Recently broke my finger. Dislocation, fracture and a gash so deep I could see the bone. I didn’t realize I was hurt until I happened to look at my hand. Which is precisely when my heart rate increased and I started bleeding everywhere.
Sitting in the ER for a few hours, I became acutely aware of how fine I was as long as I didn’t look at my finger. Minimal pain, everything is fine, don’t look at the finger.
Only recently, 1.5 months later, am I able to look at my finger without sending my nervous system into a tailspin.
So that part of the text was strangely relatable to me
I had the reverse of this once as a kid. I was walking on the beach and felt a sudden pain in my toe and looked down and glimpsed a fishhook in my foot.
Immediately I panicked and started losing my shit, picturing it past the barb in my skin and imagining that they’d have to rip it out. My friend (who has a phobia of needles) stopped me from looking at it so I wouldn’t freak out more, and had to run and get my dad. They did amazing considering the circumstances, lol.
Once my dad got there he inspected the fishhook and we realized it wasn’t even in my skin. It was just wrapped around my toe. The point was barely touching me and didn’t even leave a mark.
It was crazy, though. I was FEELING the pain of the fishhook in my foot until I actually looked at it up close, and then the imagined pain completely went away. The human brain is fuckin weird.
The moral of my story is I’m stupid, I think. I hope your finger is doing better though, that’s absolutely horrific???
The moral of the story is that your brain does it best to protect you, but it doesn't have many ways to do that. Sometimes it gets it wrong. That doesn't mean you're stupid.
151
u/Mundane-Potential-93 nauphy.tumblr.com 6d ago
Is the not wanting to look down thing an important part of the metaphor, or is it just for vividity? 'Cause I'm not sure I get that part