Pain is such an abstract and intense feeling that everything else disappears into the oblivion. I have a fear of pain to the extent that it can be qualified as phobia. I even looked up for the right word. It is odynophobia—fear of pain. A quick search on Internet helpfully provided me with another choice. Psychiatrist call it algophobia—it is defined as morbid or abnormal fear of pain. Well, I refuse to believe I am in the latter category. I have a sane mind sitting on my stooping shoulders.
I am surprised that I am beginning my first post writing about pain. Strange! It is not at all the case that I have undergone or am undergoing a lot of pain in my life. I just happened to glimpse into a transient world of pain. I am glad I am able to call it transient. I have always been scared of pain—both emotional and physical.
I remember seeing a guy, who had broken his leg, being taken to the nearby hospital in a cumbersome rickshaw. He was visibly in pain. He was constantly pleading to rickshaw-puller to go slow. The rickshaw-puller was actually walking and pulling the rickshaw slowly enough not to move his already broken bone. The guy was still in terrible agony. I had witnessed this incident years ago. I have not been able to take that image out of my mind since that day. I still associate the image of that guy with broken leg with pain.
I have been fortunate not to get a broken bone in my life. I pray hard to God that I remain that way always. I am scared. I am scared of childbirths, I am scared of all sort of physical pain that comes by in a normal life.
Emotional pain, I realize, can be as tormenting. Though in a different way. You lose track of the entire world around you. You either lose your appetite or gain it in an abnormal way, depending on the kind of person you are. Some people become overtly aggressive, others withdraw into their cocoon. Some want to talk about their angst, others carry it around in their bosom. You give in to impulses, do strangest of things without any clear rationale. Like I did with this first post. I admit I have odynophobia, though there is no escape from it.
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