THE ANATOMY OF PAIN

WHY ME? That’s the redundant question associated with pain. When something unfortunate happens, that’s the question people ask; why me?

In the often long time relationships with pain there are so many questions that come out.

It is said that there are three stages of pain, and even personally I can say that they are indeed the inevitable truths. 

First comes denial, the ‘why me’? Why not someone else? How can it be me? Interestingly despite pretending to be empathizing all our lives, humans are quick to substitute someone else in their place. As soon as the tragedy befalls we wish that maybe, somehow, just somehow it’s someone else. Just not us! These are the times, which present us exactly how we are. Who and what would we not sacrifice in those moments of anguish, if we could?

Second comes aggression. The denial not so slowly converts into anger. This phase often makes people question their life long beliefs and a sense of aggressive rebellion towards the whole world. Every relationship that we have, that we once thought to be the strongest, goes up in smoke! And they are not often a result of the aggression as much as they are disappointments. At that moment the reason for our anger is not the only reason, it’s the culmination of the illusions that we have been entertaining our entire lives. In those days I hated everything positive, anything that signified the essence of life. Smiling faces filled me with intense bitterness, people in general felt disgusting, kids were intolerable, and flowers made me cringe. Solitude, however, was welcoming and eventually becomes our saviour.

The time spent alone, staring at nothing lost somewhere inside our own selves, wandering in the crevices of our small complicated minds we stumble upon the third stage of pain, Acceptance. To be honest I cannot imagine there is any respite from mental pain ever but there does prevail a sense of acceptance. After living through denial and anger for years we step out of the cocoon, at terms with life.

Its hard to say that things happen for a reason, even harder when we have just encountered pain in life. But after years of living with it even an agnostic person like me can’t help but feel that some events in our lives are indeed destined. No matter how much they leave us withered and broken, by the end they make us the best of people. Nothing can ever substitute the pain of departing with a loved one, but would I have been the same person otherwise that I am now?