Paramount pain: Catharsis in play, or just plain torture?

The number of ways in which you can inflict pain on a person are endless. What almost instinctively comes to mind, whenever we hear about, or think of pain, is the kind derived from physical abuse/infliction.

Perhaps an equally effective method of inflicting pain, isn't by physical means, but emotional. Emotional pain may not hurt the skin, but it hurts in a place that is physically untouchable. It hurts to the extent that we may feel actual pain. It's a feeling that can never quite accurately be described.

In the realm of "emotional and spiritual pain", there is one weapon of destruction - Words.

Words, though just words, are exeedingly destructive if and when used "effectively". Most of us tend to underestimate the power words contain. If words are merely words, then why do they often make such devastating impacts, causing a kind of pain that remains with us, long after physical wounds have healed.

Have you ever been in a state where the insides of your head feel like they're on fire (I call it "brain-fry"), followed by your ears getting blocked. And then, to add to that fairly odd equation (brain-fry = blocked ears), your insides (stomach, intestines, lungs and what have you) feel sort of congested and entagled - At which point, your chest muscles start to feel constrained and your head feels about ready to explode. This complex, dreadful feeling that pervades your entire body until you BECOME 'PAIN' itself. PAIN personified. A walking PAIN of an entity.

I remember being in such a state one time and wondering how people actually survive this extent of pain. I think it's amazing how human beings have been made to withstand such tremendous volumes of pain. I swear. The more I think about it, the more I am marvelled. It's one of the very limited qualities that make human beings so amazing.

So, the next time I slip into one of those 'states' and start feeling sorry for myself, I should try instead, to remind myself of each time I survived very possibly, the greatest pain there is.