“I fucking hate pain.” That was the mantra playing in my head when I was at my dentist recently. It started playing when she was probing around my teeth, the actual procedure hadn’t even begun. I couldn’t wait for the anaesthetic for the procedure because that’s what she promised I’d get during our previous appointment.
When the time came for the procedure, she claimed that she’d use the anaesthetic for severe cases but since my condition was mild, she UNFORTUNATELY gave me a choice of starting the procedure without the anaesthetic first and that I could always ask for it if I find the procedure too unbearable. I didn’t want to seem like a wuss so of course I grudgingly chose the option without the anaesthetic. It did get painful but I tolerated it instead of asking for the anaesthetic; there were times when I wanted to punch her.
It’s not the first time I tolerated pain. I went to a massage therapist a while back thinking I could relax and de-stress; the experience was anything but that because she worked on my muscle knots relentlessly, it was extremely painful. More often than not, I wanted to punch her but instead I stayed there and took it all in without saying anything. I visited my friend/myotherapist/massage therapist a while later and when she put some necessary pressure, she said “You have a high pain tolerance. Other people would have asked me to stop.”
I even made money off pain. When I was an undergraduate student, being as poor as a typical student, I signed up to become a research participant for the University of Queensland researchers. I think they were looking into Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and pain. So, they induced pain somewhere around my knee by injecting salty water and asked me to rate my pain. Try injecting salty water into your knee, it’s not just a blip of pain, it lasts for minutes. It was incredibly painful that I wanted to punch the researchers involved, but I kept returning because I wanted that extra cash. It wasn’t just one research, once you’re on the list, the researchers passed you around to other researchers like some kind of a client list. They casually emailed you like, “Oh hey, I’ve heard you participated in that painful research experiment, want to participate in mine?” For some reason, they’re all researching pain. Yay, me.
I have two polarising reactions to pain. One: I hate it and would avoid it all cost. Two: I hate it but I’ll tolerate it even if it turns me into this furious monster deep down inside.
If I have a headache or a hint of fever, I’d quickly grab an ibuprofen or paracetamol or whatever. Ok, not whatever. While I (and probably others) use them interchangeably, there are differences between the two. They’re both analgesics (pain relievers) which is not the same as anaesthetic, where you don’t feel pain because you lose your physical sensations. Analgesics probably work by blocking/reducing the production or release of the “pain chemicals” a.k.a prostaglandins. Ibuprofen is categorised as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), so it supposedly has anti-inflammatory properties while paracetamol does not. Even though they’re relatively harmless, they could still damage your organs like your liver or kidney if you take them like candies (note to self).
Back to my story:
Growing up, my mother had a cabinet full of drugs and vitamins in the kitchen so whenever I went to her for some mild pain or ache, she’d always have something for me. Once I’ve started living independently, I make sure I always have a stash of drugs for my endless aches. Except for that one time when I didn’t stock up my stash at work, which wasn’t a disaster because I work at a pharmaceutical company. All I had to do was go up to the pharmacist of the team and ask, “Do you have drugs?”. Even though we compound Fentanyl, Oxycodone, Morphine, etc. at the facility, I only scored ibuprofen from him that day. Cue anti-climax.
Why do I hate pain? Hate is not exactly the best description of my feelings towards pain but humans would go to great lengths to either get rid of pain or avoid pain. (Obviously my post is excluding a group of people who actually derives pleasure from pain.) Take the patients who’d undertake expensive stem cell procedures for their pain, that I’ve written about in a previous post. Then there’s Dr. Gregory House’s relationship with his pain, leading him down the path of addictions to Vicodin, Oxycodone, methadone and whatever else (hey…maybe I should re-watch House M.D.?). Dr. Griffin from “The 100” turned into a drug addict because of her pain. (I don’t know why I used ficitional doctors to depict drug addicts.)
As for myself, perhaps I associate pain with failure and/or punishment. During my childhood, whenever I failed at being a good kid, I got beaten up with a thick long cane. Calm down you Westerners, before you call it domestic violence, just remember that there are parts of the world where it’s completely acceptable to hit your children to discipline them. In fact, in my culture, it’s highly recommendable. But wait! You should only hit little kids, you stop hitting them once they come of age. They have their own “reasons” for that rule, like hitting kids when they’re little would teach them but when they’re older, that’s when it’s abuse because the teaching moment is over. I guess what they didn’t want to say is that you don’t hit grown up kids because they’d have the strength to hit you back.
Anyway, my parents played by the rule. I got cheated though because the last time I was “caned” by an authoritative figure was when I was 16 years old by a warden at my boarding school. I got caught for being in the dormitory when I wasn’t supposed to because I was just too lazy to leave that day (when girls are on their period, they should leave the dorm at a specific time in the evening). I got three (or was it 10?) lashes on each hand. I say hand, but it was a long stick so the scars ran up to my arm. I turned into such a good girl since then. I became a Prefect and the Captain of the girls’ Red House (imagine Gryffindor) the very next year.
You’d think based on my experience that hitting young people as a discplinary measure works wonders. Look at who I turned out to be today. I’m Exhibit A! On the surface. Would I hit my own kids if I ever have them some day? Of course! Not. Because I know beneath that surface, it is rather…broken. It’s not surprising then that I had a maladaptive coping strategy that involved pain. Perhaps when I failed at something in my adolescent years, I felt like I deserved to be punished with pain.
If pain had such an ugly memory, where did I learn to tolerate it? When I was 8 years old, riding down the hill on my bicycle to school, I handled a speed bump badly that morning, sending me flying onto the ground and tore open my chin. My older sister, my little brother and our childhood friend panicked. Luckily, a stranger took me on his motorcycle and sent me home following my directions. Hey, this was back then when there’s no such thing as GPS, we didn’t even have mobiles phones, so I’m pretty proud of my ability to guide an unknown man home while I was in shock. Oh, I shall add that back then I lived in a world where a vulnerable, bleeding 8-year-old child didn’t seem like a good kidnapping prospect.
I was in luck that morning because my parents were just about to leave for work when this stranger dropped off their bleeding child at their front gate. (He didn’t get any reward for not kidnapping me.) My dad took me to the clinic and the nurses stitched me up. Eight stitches for an 8-year-old! Classic. The thing is, I was super calm during the whole stitching process. I’m sure they gave me anaesthetic or something but even when there was no pain, some kids probably would have reacted to the fear of strange women coming at you with needles, stitching you up as if you’re a piece of fabric. I did not. I didn’t cry, I didn’t struggle, I just let them do their work. The nurses were highly impressed that they praised me and complimented my dad. When my dad got home he relayed that to my mom and they were so proud of having a kid who didn’t cry or wail or anything that’d embarrass them. Any kid would have welcomed any validation from their parents. What that 8-year-old me learnt that day was, if I suck it up, inhibit my fear or pain and suppress my emotions, then I’d win my parents’ love and approval.
Fast forward to about 2 decades later, my ability to tolerate pain and distress can make me resentful towards others at work who are not like me. I tolerate distress at work to a degree that some would describe me as “calm” despite actually being distressed deep inside. I have worked through my pain, mostly body aches (neck, shoulder and wherever) and sometimes even anxiety-induced symptoms like nausea, difficulty breathing, etc. When people see that you can work hard, it’s only natural that more workload comes your way.
The roles I’ve taken up after academia usually involves team work. I like working hard but in heavily team-based environments, it’s very demotivating and demoralising when you’re running around trying to get things done and yet you see other people going at an easy pace or simply not caring. Some people can come to work with “reasons” as to why they cannot do certain tasks (usually the task that everybody hates). Because I’m hyper-critical of myself, I’ve also become unsympathetic of others’ woes because in my mind, I’d go “Why can’t you just push through it?!” The sentiment I was used to during my time in academia was you better show up and do your work, no matter what. So whenever I find myself in a place where you get to come in with excuses, I’d need some kind of a mental adjustment.
What others don’t realise is that everytime someone tries to wiggle out of their own responsibility, that responsibility almost always falls onto the people who do not complain or do not wave their pain around at work. Some people figured that when you get paid as much as the people who do more or less work than you, you shouldn’t bother pushing yourself when the bottom line is the same for everyone. My problem is I just don’t know how to stop giving a fuck about work. Yes, I’ve read that book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck” by Mark Manson, but I guess his message didn’t get through to me.
Perhaps acknowledging distress makes me feel weak. (I almost cried when I tried to assert my rights at work.) Perhaps I respect the authoritative figures by accepting all the responsibilities they throw my way. But when they take others’ responsibilities and pile them up onto mine, that’s when my hunger for justice trumps my nature of respecting others.
Perhaps I am so used to pain that I feel like I deserve it. It’s familiar. At this point, I don’t even know if I’m talking about the emotional pain or the physical pain. If you read “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk, you’ll learn how emotional pain could manifest as physical pain.
Whatever it is, for now my pain killer of choice is NSAIDs or paracetamol. Or a good massage. Or by having a dance party by myself in my study room before I go to work to combat my pre-work anxiety.
What’s your pain killer?
Drug Dictionary 