Chapter 19: Pain - My heart a mosaic filled with grief and growth

The International Association of the Study of Pain newly defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage.” Additionally, pain is always a personal experience that is influenced to varying degrees by biological, psychological, and social factors. Pain and nociception are different phenomena. Pain cannot be inferred solely from activity in sensory neurons. Through their life experiences, individuals learn the concept of pain. A person’s report of an experience as pain should be respected. Although pain usually serves an adaptive role, it may have adverse effects on function and social and psychological well-being. Verbal description is only one of several behaviors to express pain; inability to communicate does not negate the possibility that a human or a nonhuman animal experiences pain. [IASP and the IASP Task Force, 2020]

 

Pain is a terrifying thing. We human beings usually try to avoid pain, in particular, harm-causing pain. However, as life would have it, pain is inevitable.

 

Sometimes we use pain as a gauge to measure how much someone cares for us. Sometimes we create scales to measure how much pain we have so we can treat the pain. Sometimes pain just exists and becomes a dull ache that we live with.

 

Looking back, I recall how naïve and gullible I was as a child/tweenager. I remember being a serious child with optimistic disposition. I remember always being cheerful and bringing life and joy to every space I entered. I was aware that people suffered in the world, but my optimism made me blissfully ignorant.

 

I used to volunteer in orphanages and old age homes and tried brighten people's lives with my optimism. But that was until I saw the suffering for myself. My parents always used to help people in need and people living in poverty. When I was old enough (probably around the age of 12), I got to help them in their doings. It felt good to help people, but it also created a bleak picture of my privilege. We weren’t a wealthy family… we middle to lower middle class at best. But I knew I was privileged. I had access to a warm bath, instant ramen, education, and many other things. We could afford 6 cartons of milk and a block of cheese, while I knew people who couldn’t afford a block of cheese and barely a bottle of milk.

It was then  when I started listening to the people’s stories. I listened to their heartache, their hope, their pain. I listened and I kept listening.

 

But I jumped a little too far ahead in my story. Let me go back before the listening.

 

I recall moments where I was optimistic to the point where friends felt like they couldn’t share their pain with me. I think nowadays people would describe my responses to their pain as toxic positivity. My optimism made me ignorantly positive.

 

“Just change your mind-set!” “Other people have it worse off than you.” “If you keep pushing through, you’ll get to other side.” “Keep working, you’ll succeed” “It’s all in your mind” “Just pray about it.” “Don’t worry, trust God.”

 

The montage of ignorant phrases from someone who did not know pain or ignored her feelings to be happy. I lived by those words, amongst many other phrases. And I thought, those words could help everyone. No wonder, my friends didn’t want to open up to me.

 

Until, I met someone who was so happy-go-lucky, overflowing with positivity. "Optimist", would be their identifier. I was a shy person, so I always observed the crowd, especially when someone with a bigger personality than mine entered the room. I watched this person be their positive self, but when they encouraged people I noticed that people didn’t feel encouraged. It was then when I realised that I was looking in a mirror. Even if I am genuine in my optimism and positivity, how to do I help people feel encouraged, understood and heard? I want people to have a bit of hope and positivity after I leave them. I don’t want them to look at me and think that they wish they had my optimism. I want to leave them with a bit of my optimism and not kept it to myself.

 

And so I began paying attention. I began to look inward. I began to listen. Really listen and notice the things unseen and unsaid. I began to learn to read people and see what’s hidden. I opened my heart to their stories and their pain.

 

And also, I paid more attention to my pain. I learnt that as much as I grateful for my privilege, there were still injustices in my life. Injustices that frustrated me which I previously just accepted and “chose to be happy”. I was still optimistic but I was no longer positive.

I was 13 years old and I began to break my naïve perception of reality and started seeing the world for what it is and was. Adults spoke down to me like I knew nothing about the world, I was gullible and naïve… this had to change. I needed to know how the world worked. I needed to be acknowledged by the adults around me.

 

And so I read books about psychology and people. I read books about leadership and strategies. I read books that were inappropriate for my age. I kept reading. I kept listening. I kept watching. I kept acknowledging the pains in my life and taking on the pain of others.

 

In turn, I became more empathetic, but I also gave up my childhood.
Maybe my pursuit of pain wasn’t completely intentional, I had parents who valued knowledge, and the more knowledge I gained the more valuable and I understood I would be. I, also, knew that being this positively, optimistic person was not going to help anyone but myself in the long run. And I, a person who wanted to make the world a better place, needed to be someone who was not self-serving.

 

It’s almost 20 years since I began my pursuit of knowledge and pain, and only now do I mourn the loss of the childhood I missed out on. The more knowledge I gained, the more my worldview changed, thus the more pain I felt.

 

Pain is a beautiful thing and you can learn a lot from it. They say that you only know what happiness is once you experienced sadness. You can know a different version of reality once you’ve experienced the negative parts of life.

So it’s great that pain can help you, I just wish it wasn’t the only way to experience significant growth.