Pain Tolerance

[Windigo]

I am the worst mother . . . .

I have these two feeler daughters and they must think I'm a monster. Why? Because they come to me for support when they are in pain and they aren't allowed a Band-aid.

I mean really, a Band-aid for a paper cut? Why I can barely see the wound. Although from the look in their eyes it must be a gaping hole gushing vast quantities of life elixir because they NEED a band-aid NOW to make it better.

Now, I'll give hugs, kisses and even soothing tones and motherly words of concern, but a Band-aid? Look, if you're that concerned why not splash a little alcohol on it?

What?! No alcohol? That's what I always did, sure it burns at first but then it kills the germs and you never worry about it again. C'mon! Air is good for a cut. It heals faster that way.

But no my ISFJ took to stealing band-aids from the closet and making her own first aid kit from a shoe box which she hid carefully under her bed.

I felt bad when I found it, so now I give band-aids for every microscopic pain, she complains of. But it still hurts ME when I buy more band-aids at the store, knowing I wasted so many.

I just don't get it.

The summer I turned six, my family moved onto a Navy Base where all the kids proceeded to test where I would fit in on the pecking order.

One older girl sized me up at the playground and after telling me what she planned to do to my face grabbed a fist full of hair and began to pull. I heard as well as felt the quarter sized circle of hair ripping from my skull.

I didn't flinch and I didn't cry. I simply asked her, "Is that all you're going to do, pull my hair like a sissy girl?"

She ran.

When I was 8 I broke my pinkie playing basket-ball. I finished the game and went to my dad in the evening to let him know it hurt.

He thought it was sprained so he bent it up and down many times assuring me that movement was best for sprains.

My mom took me to the hospital one week later, noticing my enthusiasm waning during piano practice. Yep! it was broken in three places and once completely through!

I didn't cry.

At twelve I took my dad's Bowie knife and tried to cut open a magnolia cone to see what was inside only to slip and slice a giant gash in my thumb.

I was fascinated to discover my bone wasn't "bone" colored but white like my teeth. It wasn't until my blood began to pulse out in inch high spurts with each beat of my heart that I thought I should probably tell my dad (At first I was worried he might ban me from his knife).

Although my mom screamed when she saw the blood, I was calm.

As a teen I actually slammed my fingers in my car door and tried to walk away because I didn't realize it.

I say tried because I was jerked off my feet when I reached the end of my arm. I sat on the ground with my hand still stuck in the car door laughing at the absurdity of the scene. My astonished boyfriend called me an alien.

I know that pain must feel differently to some people. But why? Is it mind over matter? Do I really have a high tolerance or a lower ability to feel? Is it because NTs are able to compartmentalize and ignore signals from their bodies that send others into fits of emotionalism? Do we feel just as strongly or are we just aliens, unable to comprehend the complexity of human emotion?

I feel even more alien as I try to coax my feeling daughters into the calm after the storm. "Hush sweetie, don't cry . . . it just makes the blood gush more . . . no, no, I mean there's no blood, you're fine. . . ."

Here have a band-aid . . . it's better than a kiss.

 

[INTJMom]

ISFJs love those reassuring words and those traditions... band-aids and such.
Thank God band-aids still work!
A day is coming when they won't.
Poor ISFJs all their emotions manifest themselves as feelings in their bodies.

You have a very high - and stubborn - tolerance for pain.
I wouldn't say you're an alien, but I would say, not typical.

 

[Windigo]

Poor ISFJs all their emotions manifest themselves as feelings in their bodies.


Oh my goodness! You hit the nail right on the head with that one! Do you have an ISFJ? My daughter has a host of psychosomatic ailments. Whenever things get out of control emotionally. Her friends used to tease her for shouting out "Ow, my sore muscle!" Whenever she was overwhelmed by the intensity in the play.

I'm afraid neither dad, nor I have been as nurturing as she would like us to be.

It was so bad, I think she had the swine flu in early October, but I didn't take her in because I didn't believe it was real.

Then my ENTP (who is NEVER sick) came down with the same flu a week later, I took her in and she tested positive for H1N1! I felt a like a heel!

The only pain that conquered me was the birth of my first child. It was a difficult 5 hour hard labor with my daughter trapped in the birth canal and the doctor's foot on the table trying to yank her out. OUCH

I thought I was screaming, "Kill me, save the baby!" But my mother and mother-in-law both said I was white as a ghost and VERY quiet. Weird.

 

[INTJMom]

I had a best friend who was ISFJ.

I highly recommend Nurture By Nature by Barron and Tieger.
The thing that motivated me to study MBTI was my ISTP! LOL!

 

[Windigo]

Thank you! I will buy it tomorrow!

 

[Tallulah]

I'm an NT and also have a high tolerance for pain--but I still wanted a Band-Aid for my microscopic cuts when I was a kid. It's just part of being a kid. ;-)

When you're sick or injured, it's a more accepted time to be babied and garner sympathy, especially if you're usually being told to suck it up and deal. Sometimes we just need the sympathy.

 

[Emily Wanderer]

You are a strong woman! I would say that you do have a mind over matter complex, because half of those injuries you mentioned send stinging tingles up my spine!

PS I'm glad you gave in to your daughters Band-Aid Woes...she will eventually grow out of it.