(Revised)
Physical vs. Emotional Pain
When is comes to the sense of touch there is a feeling that is never liked, and that feeling is pain. I hate pain and believe it is the worse part of having the sense of touch. For a while I use to only think of physical pain as the only pain I felt. That pain could only result from falling down and banging your knee, or that dreadful feeling of hitting your funny bone on a table. These are only types of minor physical pain that we come across every day, but there are those cases of extreme physical pain that result from more serious situations such as surgery. There is another way to feel extreme pain, and I believe it is from emotional experiences. I want to share an experience of major physical pain and an experience of major emotional pain. These two types of pain will be compared to one another and I will choice which one was more hurtful in my life.
Did you ever hear in movies when someone is in the hospital with that outrageous condition of pancreatitis? Does that condition even exist? Yes is does and I can tell you first hand because I had a long painful process of pancreatitis. I could give you the whole story as of how I got it but I rather just explain the pain I got from it, and the even more painful result that happened because of the pancreatitis. In short simple words, “Pancreatitis is the inflammation of the pancreas” (UMMC). When I got this condition, all I could say was, “Something is trying to crawl out of my fucking chest.” As I was screaming in the crowded emergency room, they finally took me in over the other patients. With this condition I could not eat for almost a week and I was put on a lot of pain meds. I had pancreatitis before and felt no other physical pain that could compare, until I got a rare side effect from having this condition.
It was a wonderful Wednesday morning in August, two days before the freshman were supposed to move in to their dorms at IUP, when I woke up screaming for my sister to take me to the hospital. I do not exaggerate when I say SCREAMING! My entire left arm was numb and hard to move while the inside of my stomach felt like there was knife propelled inside, twisting time after time again. The ten minute drive to the hospital felt like days. I was punching myself in the face to redirect some pain to another part of my body. It was horrible. I was rushed to get some tests done and after I got some relief with the pain medicine the doctors put me on. When I saw the doctor again he quickly explained to me and my family that I had a pancreatic pseudo-cyst the size of a softball on my pancreas and required immediate surgery. The next day, I had major surgery on my pancreas to drain the pseudo-cyst. I have never had surgery let alone major surgery in my life and didn’t realize what comes afterwards. This is where the real pain settled in and did for a long, long time.
I woke up with 28 staples holding my stomach together, a suction tube shoved down my nose, a catheter so I could go to the bathroom, two other suction tubes that where fished into my stomach through two small incisions and a time released remote to administer my pain medicine. I was told a small incision was to be made to drain the cyst, but lucky me, mine ruptured during surgery, Ha-ray! After the surgery I was in so much pain it seemed like it hurt more than the pseudo-cyst before the surgery. The doctors had to cut through my entire abdomen, muscles, tissue, and move some organs out of the way to clean up the ruptured cyst. I remained this for the next 8 days in the hospital until I could barley get up on my own. I was released to go home where I spent the next month and half in my house. Almost all the time was spent in my bed crying from all the pain. Every time I looked at my stomach I just thought to myself, what happened? The wound was still open and I literally had to shove packing tape inside it to absorb the bleeding. Believe it or not, this was the least painful part. The scar was and is still numb from so many nerve ending having to get cut, but that pain was so immense it still radiated out through my whole body. What you read above was my life for the next couple months. When I was in bed watching TV and had to go the bathroom, it would take me 5 minutes to get the courage to move, another 5 minutes to get from laying to sitting, then about another 5 minutes to get on my own two feet. Three times a day I, changed the dressing around the scar and had to drain the excess fluids that still came out of my body. What is still scary to me is not remembering those months because it was so much of the same thing for so long. Having this surgery was without a doubt the worse physical pain I have ever felt and might ever feel.
Physical pain has always sucked, is constant and eventually goes away over sometime depending on how serious the accident is. There is another type of pain that puts a lot of stress on my body, state of mind and is not as direct as physical pain. I am talking about the emotional pain we feel as humans. One emotional pain that I feel is universal is the breaking up with your first love. Yes were kids and still too young for love but we still feel it for people no matter what our age might be.
I was in high school when I met my first love Julie. It was a time in my life when I felt complete and that I found the perfect girl. Her being my first real girlfriend and me being her first real boyfriend, we experienced those entire firsts with each other. First kiss, going out on dates, arguments over absolutely nothing, jealousy, everything that comes a long with a relationship. It wasn’t until about a year deep in our relationship until we both realized we loved each other. We were on top of the world. Then ultimately we realize we are kids and too young for love. I was a year older and leaving for college so we start talking about breaking up but have not yet. It didn’t even need to come to that because I found out I was being cheated on by this girl who I loved and she claimed she loved me. My heart was broke for the first time, and I was very emotionally hurt.
Paul Hannig understands the process of the break up and what our bodies go through during this course. He stated that “Suffering in hurt, disappointment, rage and betrayal is agonizing”. This is all I could feel at the time. When I first heard the news that I was being cheated on, it was like a physical blow to my stomach. I was lost for words, and could not breathe. I just kept asking why, and I never did find out why because from that night on I completely stopped talking to the girl I once loved. After that night, I was a different person for a while. I could always see this depressed feeling upon my face, and when I was a lone, I screamed, yelled and cried to try and rid the pain I felt. I was so confused about what to do and felt like I had no one to talk to. Julie was the girl who I talked to about my problems in life and she helped me solve them, but now she was the problem. Every time I thought of her I got this feeling of betrayal that turned to pain and hate. I had no other way of dealing with the hurt. A lot of time went by before I could say I moved on away from Julie, but I think it took too long. I spent too much of my time in ache over someone that I meet in high school at such a young age.
When it comes to these two types of pain I find it hard to want to feel a certain one over another. I know I never want to go through the pain of my surgery again, but I have my stomach to look at as a reminder for the rest of my life. There is no way to escape that feeling completely. The physical pain was a huge burden on me, and wore me out. Having physical pain in your body, yes hurts at the time or for some time, but you can take medicine for that and feel better at times. When I broke up with Julie, this girl I still loved even though she cheated on me, I couldn’t just take some Advil and the pain of her cheating on me would be gone. This was a deeper inner pain that stayed with me over a long period of time, but I learned a lot from the situation too. Relationship breakup, though being a time of great pain, can also be a remarkable period of growth and recovery (Hanning). I realized that I am young and have plenty of time to find the right one for me. It took me a while to cope with the emotional pain but like I said there is no medicine for emotional pain. It is how one finds a way to recover, take control and forget.
In my life, I can imagine going through a lot more emotional pain such as a break up than having that extreme physical pain of surgery. I feel that emotional pain is tough but it benefits you when you over come it and train your brain to cope with that feeling. Yes having my surgery was a long painful process, but most of it was dealt with pain killers. This made life a little easier for me physically. The more experience I get with emotional pain will make me a tougher person when it comes to emotional situations that I will need to make down the road. After the comparing of my physical pain and my emotional pain, I would rather deal with emotional pain as practice for future problems to come in life.
Works Cited
Acute Pancreatitis – Overview (Oct, 2008). Retrieved Mar, 13, 2009 from http://www.umm.edu/ency/article/000287.htm
Hannig, P. (n.d.). From Emotional Pain to Whole Again. Retrieved Mar. 13, 2009, from http://www.nvo.com/psych_help/fromemotionalpaintowholeagain/
Pre Writing Goals
This essay is going to be my hardest one yet. It took me a while to figure out what goals I need to set and how to go about accomplishing them. I am writing a compare and contrast essay about pain. I want to compare a time of physical pain and emotional pain in my life. My subject for physical pain is my recent surgery on my pancreas and my emotional pain is of course breaking up with my first girlfriend, someone I that I loved. After stating the pain I felt from both I will compare them and start which side I felt was more painful in my life. This paper will be in APA formatting and about 4-5 pages in length. I also will need 3 sources and in text citations for this paper.
Physical vs. Emotional Pain
When is comes to the sense of touch there is a feeling that is never liked, and that feeling is pain. I hate the sense of pain and believe it is the worse part of having the sense of touch. For a while I use to only think of physical pain as the only pain I felt. That pain could only result from falling down and banging your knee, or that dreadful feeling of hitting your funny bone on a table. These are only types of minor physical pain that we come across every day, but there are those cases of extreme physical pain that result from more serious situations such as surgery. There too is another way to feel extreme pain, I believe it is from emotional experiences. I want to share an experience of major physical pain and an experience of major emotional pain. These two types of pain will be compared to one another and I will choice which one was more hurtful in my life.
Did you ever hear in movies when someone is in the hospital with that outrageous condition of pancreatitis? Does that condition even exist? Yes is does and I can tell you first hand because I had a long painful process of pancreatitis. I could give you the whole story as of how I got it but I rather just explain the pain I got from it, and the even more painful result that happened because of the pancreatitis. In short simple words, “Pancreatitis is the inflammation of the pancreas” (UMMC). I got this condition and all I could say when it happened was, “Something is trying to crawl out of my fucking Chest”! As I was screaming that in the crowded emergency room, they finally took me in over the other patients. With this condition you can not eat for almost a week and I was put on a lot of pain meds. I had pancreatitis before and felt no other physical pain that could compare, until I got a rare side effect from having this condition.
It was a wonderful Wednesday mornings in august, two days before freshman were supposed to move in to their dorms at IUP, when I woke up screaming for my sister to take me to the hospital. I do not exaggerate when I say SCREAMING! My entire left arm was numb and hard to move while the inside of my stomach felt like there was knife propelled inside and twisted time after time again. The ten minute drive to the hospital felt like days. I was punching myself in the face to redirect some pain to another part of my body. It was horrible. I was rushed to get some test done and after that I was got some relief with the pain medicine the doctors put me on. When I saw the doctor again he quickly explained to me and my family that I had a pancreatic pseudo-cyst the size of a softball on my pancreas and required immediate surgery. The next day, I had major surgery on my pancreas to drain the pseudo-cyst. I have never had surgery let alone major surgery in my life and didn’t realize what comes after words. This is where the real pain settled in and did for a long, long time.
I woke up with 28 staples holding my stomach together, a suction tube shoved down my nose, a catheter so I could go to the bathroom, two other suction tubes that where fished into my stomach through two small incisions and a time released remote to administer my pain medicine. I was told a small incision was to be made to drain the cyst, but lucky me, mine ruptured during surgery, Ha-ray! I was in so much pain it seemed like it hurt more than the pseudo-cyst before the surgery. The doctors had to cut through my entire abdomen, muscles, tissue, and move some organs out of the way to clean up the ruptured cyst. I was like this for the next 8 days in the hospital until I could barley get up on my own. I was released to go home where I spent the next month and half in my house. Almost all the time was spent in my bed crying from all the pain. Every time I looked at my stomach I just thought to myself, what happened? The wound was still open and I literally had to shove packing tape inside it to absorb the bleeding. Believe or not this was the least painful part. The scar was and is still numb from so many nerve ending having to get cut, but that pain was so immense it still radiated out through my whole body. What you read above was my life for the next couple months. When I was in bed watching TV and had to go the bathroom, it would take me 5 minutes to get the courage to move, another 5 minutes to get from laying to sitting, then about another 5 minutes to get on my own two feet. Everyday three times a day I change the dressing around the scar and had to drain the excess fluids that still came out of my body. What is still scary to me is not remembering those months because it was so much of the same thing for so long. Having this surgery was with out doubt the worse physical pain I have ever felt and might ever feel.
Physical pain has always sucked, is constant and eventually goes away over sometime depending on how serious the accident was. There is another type of pain that puts a lot of stress on your body, state of mind and is not as direct as physical pain. I am talking about the emotional pain we feel as humans. One emotional pain that I feel is universal to every one at some point is the breaking up with your first love. Yes were kids and still to young for love but we still feel it for people no matter what our age might be.
I was in high school when I met my first love Julie. It was a time in my life when I felt complete and that I found the perfect girl I could ever want. Her being my first real girlfriend and me being her first real boyfriend, we experienced those entire firsts with each other. First kiss, going out on dates, arguments over absolutely nothing, jealousy, everything that comes a long with a relationship. It wasn’t until about a year in our relationship until we both realized we loved each other. We were on top of the world. Then ultimately we realize were kids and to young for love, I was a year older and leaving for college so we start talking about breaking up but haven’t yet. It didn’t even need to come to that because I had found I out I was being cheated on by this girl who I loved and she claimed she loved me. My heart was broke for the first time, and I was very emotionally hurt.
Paul Hannig understands the process of the break up and what our bodies go through during this course. He stated that “Suffering in hurt, disappointment, rage and betrayal is agonizing”. This is all I could feel at the time. When I first heard the news I was cheated on it was like a physical blow to my stomach. I was lost for words, air and could not breathe. I just kept asking why, and I never did find out why because from that night on I completely stopped talking to the girl I once loved. After that night I was a different person for a while. I could always see this depressed feeling upon my face, and when I was a lone I screamed, yelled and cried to try and rid the pain I felt. I was so confused about what to do and felt like I had no one to talk to. Julie was the girl who I talked to about my problems in life and she helped me solve them. Now she was the problem. Every time when I thought of her I got this feeling of betrayal that turned to pain and hate. I had no other way of dealing with the hurt. A lot of time went by before I could say I moved on away from Julie, but I think it took to long. I spent too much of my time in ache over someone that I meet in high school at such a young age.
When it comes to these two types of pain I find it hard to want to feel a certain one over another. I know I never want to go through the pain of my surgery again, but I have my stomach to look at as a reminder for the rest of my life. There is no way to escape that feeling completely. The physical pain was a huge burden on me, and wore me out as a human. Having a physical pain in your body, yes hurts at the time or for some time, but you can take medicine for that and feel better at times. When I broke up with Julie, this girl I still loved even though she cheated on me, I couldn’t just take some Advil and the pain of her cheating on me would be gone. This was a deeper inner pain that stayed with me over a long period of time, but I learned a lot from the situation too. Relationship breakup, though being a time of great pain, can also be a remarkable period of growth and recovery (Hanning). I realized that I was young and have plenty of time to find the one right for me. I took me a while to cope with the emotional pain but like I said there is no medicine for emotional pain. It is how one finds a way to recover, take control and forget.
In my life time I see myself going through a lot more emotional pain such as a break up than having that extreme physical pain of surgery. I feel that Emotional pain is tough but it benefits you when you over come it and train your brain to cope with that feeling. Yes having my surgery was a long painful process, but most of it was dealt with pain killers making moving around easier for me. The more experience I get with emotional pain will make me a tougher person when it comes to emotional situations that I will need to make down the road. After the comparing of my physical pain and my emotional pain, I would rather deal with emotional pain as practice for future problems to come in life.
Works Cited
Acute Pancreatitis – Overview (Oct, 2008). Retrieved Mar, 13, 2009 from http://www.umm.edu/ency/article/000287.htm
Hannig, P. (n.d.). From Emotional Pain to Whole Again. Retrieved Mar. 13, 2009, from http://www.nvo.com/psych_help/fromemotionalpaintowholeagain/
Post writing
I had a hard time starting this essay on touch but once I got going I really got going. I feel like I could have used a lot more information than I have but most seemed unnecessary for the essay. The goals I set were a good guide line to my paper and I think I reached them all. I hope the reader likes my two experiences of pain and how I compared them. This was my first time writing on two main personal experiences but it made it easy to obtain what I needed to say. I liked this paper and hope my peer editor stays interested.
