Poll: Physical or Emotional Pain?

[CrimsonBlaze]

I wouldn't say that neither of the two is more worse than the other, but I figure that I can brush off emotional pain pretty easily (if I don't care, or find something boring, I just ignore it until it goes away or shuts up) while physical pain might stick around a little longer. This is especially when I wake up with a bed sore and it won't go away for the rest of the day (freakin' annoying).

 

[Balvale]

Physical is worse as that takes time to heal. Emotional is just about getting your head straight.

I think you underestimate the process of getting your head straight in certain circumstances.

 

[TheLoneBeet]

I find emotional pain to be worse because it's harder to mark it's progress while healing and the scars are usually more apparent.

When I'm physically hurt I get the comfort of seeing that it's a little better each day.
When I'm emotionally hurt it only feels like it's getting worse from day to day.

Physical scars are sometimes sort of cool, and you can always wear some kind of clothing to cover them.
Emotional scarring is easy to spot if you know what you're looking for, and it's never a good thing.

 

[MagnetoHydroDynamics]

Fear - real, serious fear - is the worst thing imaginable.

Pretty much this.

I say sticks and stones to a certain degree, you see physical trauma and emotional pain is not entirely separate.
If I am daily in horrible pain, my quality of life goes down considerably.
If I get depressed enough I usually develop gatro-internal problems.

That said, I'd rather break a leg than lose my lover.

 

[2xDouble]

I forget who said it, but some comedian once said: "My mother never beat us kids. Not when damaging them psychologically is so much more... permanent"

 

[Kuroneko97]

Physical pain, depending on how serious, you can heal from eventually.

Emotional pain sometimes can take little time to recover, but unlike physical pain, sometimes it haunts you for life, never giving you a moment of rest.

Let me put it this way. If you're in a car accident and break your leg, but you learn you accidentally killed a whole family, which is going to hurt you longer? Similarly, if your wife/husband threw you on the street, after shooting you in the stomach to add insult to injury, which are you going to dwell on more?

So in my opinion, emotional pain hurts more, due to the length of time it takes to recover from it.

 

[DYin01]

Apples and oranges. They're so incredibly different. Having your heart broken sucks, having your leg broken too. Emotional pain can drive a person to kill him or herself, physical pain can do that without your help.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

Emotional, by far. It's much easier to find the root cause of physical pain and fix it.

Not if you live in America and don't have money. My knee hurts and there's no way in hell I can get that fixed. My best bet is that it might go away on its own, which is not guaranteed to happen. Emotional pain has always gone away on its own for me. Things can distract you from emotional pain, but not from physical pain. For example, you can sometimes laugh at a funny movie when depressed, but if your ribs are broken, laughing sucks.

 

[novixz]

Emotional pain is worse. I recently started cutting myself and it's a lot better than dealing with hate.

 

[Vamantha]

I've learned to deal with physical pain. It sucks, but a couple of pain killers will fix me right up. I'm a light weight with those little pills of joy.

Emotional pain never seems to leave. You can get over most things that hurt you, but severe emotional trauma never seems to leave. It's always there stalking you. Waiting for you to break down just a little bit so it can rush over and smother you. Mental illness needs to drink bleach as well.

 

[The Virgo]

Physical pain, by far. For those who say emotional pain is worse, here's something you should try: Take a chainsaw and cut off your arm. Now tell me, is that less painful than emotional pain? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Also, I don't really have emotions, so emotional pain isn't really something I feel or worry about feeling.

 

[Athinira]

Emotional pain can be defeated with sheer willpower and strong character.

Physical pain very rarely isn't.

Therefore i voted physical.

 

[Scipio1770]

I would have to say emotional pain. physical pain we're a bit more familiar to, we more or less know how to treat for it. psychological pain... well we're not very sure how to treat that. at least with physical pain I as a person would remain myself, i would react as a rational animal who has been injured. emotional pain is different, things like brainwashing and psychological torture literally destroy who the person is inside. I find that 10x as scary than any form of disease or injury.

 

[Amberella]

Emotional pain by far is the worst. I've experienced physical pain before and it still will never compare to the emotional pain I have endured.

 

[Continuity]

lol, you can tell there are a lot of angsty teenagers on these forums... Emotional pain worse than physical pain? Get real.

 

[ZehMadScientist]

I say... physical pain. Emotional pain is easier to deal with, in my case that is. Easier than taking a baseball bat directly to the head leading to a fractured skull at the very least. I really thought I was dead back then.

But everyone is different, aye?

 

[Athinira]

Emotional pain by far is the worst. I've experienced physical pain before and it still will never compare to the emotional pain I have endured.

Flaw of that argument is that the physical pain you have experienced hasn't been very severe then.

People more often experience extreme emotional pain than extreme physical pain (many never experience the latter). That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and that it isn't worse.

I can guarentee you, without even having experienced it myself, that there exists physical pains out there that is far worse than any emotional pain. In fact, physical pain that is severe enough can kill people (without inflicting any major physical trauma) by causing heart attacks or similar.

 

[crop52]

I'm really quite surprised by the poll results. I thought more people would vote for emotional, since the internet is so full of pretentiousness. Good work fellow escapists, you've surprised me in a good way.

But dear god, all the bias in this thread. Biased opinions, biased opinions everywhere.

 

[Amberella]

Emotional pain by far is the worst. I've experienced physical pain before and it still will never compare to the emotional pain I have endured.

Flaw of that argument is that the physical pain you have experienced hasn't been very severe then.

People more often experience extreme emotional pain than extreme physical pain (many never experience the latter). That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and that it isn't worse.

I can guarentee you, without even having experienced it myself, that there exists physical pains out there that is far worse than any emotional pain. In fact, physical pain that is severe enough can kill people (without inflicting any major physical trauma) by causing heart attacks or similar.

You also do not know the emotional pain that I have gone through, so that argument is flawed as well. One thing I can say is perhaps I have not experienced severe physical pain, but again you or I don't know if I ever will have to experience that severe physical pain, do we? No. With that said, I am still going to go with emotional pain is worse. Considering I am still deeply scarred from the emotional trauma/pain I went through.

A few facts about emotional pain.
- Circumstantial evidence is that chronic emotional stress can be associated with heart disease and early death.
- Also it known that intense emotional stress can also lead to a heart attack.
- In fact, emotional pain involves the same brain regions as physical pain.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I'm going with physical pain. Almost all emotional trauma can be worked through with enough time, effort and care; there are some physical wounds that will never fully heal, that will always hurt, and that will prevent someone from ever living a full life.

The human body is more fragile than some people believe; the human mind, less so.