Two Kinds

One accidental kick in the wrong direction and BAM. The pain was instant and sharp and left me gritting my teeth and wanting to spew out every swear word known to mankind. That is the reaction I got from stubbing my big toe. For such a little appendage, why the hell does it always hurt so much and so suddenly? That’s the pointless question I often ask myself everytime I stub my toe. Typically I wait out the seconds that follow without even being able to move because the pain has such a pronounced agony to it. Too fresh, too recent.

I don’t know if my mind was determined to be hopefully optimistic because I’ve been in the situation many times over, but one thought stood out to me: It’s only temporary, it will pass. That thought led me to another: It feels like death, but you’re not dying. You’re okay. Sure enough, the pain started to wane the more minutes passed by, though the seconds it took for me to feel better seemed excruciating long.

Somewhere along this way, it suddenly struck me that the physical sensation of pain I felt, particularly when it started out intense and awful but slowly progressed to a more tolerable level as I let the situation be, reminded me of how I feel when I’m having an episode of anxiety. It’s not exactly the same, but anxiety can be described as painful in how the symptoms manifest and how those symptoms affect a person on a physical and mental level. Racing heartbeat. Sweats. Trembling and shaking. Dry mouth. That flight-or-fight instinct kicks in though the more I have to make a choice, the more anxious I became over actually making the choice. Much like the pain from a stubbed toe, the feeling of anxiety is not fixed and permanent. It goes away eventually but can come back.

The correlation I drew between these two kinds of pain is that both types force me to deal with a highly intense level of discomfort in my body. I started to wonder if I could have faith in anxiety being a temporary thing that can and will pass, like having faith in the throbbing pain in my toe would hurt slightly less if I just endured it. Am I comparing two things that make no sense?

There are some large differences between the two pains, too. The nerve endings in a toe are very sensitive. Impact with a hard surface triggers the nerve receptors into conveying this to the brain that reads the message as “LOOKOUT, PAIN.” I hate when that happens. Also, I have no way of running away from the assault on my body because once the pain is there, it’s there to stay until it naturally tampers off on its own. So I’m left to sit or lay down or do whatever as the terrible stinging sensation subsides. I would say that, yes, within the first few seconds when the pain is at its worst, I’m convinced it will never end. There have even been times I thought I was going to die because all I could process in my mind was the pain. This, all from a stubbed toe! Doesn’t that prove how scary the power of thought is? With anxiety, the onset of it can already be present within me for a period of time before it builds and builds to the point of unbearable intensity. Unlike the other pain, for this one, I can choose to run from it or confront it.