I may start a series of posts where I describe my chronic pain experiences for writers who may need inspiration to torture their characters. you know, for entertainment. I'm in a good place mentally about my pain, and I have no problems with talking about it.
i posted something the other day, but now I have a new chronic pain experience! this one's a doozy lol. and I suppose I should put a trigger warning for self-harm here, though that's not reeeeeeally what this post is about. kind of. not really.
I had a cavity filling done this morning, which actually wasn't painful until the novocaine wore off. when it did wear off, half of my face felt like I had just been punched by the hulk. this went on for hours. I thought about taking ibuprofen, but I realized something. the acute pain in my face was distracting me from the chronic pain in my body. and it felt good.
house md season 1 episode 11 "detox" actually talks about this concept. house breaks his finger to distract his body from his leg pain. wilson refers to it as the brain's gating mechanism for pain, and asks house if it worked. "my hand hurts like hell. yeah, I feel much better."
now I realize this is a really unhealthy coping mechanism, but I personally don't have self-harm tendencies. I don't want to be in the habit of creating other pains to dull the big pain.
but it got me thinking about characters who are constantly in fights, constantly getting knocked down and getting the fuck back up again. what if part of the thrill of the fight is a distraction from the normal agony? the adrenaline rush along with each punch in the gut, each kick in the face, each jab in the ribs... these characters have a constant pain threshold. so when the pain is different, they mistake it for feeling better.
and then, on the flipside, when the acute pain wears off and they become aware of their regular pain, it's exhausting all over again. I'm sitting here right now and the pain in my face has gone away, but my lower back down through my hip aches worse than it usually does, because I wasn't aware of it all day.
I'm picturing a scene of a hero fighting the good fight, feeling alive while getting the shit kicked out of them, and then getting back home to their partner or teammates or sidekick or what have you, and just collapsing. could make for some great drama!