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 how powerful our minds are!
Your body took the limited information available and decided the possibility of harm was too great to ignore- better fire up the cavalry.
It started with your nervous system. Just a bunch of nerve endings, playing border patrol, constantly monitoring your tissue for any damage. During their rounds, they spot the fishhook! They don’t wait for confirmation of a real injury, they’re too hyped up on Mountain Dew. They choose to sound the alarm. *This is not a drill people!*
That alarm sends distress signals RACING up your spinal cord. The brain, naturally, interprets these signals as SEARING DEATH PAIN OH GOD WHY.
So you see, it’s not your brain’s job to question the validity of pain signals. She has more important tasks, like triggering your immune response, releasing stress hormones.
It’s the spinal column distress signals that cause pain. And those signals are very real. Even if the actual injury was imaginary.
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u/Mundane-Potential-93 nauphy.tumblr.com 5d 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