Our continuous psychic pain

Oct 06, 2019 Countryman, News

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By Dennis Nichols

For what it’s worth, I’ve used this week’s column to traverse the road of pain – the lonely subjective kind, born of psychological trauma and empathy, including our reaction to unpleasant situations and events beyond our personal space, and our control.
It’s a human and global experience, and in little Guyana we are getting our share of it. The mental anguish we experience over personal problems is heightened, and interwoven with whatever distress we feel or imagine another person, family or community is going through. And in Guyana, where people so readily relate to one another, this psychic ‘pain’ may be expressed personally or communally, and often subliminally, so we may not be fully aware of why we feel the way we do.
This phenomenon, also referred to as emotional pain, is probably the most pervasive kind felt by human beings. The discomfort is described as functional, meaning there isn’t an organic cause. Under this broad heading also falls empathic pain, a sensation felt by someone who so understands another person’s trauma that he/she literally feels a degree of corresponding physical or emotional anguish and/or compassion, which if handled correctly, can have great therapeutic benefits.
The science behind it is not an exact one, and some medical/scientific experts still consider pain a strictly physical event, but to many who experience it, the feelings are subjectively real. And the person whose pain you empathize with doesn’t have to be physically present before you. I know, because I experience empathic vibes almost daily when I pick up the Kaieteur News (or any other newspaper) watch the news on television, or surf the internet. It stares me in the face and kicks me in the gut, yet I find myself unable to stop myself from reading and listening to ‘bad’ news.
Furthermore, as I speak with family members and friends, and listen to street talk, I conclude that almost everyone experiences this kind of pain sensation in varying degrees. It confuses some of us because it is often difficult to determine how and when our own feelings overlap and intermingle with those of others. Out of this confusion may emerge other feelings, for example, of our own helplessness, as well as non-reaction or overreaction to someone else’s felt injury. And it’s difficult to be objective about it.
Many Guyanese are experiencing some degree of fear and apprehension.
To the numerous acts of lawlessness, murder, rape, robbery, shootings, child abuse, trafficking, domestic violence, and white-collar misconduct, add the spate of fatal road accidents, mining pit disasters and occasional river mishaps and you have, as I alluded to earlier, individual and national angst.
Add further some elements of global chaos, and you can understand why people, especially the more religious or spiritually-inclined, are wondering just how close we may be to an apocalyptic doomsday, Guyana’s and Planet Earth’s.
Don’t even ask about the savagery and lunacy of international and domestic terrorism and crime.
Across the globe, and obviously in Guyana, we live our lives daily, caught up in our own individual adversities and aspirations. Yet we either unconsciously or knowingly empathize with others, more so with each other’s painful experiences than with the joyful ones, which I guess that is one of the reasons that bad news seems so much more contagious than good news, or perceived to be that way. (Of course this isn’t to say we don’t share each other’s’ joy; it’s just that we tend to feel each other’s pain more acutely)
Not surprisingly, empathic people often mask their inner struggle. There’s the functional mask of efficiency worn in the workplace, the anger mask to keep people at a distance, the happy mask which fools everyone but you, and the people-pleasers’ mask which makes us do what we think will make others happy, usually at the expense of our self-worth.
I am always struck by people who are obviously hurting but quickly invoke the ‘I’m too blessed to be stressed’ mantra often perfunctorily. Faith in God’s blessings is great, but a mask doesn’t banish emotional pain. Remove it. Maya Angelou says, “…we all have empathy; we may not have enough courage to display it.’
That’s what Dan Vento, who watched his nine year-old daughter degenerate and die from bone cancer, felt, and did. Speaking after the funeral, he said that both he and his wife felt as if the cancer was ripping through their bones too. He admitted, “I felt weak and lightheaded all the time like I might pass out, and needed to grab onto something – a chair, the wall, anything – to keep from falling.” Some psychologists are now declaring that such sensations are as much in the body as in the mind.
Psychic pain is real, and serves many purposes. One is that it helps us to remember that the often repeated adage ‘no man is an island’ is more than a cliché. It is a reminder of our shared humanity with all its glory and gore. Here in Guyana, if we admit empathy’s therapeutic value, it may very well help us bond as a people who ‘look out’ for one another, and our country.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

 

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