The Experience Of Pain

Overcoming pain takes time and a great deal of personal effort.

Pain

The personal history of each of us is full of losses and separations, which continually remind us how much relationships and things in life are only fleeting.

Pain is the psychological reaction that manifests itself in front of a loss, it is the emotional response that emerges for having lost something or someone important in our life. However, this reaction has not only emotional, but also physical and social components.

When we talk about pain, we usually associate it with death; in fact, this process can also take place after the breakup of a couple relationship or after the loss of a job or a material object with which we had a strong personal bond. The process of grief makes us understand that, after loss, we will have to adjust to a new life without that person or thing; by processing the pain, we try to reconstruct meanings.

Normally, this process ends naturally, because it is a normal moment with a limited duration; its evolution proceeds until the moment of overcoming the trauma, strengthening our maturity and our personal growth. However, just as it is easy to recognize that it is a natural process that involves suffering in most people, it is also known that it can become complicated, causing disturbances if the symptoms persist over time and hinder the normal flow of days. Many people get stuck in one of the stages of this process without being able to break away and leave what they have lost.

It is difficult to determine when the pain really ended; however, one of the signs that this has happened is that the person is able to look behind him, towards his past, and remember the person who left and the moments shared with a serene and calm affection, with pain. , but without pain. Normally, the elaboration of this whole process lasts between two and three years, depending on the individual in question and the type of bond that united him with the missing person.

Pain processing

To process the pain, it is necessary to go through three different stages, in which very painful emotions are normally experienced. These stages are not fixed and stand-alone periods, but tend to overlap because they contain a mixture of emotions and responses.

Worden describes the actions a person must perform in order to overcome pain in this way:

• Accept the reality.
• Experiencing pain and grief.
• Adapting to a world where the missing person is absent.
• Emotionally relocate the deceased and look to the future.

What can we do to process the pain?

• Accepting and understanding that pain is a natural process that takes some time cannot be attempted to speed it up. Coping with loss and living it gradually will generate more self-confidence, making us develop new mechanisms and new aspects of our personality.

• Don’t resist change. After the loss of a person or thing that occupied a central place in our life, transformations take place: the best thing to do is to accept all these changes and see not only the aspects in which we now feel poorer, but also the new opportunities that present themselves to us to grow.
• Express our emotions and feelings : they must be communicated and not repressed. If necessary, you should also seek the help of a professional.
• Fill us with vitality, increase our social relationships, learn new things or do physical activity, depending on our age and our health conditions.
• Finding a new meaning in life, creating and developing projects.

When is it time to ask for help?

The pain, suffering, and ailments that accompany pain are not “abnormal” things, but there are certain symptoms that indicate that we should see a professional, even if, in reality, the decision to do so or not is entirely personal.

According to Robert A. Neimeyer, you should seriously consider talking to an expert about pain if any of the following symptoms occur:

• Intense feelings of guilt;
• Thoughts about suicide
• Extreme despair;
• Prolonged restlessness or depression
• Physical symptoms (noticeable weight loss, feeling of having a strong weight on the chest, etc.);
• Controlled Ira;
• Continued difficulty in carrying out daily activities;
• Substance abuse.

Although each of these symptoms may be typical of a normal pain processing process, if it persists over time, it becomes a reason to worry and to consider seeking an expert.

Pain processing involves making contact with the void left by the person who is no longer there, evaluating its importance and enduring the suffering and frustration caused by the disappearance. (Jorge Bucay)

Image courtesy of Emerald Wake