’t happen for nine years.

It’s the same pain that erupts again when you heard your dad answer the phone with a simple “hello.” The one-word bringing tears to your eyes because you knew what was about to follow. 

The news of your grandpa rings in your ears as your senses go numb. You can’t see straight, noise doesn’t pound against your eardrums, and you can barely feel the brick wall you had to catch yourself on before you crashed to the cement. 

Despite the world closing off and going dark, the feeling remains.

And it comes back when you reminisce, these examples of my own experiences sparked that feeling.

It isn’t very detailed but it’s still sharing my past which I need to be more accepting of. Even though it’s painful, these experiences are the things that shaped me into who I am now.

I don’t want pity for my past, which could be part of the reason why I never shared it.

Remembering loved ones can easily make hearts ache and days worse. Sometimes it’s there when you wake, other times it happens around dinner.

Who I am now is affected by the fact I went through a phase where I avoided my reflection, bad days I still do because of scars from a car accident.

And the feeling is still there.

It was affected by the fact that I blame myself sometimes for the car accident because we wouldn’t have been in the vehicle if I hadn’t broken my arm in the first grade and I hadn’t gotten my cast removed that day.

Grief, survivor’s guilt, and self-blame are dangerous thoughts. And I know I’m not to blame, but it doesn’t stop my mind from spiraling sometimes.

And the feeling is still there.

I can easily distant myself. A fear of intimacy rooted in the difficult times I’ve faced because of a fear of losing another person close to me.

I matured quickly because of the childhood trauma and feeling like I need to protect my other three younger siblings since I already lost one.

And the feeling is still there.

This is the biggest thing that I have resolved to deal with, even before the New Year.

I have a difficult time creating spaces to feel comfortable, mainly because I think I’m always bracing for the next blow that this life brings me. Knowing that the next punch thrown could knock me out in the ring, sounding the bell that calls the match.

Which is why I’m getting there, progress, even baby steps, is better than ignoring my issues.

The feeling is still there but I’m trying to address it.

I have bad days and many issues to try and embrace even if it starts as a hesitant handshake. 

And during those bad days, I take the words my mom said to me in high school after we had been talking about her dad who passed when I was three.

She smiled at me and said, “He would be so proud of the person you’ve become.”

“So, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?”

If I could, I would say 11.