Oh You Don't Even Know What Pain Is

We've all been hurt. Physically, emotionally, financially..... Pain comes in many forms and in an array of severity levels. As has been common with my recent entries, I don't feel a need to go into much further explanation and flowery prose about how and why we feel pain. Honestly, the human body amazes me in its reaction to something damaging. It's really quite an impressive little contraption, our bodies. But we all know about bruising, swelling, aching, and any other means that our bodies and minds use to warn of us injury and protect us from anything more. And why am I prefacing this post with another rant of things we already know? There's something regarding pain that I want to discuss. Obviously.

I really have no idea what anyone else feels. Absolutely none. And there is no way that anyone else can ever know what I feel or how much pain I am in.

Now I know that some things are relative, and that there should be some sort of hierarchy of pains that can classify how someone should be feeling. I would hope that if a friend of mine has the same injury, to the same extent, that I have had, that we are feeling somewhat of the same thing. I would hope. But I have no idea. Maybe my dislocated finger hurts me far more than someone else. Maybe my headache is pounding and severe, but I deal with the pain better than others. Maybe my body is reeeally good and making things not hurt as much.

So with that in mind, you can't even put yourself in someone's shoes in order to try to understand what they're going through. My friend just fractured his collar bone, and struggles mightily to even put on a shirt. Maybe he shouldn't have taken his shirt off in the first place, but the roof was sunny and the beer was flowing, so I can't really blame him. But it was quite a little show, the 5 of us watching him inch a shirt up his arm to a point where he could swing it over his head with his one functional arm. The point being, if i had been practicing bicycle kicks before a soccer game and fractured my collar bone in the exact same spot to the exact same extent, I would probably act differently.

So where does that leave us?

I guess it means that with pain, you pretty much always need to give someone the benefit of the doubt. I'm a bit of a naturalist, meaning I try not to take medicine when I'm hurting. The closest thing I do to medicate is eating a banana when I'm hungover. I like to make my body heal itself while I get to feel the pain, because I trust my body. Pain is felt for a reason: you're not supposed to use whatever is hurting. So why would you dilute that feeling, risking further injury... But that means that I deal with those ripping headaches and queasy stomach pains and stinging arm soreness on my own. Maybe the things I feel just aren't that severe, and people that take medicine feel things way worse than I ever have.

Without ever knowing what someone else is capable of feeling, it makes no sense to judge them for how they act when under the distress of discomfort.