Why Is Emotional Pain So Physical?

Some where inside my head lies the region known as "the anterior insula  and anterior cingulate cortex."  When pain occurs, regardless of the cause, this location of the brain activates and hurt is felt.  This is the reason why breaks ups hurt - literally.  Embarrassment in social settings hurt -- literally.  Likewise, when you stub your toe you'll have both a physical and emotional pain experience.



Day 2 of some pretty intense emotional pain.

I try to stay busy, but the hurt still sneaks through.
I try to write, but the hurt sneaks out of me and falls through my eyes.
I want to feel normal, but I can't until I give this break time to heal.

I've heard that it helps to think of a broken heart like a broken arm.  You don't pretend that pain isn't there.  You accept it, and you give it time to heal.

The difficult part is being on the beginning part of time.  In the initial days of hurt, injury or divorce it isn't easy to see time as a gift.  

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“Everyone keeps telling me that time heals all wounds, but no one can tell me what I’m supposed to do right now. Right now I can’t sleep. It’s right now that I can’t eat. Right now I still hear his voice and sense his presence even though I know he’s not here. Right now all I seem to do is cry. I know all about time and wounds healing, but even if I had all the time in the world, I still don’t know what to do with all this hurt right now.”
― Nina Guilbeau, Too Many Sisters


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Right now I have time.  I don't have him.
I knew how to fill my time, when I had him.
I don't have him right now.  I just have time.
I don't know what to do with time, when I'm without him.

My marriage has been full of pain.  I've felt the pain of deception.  The pain of infidelity.  The pain of rejection.  The pain of separation.  I've feel the pain of abandonment.   Pain has been almost a constant companion of mine.  Yet in all that experience I have never learned how to deal with that initial shock.  That moment when new knowledge collides with what was thought to be true -- and now isn't. The discovery of a faulty belief undoes me.   

Whether H is an addict or a "serial cheater", he's brought into my life plenty of emotional pain.  This time I have tools to apply to the hurt.  This time I make healthier choices.  This time I use the knowledge I've gained trying to understand betrayal trauma to process the hurt in more positive directions.  

It will still take time.  
There will still be rough patches.
There could still be tears.

This time I tell myself:
  1.  This isn't about me.
  2.  I am not a bad wife or a bad lover.
  3.  I'm not ugly or undesirable.
  4.  I am enough.
  5.  I may be bruised and wounded from this life, but I am not broken beyond repair.
  6.  I will get up.
  7.  I will progress.
  8.  I will heal.
  9.  I will be happy again.
10.  I can feel badly for H -- but I will not take his pain and his damaged brain on me again.  He needs to find his own path forward, his own recovery and healing.