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Pain Is A Good Teacher

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 18, 2009

Pain needs a voice. We describe what hurts to the doctor and he gives us a prescription to fix it, or tells us what to do. Saying what hurts us makes it possible to get well, and we're all good at describing the symptoms. "I have a sharp pain on the left side of my stomach." "I see bright wavy lines that dance around for a few minutes and then my head throbs."

So we have an appendectomy or get medicine for migraines, and our physical pain is relieved. But what about mental pain - anger, fear, despair? Where does relief come from?

From counseling or therapy, you might suggest, and you'd be right. When we bottle up those kinds of feelings, the result can be an explosive mixture that either erupts uncontrollably or seethes beneath the surface to burn the joy out of our lives.

But recently, I unexpectedly found a simpler way to heal myself. Over the past 10 years, someone I love has hurt me deeply and repeatedly. I have vowed to respond to her and never found the courage to do it. So one day, after an especially mutilating remark, I sat down and wrote her a letter explaining each painful incident from the past. Recounting the hurts made for a two-page single-spaced letter. It felt good to explain myself.

When it was done, I read and re-read it one hundred times and decided not to send it. I know this person well and know she is neither predisposed to empathy nor interested in self-examination. Her self-focus will not allow her to understand me, and I'm not really sure if the relationship is as important to her as it has been to me.

But something amazing happened. The pain disappeared. The yearning for reciprocated love morphed into an acceptance of reality. This is who she is. She's not going to change. I can care for- and about her- but I cannot make her care more for me.

What continues to fascinate me is the power of giving my feelings a voice and then hearing me. Somehow, writing it all down clarified so many issues. It didn't resolve them, but it made them real and it made me honest with myself. The letter was a voice I had never really heard before - my own. The built-up pressure has been released and the fire has gone out of both the pain and the love.

The relationship is one I choose to continue, but I have closed the door on the expectations I had. As someone who is conflict averse, for the past 67 years I have recognized the fierce internal whispers and wails of pain that I have felt, and I have usually chosen to absorb them and remain mute. No longer! Pain has been a good teacher and I have finally learned. Giving voice to my feelings is empowering and now I can self medicate.

Judy Kramer can be reached at JudyandOz@tampabay.rr.com.

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