Welcome to the second post in my Pain series. In my first, introductory post on pain, I talked about what is pain and how different people react differently to pain. In this second post on pain, I want to talk about the most important aspect of pain – that is coping with pain. We saw that pain (physical) can be momentary, acute or chronic maybe even acute-chronic but regardless of the time of pain, we still have to manage it, endure it and cope with it.
The society in which we live, often asks us to “Grin and bear it”. We have long been told that bearing pain has fruitful benefits – “No pain, No gain”. Some have even gone as far to suggest that bearing pain cleanses one of one’s sins and delivers them to paradise after their life on earth. Some believe that bearing pain in this life can give one a happier life in the next birth and the reason that we have a painful life in this birth is due to the sins committed by us in the previous birth. I don’t want to get into the technicalities of Karma or Moksha or the concept of heaven and hell as for me nothing is worth the unbearable physical pain and the mental agony that comes with it for no fault of ours. Still we have to cope with it.
How to manage pain?
Doctors will say that a combination of medicines (painkillers) and exercises will help you manage pain and that you’ll have to mentally condition yourself or be prepared for it by taking precautionary measures. These things do help to an extent for a limited time, but then, What about the depression caused by having to bear enormous amounts of pain? What about the constant rejection, ridicule or worse pity from ones around us? This forces many into the doom of addiction, self hate and eventually more pain like a never ending cycle. As a teacher, I see many students go through this and it makes me sad, angry and frustrated at the same time.If only there were ways to cope with pain!
Different people deal with pain differently, I tend to craft, paint or make jewelry when I am in pain. Sometimes I write – type in a document – read through it and delete it. Sometime I cry or I scold myself, I scream at furniture just because they wont scream back. But mostly, I fantasize – A world where there is no pain, one where I dont fear it or where I am not ridiculed but truly loved for/inspite of it. Am I nuts for doing all this? Maybe a little, but in my mind it is better than being hopped up on pain meds, avoiding the issue or doing something self destructive.
Understanding and accepting the issue is the only way to deal with it; but getting there takes time and loads of patience. To help us get there, without shock and/or chronic depression our body and our mind (instinctively) bring across “Coping mechanisms”. These are tools that we employ to rationalise or stop feeling what we are feeling or to help us manage that feeling. It can be used to cope with pain, loss, death, depression or any type of disappointment. These generally fall into 7-8 categories
Coping with pain
+ Adaptive Mechanisms: we try and adapt by getting positive help – Therapy, yoga, hobbies and getting positively motivated by negatives
+ Attack Mechanism:we try and blame someone else for our pain
+ Avoidance Mechanisms: Avoid the issue. the classic “Its nothing, I am fine!”
+ Behavioral Mechanisms: misbehaving, behaving like a child, crying, screaming, acting like someone else, obsessing about it, becoming a workaholic to forget problems
+ Cognitive Mechanisms: escaping reality into a world of possibility, fantasizing, avoiding emotion and focusing on logic, convincing yourself that it is for your own good, studying and learning more about it
+ Conversion Mechanisms: change one thing into another – altruism, creating art with pain, writing about it
+ Defense Mechanisms: Denial, displacement, intellectualisation, projection, rationalisation, reaction formation, regression, repression and sublimation(Freud’s EGO)
+ Self-harm Mechanisms: Turning to Vices that hurt us – smoking, drinking, gambling, drugs, lies, recklessness, disloyalty, cowardice, envy, excessive eating, excessive shopping or spending, etc
Now, I want you, my readers to tell me, how do you cope with pain in your life? Do you follow any of these mechanisms and do you prefer one over the other? I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Other Posts in this series:
What is Pain?
I hope you found it interesting
Cheers
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