I don’t know how to say this… the girl slowly placed two americanos on our table, playing for time, the owner’s heartbroken.
My dad and I took a sip of our coffees. Why was she divulging this information? I wondered, failing to find a logical path from “I’m serving coffees to strangers” to “I should tell them my boss was dumped.”
They used to run the café together, but they recently broke up. The owner’s not doing so well. She lets me handle the place, doesn’t come around much. I’m not confident I can make a good piccolo unsupervised.
Finally satisfied with her explanation for why she wouldn’t take my piccolo order earlier (there’s the link!), the staff let out a nervous laugh and retreated to the counter.
Poor woman, dad said, referring to the owner whom we’d only seen twice in the two weeks we’d been going daily to the café for our morning coffee.
I wonder which is worse, he continued, physical or emotional pain.
Pain in the body, pain in the mind
My dad’s question was prompted not only by the café owner’s reported heartbreak, but also by his own condition. He’d been suffering from varying levels of pain in his leg for over a week, pain that was preventing him from exercising, painting, driving—his daily life reduced to trying to keep still in the recliner so the pain wouldn’t worsen.
Wouldn’t physical pain be worse? I answered with a question, dwelling on dad’s predicament. Because you also feel low when you can’t do stuff. So then you end up having emotional pain as well. Dad nodded his agreement, good point.
Whereas if you only have emotional pain, I continued, you can still do things. Go for a walk, see friends, exercise. And those things can help you feel better.
Yes, it’s worse to have physical pain, I concluded, agreeing with myself. Pain in the mind can exist without pain in the body. But pain in the body cannot exist without pain in the mind, leaving you in a double whammy of pain.
A question of degree
Last Friday’s Val Thinks went out a couple of hours later than usual. There had been a false fire alarm just before 6am—my newsletter send time—and as I was trying to fall back asleep, to my absolute horror I realised: I hadn’t scheduled my newsletter send.
I had planned to do a final revision and schedule it on Thursday, but in the aftermath of a spectacular fall (friendly reminder: look where you’re walking) and my ankle swelling up like an apple, I swapped all plans for a cycle of ice-gel-compress-repeat. In the midst of fussing over my apple-shaped ankle and worrying that the swelling wasn’t going down, for the first time ever I forgot my newsletter.
Thankfully the post was nearly send-ready, and after a word replaced here, a sentence tweaked there, I was able to schedule it on Friday morning for a 9am send.
Newsletter crisis averted and with time to spare before work, I fell into conversation with my partner and asked him the question my dad had posed a few weeks ago.
It’s a difficult one, he replied. Researchers have found that emotional pain registers in the body in the same way as physical pain. Maybe the two are one and the same, and which is worse becomes a question of degree.
Take your sprained ankle, for example. This is a small pain that will soon go away, and you’ll be fine again. Compare that with chronic pain that lingers for years, in which case life becomes a veritable struggle.
As I followed my partner’s reasoning, my mind drifted to the café owner with her heartbreak. Maybe she’ll find a new love and forget all about her pain in a few weeks. Maybe she’ll pick herself up after several months by finding new hobbies or devoting herself to work (and finally teaching her staff how to make a piccolo). Maybe she’ll fall into a deep depression and her wound will fester for years.
Talking to my partner, I realised that pain isn’t necessarily lesser by dint of being emotional, as I had confidently asserted to my dad not that long ago. Emotional pain can be as crippling as physical pain. I should know after years of suffering from a debilitating depression that sometimes prevented me from leaving even the bedroom I’d ensconced myself in.
It doesn’t matter if the pain is emotional or physical. If it hurts, it hurts. And the more it hurts, the harder it is to recover—whether the pain is in the body or the mind.
What do you think?
From time to time, I ask myself dualistic questions like this. Most recently, I rather morbidly asked which I’d rather lose: body or mind (answer: mind). This time, I say it depends. How about you?
Which is worse: physical or emotional pain?
Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this with someone who takes on pain like a champ.
Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,
Val
Photo by Road Trip with Raj on Unsplash