How do you handle pain? Is your threshold high or low? Do you cry? Yell? Just be quiet? What do you do?
I was watching an episode of The Bold And The Beautiful a few weeks ago and Amber was having her baby and I swear to you, the whole hospital heard her screaming. Then later in the week we were watching that new show Combat Hospital and it was the same thing. A woman in labor was screaming and yelling at her husband and I thought to myself, do people really do this?
I’ll be the first to admit that I gave birth very easily. I had Jason in 6 hours and Toby in 2. That’s by the time I got to the hospital. Not the “whole labor” time but I had it really pretty easy. It was still no walk in the park and I don’t know how women would want to do that very many times because I’m not saying it’s fun. I’m saying who yells like that? I never once yelled at anyone or told anyone I hated them or made any out loud noises that anyone else would hear. I would feel stupid to do that. I remember I cut my foot pretty bad in 1995 and it’s really the only time as an adult I had to go to the hospital to be “patched up.” That dang shot to numb you hurts more than the stitches but I didn’t cry tears. I just kind of held my breath and took deep breaths.
When you hurt yourself, do you cry in real tears? I normally will talk to myself and tell myself what a dumb thing I did or if I hit my funny bone I’ll think to myself “oh CRAP, this hurts” but I don’t cry tears when I’m hurt.
Now if I’m hurt emotionally, I cry at the drop of a hat. I can see someone reunited with someone and I cry. Hallmark commercials or movies, I’ll cry. Watching my grandchildren do things that makes me feel like they are growing up so fast. I’ll cry. I don’t really cry much when I’m reading a book but I cry at movies EASILY.
I sometimes also cry when I get mad but then I get really mad at myself because it makes me feel weak.
What makes you cry REAL tears? Pain? Emotion? Anger?
Us Girls..Our Views 
I just endure it.
I think I handle pain well. I had an epidural when I had Hunter, so I can’t tell you how childbirth really felt like…haha it was awesome!! I would say the worst pain I’ve felt was having 2 dry sockets after having my wisdom teeth out also when I had an ingrown toenail and they put the shots in my toe to numb it. I thought I was gonna kick the guy who was putting the shots in my toe. I didn’t cry I just took deep breathes.
I cry over movies now. Ever since I had Hunter my emotions have changed. We watched Toy Story 3 the other day, and I’ve seen it before but I cried again at that movie! I think to myself stop being such a baby! Jeesh…. but its so darn cute.
So I handle getting hurt better than something emotional thats going on.
I’m the same way, pretty much. When I was younger, it was like I must hide the fact that I’m feeling pain at all. Not sure where that came from. Now I will let people know I’m hurting (unless it’s an inappropriate situation), but more as a social thing. Calmly, the same way I’d say “look what I got in the mail today.” I might make silent faces of agony just for the fun of it. The most I would do is breathe in sharply. When I mostly chopped off the fingertip of my left index finger, I quickly wrapped it in the nearest clean thing (a paper towel) and held it over my head as I silently walked around and around while deciding what to do about it. That hurt, but the worst was that I had to type up a report after getting the stitches, and I would forget to not use that finger. Suddenly OH MY SHIT it would hurt SO bad. But I would just suck in air and tell myself “dumbass” and continue typing.
I never had a baby, but my mom said the same thing you did. All that huffing and puffing and screaming and yelling in the other beds – and she’d come in and quietly have her baby and leave. She had 6, including one who did some damage on the way out, and 2 who were 100% natural births. I do recall her mentioning that my dad’s name was “MF’r” at delivery time, but it was muttered, not screamed. Personally I can’t see myself screaming because I have never felt like that was going to mitigate pain. But I can’t say anything about childbirth. I went through a whole different kind of pain to bring my kids into my world.
As for emotional stuff – I have never been one to cry emotionally, except when extremely angry. (My mom got me that mad a few times as a teen, and I HATED showing my vulnerability that way.) I do recall reading a book at age 13 that got me crying. I think that was a fluke, though. However, as has been said above, becoming a mom somehow opens the floodgates. Even while my kids were still in foster care far away, just hearing a song about certain stuff would set me off. It was so weird to me. Now my kids have this Scholastic book and video of an adoption story called “I love you like crazycakes” and it makes me cry every time, which is not what I should be doing while reading / watching adoption stuff with my kids. Ugh. However, mostly it’s still rare for me to shed tears.
I can cry over movies, books, some birthday cards with beautiful lyrics, etc. My wedding video is so beautiful still, when I watch it, I cry. And I am not good with severe pain either. I was 9 hours with the oldest one in labor. Back contractions every 1 1/2 minute for 9 hours was no fun. I gave birth to my sons at home and I still am not sure, if the neighbors have heard me screaming now and then and even said bad words. I had two times a concussion and the sudden pain and shock made me cry.
With physical pain, it really depends upon where it is, and what kind of pain it is. Most pain, I’m fine with. Certain headaches can bring me to my knees. Back pain… I can’t handle back pain. It won’t make me cry, but I freeze when my back is sore, because any movement will make it worse. Other than that… I can’t think of the last time I really cried over physical pain. Getting hurt, and being frustrated at the same time, yes – that will make me cry. But it’s the frustration, not the physical pain. And I was in labor with Josh for a while, and just breathed and moaned some through the contractions – they were relatively light, and then I got an epi, which then led to a C-section. So it was ok pain, followed by mostly numb, followed by surgical numbing.
With emotional pain, I’m kind of a “middle” cryer. Small stuff will just piss me off. And I have a temper that I don’t control as well as I used to. Medium stuff, I’ll cry over, if I have the luxury of time. Big stuff… like Steve’s wreck… I didn’t have time to cry. I know I did, but there were times that I consciously thought, “I don’t have time for this now. I will not cry, I will not even acknowledge the pain. I will deal with it on Tuesday.” They discovered the wreck on Sunday. I was able to shut down most of the crying and falling apart until Tuesday, when I went completely to pieces for a while.
I now consider that an asset. That ability to just keep going, push stuff aside and deal with the present. I’ve never been asked to deal with anything like it since, and pray that I never will again. But minor things – I’ve had friends who have had to deal with emergencies – and I’ve put that tool to use. Crying is fine, but you have to find the right time to indulge it.
I don’t usually cry at physical pain, although a good rap on the injured leg will bring tears to my eyes. Heck when i shattered the bone in my leg and it was PAAAAIIIIIINNNN, it took all my concentration to breathe through it and continue to function enough to answer all the, in my mind at the time, stupid questions the ER people have to ask. In fact, although my daughter knows my pain tolerance and the breathing trick, she was astonished to hear just have badly off the leg was. Dr. said all the people he’d dealt with previously had been screaming and crying, even the guys.
Back when I had my daughter we still got knocked out for the birthing process, but the 30 hrs of labor, 5 min apart were BAD. I did not cry, scream or swear at my husband, although his arm was numb for a few days from me holding on so tight.
Being incredibly angry, and knowing I can’t say the majority of what’s passing through my brain will cause me to get teary. And now that I’m older emotional stuff will also cause me to tear up.
I can handle pain pretty well. A constant pain, I can hide after a while. An instant pain, I usually end up cussing to myself and take REALLY deep breathes-half the time if I, say stub my toe I’ll have to sit down and concentrate on my breathing or my stomach ends up upset. I’m not much of a crier when it comes to pain. Labor-I can’t remember too much of that whole process! I do remember being upset, thinking the doc that was to do my epidural was taking his sweet little time. I think I used the F word, but I don’t think I got out of hand. Joy-you would know!!! LOL
Yesterday-I did cry. 😦 I was in so much pain, because of my tooth. I’m not even sure it was the pain that caused me to cry though. I was fine until I saw Jason and he asked me if I was okay. I kinda lost it for a moment.
Movies, certain songs, I can cry at the drop of a dime! We just watched “Brothers” Sunday and within 15 minutes I was crying like a baby.
I actually proposed to the anesthesiologist who did my epidural. I think he was considering it until I puked on him…
LOL! 😀
Sounds to me like you have a pretty high tolerance for pain, Joy! I’m like that, too. You’ve seen me on Facebook – the piercings I have all hurt but none of them made me cry, sob or scream, just sort of wince, take a deep breath and embrace the pain.
I guess I cry real tears when pain surprises me – when I fall and scrape my knee really badly or bang my head on a cupboard, then I might cry out of surprise, and only for a few seconds. My real sobs are definitely reserved for emotion.