Emotional pain, worse than the physical

Written by Christina Duvenhage

I am not one to cry, but for some reason since the day I cried in the hospital I seem to have more of these emotional days. I can't explain why, but this must be part of my healing journey. It probably makes sense my body has 30 years of trauma stored.

I hate crying, I have always said to myself when I start crying "What is the use you cry, it's not gonna solve anything" then it's like a switch being turned off and I just stop. Never dealing with the feelings, the hurt, the betrayal and heartache. Just simply acting like it never happened.

I think it just started to catch up with me. I don't mind the crying, it's the emotions that goes with it. To me it just hurts more than physical pain. I would rather avoid the ache in my heart. But you can only avoid it for so long and then it starts manifesting in your body as physical pain.

To me the physical pain is better, you can see it, feel it and treat it. Physical pain you can treat with medication, ointment, or a plaster, you can manage that pain. But with emotional pain there is no treatment. You can't put a plaster on and then it heals. You have to feel it, sit with it and acknowledge it in order to deal with it so that you can heal.

The physical pain never goes away when you have fibromyalgia, it just depends on the severity each day. And even though there are days where I can't get out of bed, where the pain is just to much no medication works. The ache in my heart just never goes away. The Bi-polar triggers a depressive episode and the borderline personality starts playing games in your mind and before you know it, everything just feels to much and you wish you could run, run and never look back. The only problem is no matter where you run to, you can't escape your mind. You can't escape the ache in your heart. The million pieces your heart is in. How do you fix a broken heart anyway? How do you heal your heart, when the ones who broke it feels that they have done nothing wrong. They just continue with their lives and pretend you never existed. They make you question your worth everyday. You feel not good enough, the problem, to demanding, misunderstood, not worthy of love. Physical pain does not question your worth. emotional pain, creates scars and mark on your heart that haunts you with every rejection, every no and every I don't love you. It is not the physical pain that drives me to suicidal thoughts, it's the emotional pain. The small things and sometime the big things.

Scientist has done studies and find that one can actually suffer or die from Broken heart syndrome. The exact cause of broken heart syndrome is not fully understood, but many doctors believe it can be triggered by mental or physical stress or a traumatic event, According to the 2018 study, risk factors can include anxiety/depression.

My body can ache, and I might not get out of bed sometimes, but my heart hurting is far worse than any aching limp, muscle or skin. If my body aches I can tell someone, but the heart is silent.

So for me emotional pain is far worse than physical pain. Physical pain people understand, but heartache is sacred, you have to heal on your own.