Can you be suffering and not aware of it?

Repondering said:
If an unpleasant life is all one has ever known, then suffering might seem normal. I didn't enjoy very much of anything until I moved into a college dormitory at age 18. Forty eight years later it seems so clear....what I was abruptly experiencing was contentment and happiness for the first time. I had never really been aware of suffering before and oddly, even though I immediately loved being at college, happiness was a word I didn't use and didn't even understand the meaning of.
So yes, in my opinion it's possible to suffer and not really know it. An unenviable condition to be sure.
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interesting post. if you have a tough childhood then you possibly dont expect to be happy as an adult.
 

Judycat said:
If you don't know you are suffering then you aren't suffering. There is plenty of suffering going on in the world. It doesn't make it any less painful for the ones enduring it if the rest of us decide to ignore it.
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im not ignoring it. if thats what you mean.
im just trying to build my coping strategies for pain and suffering. a lot of my pain is possibly self inflicted.
 
Judycat said:
If you don't know you are suffering then you aren't suffering. There is plenty of suffering going on in the world. It doesn't make it any less painful for the ones enduring it if the rest of us decide to ignore it.
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Well I hope if I'm suffering I don't know it yet. I do know I'm suffering in many ways but what if I don't want to know it?
Isn't ignorance bliss? :sleep:
 

good example from today.
this morning i got an injection in my hip. the actual injection didnt hurt at all. but the 15 to 20 minutes just before were full anxious anticipation.
will it hurt? am i a wimp? suffering on a small scale i know. but if i had a strategy for not worrying my mind with hypotheticals i would have suffered much less.
 
hypochondriac said:
good example from today.
this morning i got an injection in my hip. the actual injection didnt hurt at all. but the 15 to 20 minutes just before were full anxious anticipation.
will it hurt? am i a wimp? suffering on a small scale i know. but if i had a strategy for not worrying my mind with hypotheticals i would have suffered much less.
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Maybe not. What if it did hurt like you anticipated and all that fear was legitimate? I'd rather worry for nothing and then be relieved than not worry and get disappointed with some real pain
 
Take times we were bullied as a child. At the time the bullying may have been normalised and we ignored or suppressed feelings of being offended or treated badly. We second guessed ourselves. Come on Man up Hypo!
So we didnt dwell on it.
To some extent that was a good strategy. Because we didnt let that event affect the rest of our life.
But of course those suppressed feelings will come back to bite us later.
Psychological and emotional pain is more complex than physical.
 
I'm suffering...and I'm definitely aware of it... Tonight I burnt 4 fingers on one hand when I took a hot sheet tray out of the oven, using just a folded tea-towel.. I dropped the tray with the food right onto the tiled floor, and immediately ran my fingers under the cold tap, but even after 10 minutes, it still stung like the devil. eased a little now that I've put Aloe Vera on it... :cry:
 
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hollydolly said:
I'm suffering...and I'm definitely aware of it... Tonight I burnt 4 fingers on one had when I took a hot sheet tray out of the ovem, using just a folded tea-towel.. I dropped the tray with the food right onto the tiled floor, and immediately ran my fingers under the cold tap, but even after 10 minutes, it still stung like the devil. eased a little now that I've put Aloe Vera on it... :cry:
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ouch. ive done similar in the past.
 
I don’t know the answer to the following, so maybe someone wants to take it a crack at it.

If a person has a mental illness, for example; what about a serial killer or any killer for that matter. Anyone that commits a murder and is convicted of such, no doubt about it, he’s guilty, psychiatrists will sometimes come to court and state under oath that the defendant is “suffering” from any number of mental illnesses, like bi-polar, codependency, etc. It's the defendant’s hope that the jury will take his illness into consideration, if not for the verdict, then maybe the sentence.

My point is that if a psychiatrist states that someone is “suffering” from a mental illness are they actually “suffering” if they don’t know they are “suffering.”
 
911 said:
I don’t know the answer to the following, so maybe someone wants to take it a crack at it.

If a person has a mental illness, for example; what about a serial killer or any killer for that matter. Anyone that commits a murder and is convicted of such, no doubt about it, he’s guilty, psychiatrists will sometimes come to court and state under oath that the defendant is “suffering” from any number of mental illnesses, like bi-polar, codependency, etc. It's the defendant’s hope that the jury will take his illness into consideration, if not for the verdict, then maybe the sentence.

My point is that if a psychiatrist states that someone is “suffering” from a mental illness are they actually “suffering” if they don’t know they are “suffering.”
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Yeah the word "suffering" has a broader definition than we think.
in the context you present it has to be diagnosed by a psychiatrist.
If a person has a severe mental illness and has not had medication their symptoms will be very evident.
And they have no idea what they are doing. Psychosis is a scary behaviour to witness. ive seen it a number of times. when i was working in a psychiatric hostel.
So a person has bipolar or scizophrenia and off meds. can be out of control. They will swear they are acting normally. but at that stage lost all insight.
 
Take it a step further. A person can have a mental illness and still be perfectly sane. I have seen a defendant plead not guilty by reason of insanity. The defendant’s psychiatrist will testify that he (the defendant) suffers from schizophrenia and paranoia. This defendant was also thought to have a psychotic break and this is how he was able to kill his victim. These psychosis’s, however, have been considered to cause a person to be temporarily insane causing a jury to find the defendant not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. In these cases, the defendant will most likely be committed to a state mental health facility for an undetermined amount of time.

I have also seen a defendant with similar illnesses found guilty because the state’s psychiatric witness gave a stronger testimony that the defendant’s psychiatrist. The state’s psychiatrist stated that the defendant was a psychopath, but sane at the time of the murder. He was given a life sentence. In PA, life is life, w/o parole.

Whoops. I think I went off topic. Sorry.
 
911 said:
Take it a step further. A person can have a mental illness and still be perfectly sane. I have seen a defendant plead not guilty by reason of insanity. The defendant’s psychiatrist will testify that he (the defendant) suffers from schizophrenia and paranoia. This defendant was also thought to have a psychotic break and this is how he was able to kill his victim. These psychosis’s, however, have been considered to cause a person to be temporarily insane causing a jury to find the defendant not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. In these cases, the defendant will most likely be committed to a state mental health facility for an undetermined amount of time.

I have also seen a defendant with similar illnesses found guilty because the state’s psychiatric witness gave a stronger testimony that the defendant’s psychiatrist. The state’s psychiatrist stated that the defendant was a psychopath, but sane at the time of the murder. He was given a life sentence. In PA, life is life, w/o parole.

Whoops. I think I went off topic. Sorry.
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its all communication 911 . we arent robots. we dont have to stay on topic.
 
I believe the awareness is a large part of the suffering. Our brains are marvelous instruments. The awareness of pain can often be lessened with distraction. There is a lot of truth in the saying that we are only as happy as we allow ourselves to be.
 

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