Therapeutic Toothache

Therapeutic Toothache

In the middle of Friday night my infected tooth is hurting, it is so intense and probably amplified by the still of the night, I feel like I cannot cope with it. As I wake all I can focus is on is the pain and how to get rid of it. I can’t see the dentist until Monday and even then, removal of this pain isn’t guaranteed. The pain is insufferable, all encompassing, I don’t feel I have pain in my tooth, I am in pain.

There seems something powerful in this move from having pain in some part of me, to being in pain. Whilst in language this seems a small distinction, what it seems to be distinguishing is a large difference.

Having a pain in my tooth localises it in space, one part of me is in pain. Having a pain in my tooth that the dentist\drugs will alleviate temporalizes it. When I am in pain, then this seems to move to the existential level and describes my being.

It seems then that the intensity of pain moves the pain up from a pain in my tooth to being in pain and the levels of hopelessness to making it atemporal 

When I am in pain, then a significant part of my being is consumed by this. My attention is on my pain. I don’t do things because of my pain; indeed, the rest of my life is annihilated as the dishes stack up, the phone calls go unanswered and my unloved sweating body festers on the sofa in the face of another repeated rerun on TV.

Whilst the distinction between physical and emotional pain doesn’t seem to be clear due to the interweaving of mind and body, there seems an interesting correlate with emotional pain.

With emotional distress the correlates seem to be as follows

Firstly, that the intensity of an emotion can under traumatic situations lead to the PFC not being involved in perception or memory encoding which can lead to an experience\memory that isn’t temporal, as the PFC gives the rational and therefore temporal aspect of perception.

Secondly if you don’t understand the emotion, what’s causing it, then you don’t localise it, I am feeling sad due to x, if you can’t do that then the response is I am sad, which in turns points to your being, which in turn intensifies the pain.

Thirdly as your emotional pain becomes intense and you are your emotion, rather than having your emotion. Then your attention in the world is affected and defined by your emotion.  

When you become your emotion rather than having it several things seems to go on

You act according to your emotion, so if you feel low, you do things that produce more low feeling, if you feel anxious then you look to stay safe and protect yourself producing more fear as there is something you need to stay safe or protect yourself from.

As you become your emotion then there is also a sense of isolation as you give it your whole attention. This sense of isolation can lead to two problems, firstly  to feeling that its only you that is having it, which means something bad about you. Secondly the isolation  breaks you from your attachment bonds, the sense of feeling safe within groups or the sense of feeling safe within my lifestyle. Of course as you feel less safe, your distress in turn intensifies.