Pain is a strange thing; it can either be real or percieved, physical or emotional, and can cause anything from fear to ecstacy. For many people pain is no stranger, myself included. I have experienced emotional pain from rejection, as well as loss.

I have also experienced my fair share of physical pain, some of it accidental, some of it self inflicted. I personally prefer the physical pain to any kind of emotional pain. Physical pain is finite, you can treat it, dull it, end it. Emotional pain is much more pervasive. It affects every aspect of your life, right down to your physical wellbeing.

When my mother died, I experienced an emotional pain that I I still haven't fully dealt with even 4 years later. Her death was after a long illness, and was not entirely a shock; however this didn't lessen the impact it had on me. Some might expect that losing ones own mother would cause some of the worst pain imaginable, but I know my mother didn't choose to get sick and die. She was taken from me and my family against her will, and against ours.

The pain caused by people choosing to leave you hurts in a whole different way. Neither one passes quickly, and neither can be fixed with a couple of ibuprofen and a nap. Having someone walk willingly from your life causes it's own pain, but also so much self-doubt. Knowing that someone has chosen to leave you behind, has decided that you aren't worth their time is hard to accept.

How do you get past emotional pain? There is no magic band-aid or pill that just makes it all better. You are left with a hole in your life that can't be filled. That hole is there every day, and you feel it. You can have a tooth extracted and the hole will remain, but it becomes nothing more than something to be careful of while eating doritos or something. The hole left by a person can affect more anything; how well you sleep, your mood, your appetite, how well you can focus. And OCD can just make that worse. It takes that hole, the pain, and makes you focus on it. Every day you are reminded of the fact that someone is gone, and no matter the reason it becomes your fault. You weren't good enough, you didn't help them, you didn't matter. You blame yourself, not only for having lost them, but for allowing yourself to get close to them in the first place. For someone like me, letting someone REALLY get to know you is difficult. I maintain plenty of rather superficial relationships with people, but there are very few that I genuinely need in my life. People come and go from your lives all the time, and not all of them leave a hole when they go. So when someone does leave a hole, it is that much more apparent how important they were to you, further reminding you that you failed to keep them.

Why can't emotional pain be more like physical pain. I can handle physical pain, either by embracing it and enjoying it, or by medicating and ignoring it until it passes. There is no enjoyment with emotional pain, and while you can medicate to numb the pain until it passes, it may never really pass.

The easy solution would be to replace the one you lost, but that is never really an option. Whether it be a lost loved one or someone that walked away, there is no replacing them. People are unique, and everyone means something different to us. They bring a unique happiness to us when they are here, and leave a unique kind of pain when they are gone. Trying to replace someone you loved is like trying to jam a square peg into a round hole; it might fit eventually, but neither will ever be the same again.

At the end of the day, nobody can be replaced, and when they've walked away they can't be won back. They have to choose to come back into your life, and every day that goes by that they don't just reminds you that you're still not important enough.

Sorry for the long rambling rant, just lots on my mind, and needed to get it out.