Why is mental pain considered to be more suspect than physical pain?
I was thinking about how everyone thinks that drugs that help with physical pain or physical illness are a wonder; whereas when people seek to address mental pain on their own, they are seen as hedonic, out of control lushes.
When most people think about why someone takes drugs or drinks or has a lot of sex in order to feel better, they draw the conclusion that that person is a self-indulgent hedonist who cares only about their own pleasure. Most, I believe, assume the worst motives for those who seek to feel pleasure. Yet, when someone breaks a leg, and tries a pain-killer to make them feel better, there is no opprobrium.
The idea that people may be “self-medicating” in order to cover some serious mental or emotional pain or depression probably never occurs to most people. Even if it did, the method for dealing with that pain seems almost universally considered to be lazy. It demonstrates a lack of strength and self-discipline, most people probably think.
Mental illness can not be seen, obviously, so I suppose that makes people mistrust those who claim to suffer from it. But I think there must be something deeper going on. People don’t just scorn those who are addicts, they try to take away their pain killers. It’s as if some people should just suffer if they can’t deal with mental pain some other way.
It seems like there is little sympathy for people who experience mental pain, except if they follow medically prescribed methods for diagnosing and dealing with it. They are told to kick the habit or go to jail, and little effort is made to deal with the underlying pain that causes people to seek out addicting substances in the first place.
Seems to me like this is a plan that is guaranteed to fail. “Snap out of it” says that the pain doesn’t really exist. It says that the sufferer is self-indulgent. It is very rare that physical ailments are questioned the same way. Why is that?
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Rule number 3.: If it doesn’t leave a mark, it never happened
This is because mental pain isn’t, at least in my experience, nearly as common as physical pain. Think about your experiences – how many times have you felt physical pain? How many times have you felt mental pain? Everyone feels their share of physical pain over the course of their childhood, but not much mental pain. When I think of my experiences as a 17 year old, I’ve felt maybe hundreds of different types of physical pain, and because of this, I can imagine what almost any physical pain might feel like. On the other hand, I really don’t think I’ve ever felt mental pain.
So when I or someone with this similar set of experiences (A large part of the population I should think) witnesses others with pain, it is much easier to understand, relate to and sympathize for physical pain than mental pain because we’ve all experienced something similar or have some base level to judge on.
The reason that mental pain is put under more scrutiny is because it is far less prevalent – and because of this, much more suspect.
(I might be interpreting your definition of mental pain wrong – correct me if true.)
I don’t think anyone really believes this. We have all had experience of grief and pain, since young childhood. I don’t really believe @cbloom8, to tell you the truth. @cbloom8 has never been jealous, never had hurt feelings, never been unfairly accused of something, never had a friend relative or pet die? It is commonplace for all humans to experience mental anguish, except maybe sociopaths, and even they know enough to pretend that they do.
@cbloom8 It’s interesting—what you say—it reminds me that indeed we are dealing with a hidden pain. It is hidden in a number of ways. First of all, you can’t see it. Second of all, people hide it. Third of all, there is much shame about it. Fourth there is little information about it.
You believe that mental pain is much less prevalent, yet the psychological industry estimates that one in five people has some form of mental illness. How many people do you know who are mentally ill? Not hardly any. So if the one in five estimate is real, everyone is keeping it a secret. No one knows what is really going on.
This reminds me of a quote from Mitch Hedberg:
“Alcoholism is a disease, but it’s the only one you can get yelled at for having. ‘Damn it, Otto, you’re an alcoholic.’ [or] ‘Damn it, Otto, you have lupus.’ One of those two doesn’t sound right.”
A lot of the time, people don’t have compassion for things that they can not seem to understand. If someone has never felt the kind of emotional pain that is so severe that they need to medicate, then they are not going to be able to understand others that have had that kind of pain.
The general public tends to be more receptive to easing physical pain because the majority are able to understand it, and put it into perspective better.
Someone that tells someone that is having unbearable mental anguish to just “get over it”, “grow up” or “stop being so weak”, says these things for one of two reasons.
Either one, they could not possibly comprehend that magnitude of pain, since they have never experienced that within themselves. If they had, they would never make such audacious suggestions.
Or two, if they have experienced this kind of anguish, such apathy, may be a protection mechanism of their underlying terror of it.
@MrsDufresne I really appreciate your answer. It seems very apt and impressive—partly because I’m not sure I understand point 2 at all. Can you explain that a little more, please? Especially what the protection method is, or how it works. Is this another way of saying “denial?” (Not the river in Egypt).
It is acceptable stay at home in bed because you have a migraine. It is not acceptable to stay in bed all day because you are severely depressed.
There is something very wrong with that. I have been in both situations and can tell you the mental pain of my depression is far worse than any migraine.
I would guess that it is, in part, due to the fact that mental pain can be faked but something like the flu can’t. Also, it is easy to get in to your doctor to see you for a bad back and give you a note for school or work, but not so much for your psychiatrist. One, psychiatrists don’t have that kind of availability and two, they usually cost considerably more.
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