A Broken Heart Really Does Hurt, Scientists Claim 220
Death Metal writes "Psychologists at the University of California, Los Angeles say the human body has a gene that connects physical pain sensitivity with social pain sensitivity. The findings back the common theory that rejection 'hurts' by showing that a gene regulating the body's most potent painkillers — mu-opioids — is involved in socially painful experiences too."
Feel No Pain (Score:5, Funny)
"Individuals with the rare form of the pain gene, who were shown in previous work to be more sensitive to physical pain"
Isolate and manipulate.
Do The Evolution ;)
Re:Feel No Pain (Score:4, Insightful)
Do The Evolution ;)
You idiot... If you can't feel pain you can't learn. Adversity breeds character, but it also breeds common sense. People who can't feel pain have to be very careful because they won't know they're hurting themselves -- they will happily hold on to a burning-hot sauce pan and have no idea that in the process of making eggs they've just caused 3rd degree burns on their hand.
Besides, if you ever want to see the kind of damage not being able to feel pain can do -- go visit the hospital and head up to the department labeled "Chemical Dependency". You'll have a hundred new reasons to treasure your pain receptors after that...
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Your evidence for this assertion is ...?
Your evidence for this assertion is ...? (having had to deal with a lot of the "adversity is character-building" retarded sadists over the years, I'm more of the opinion that adverse circumstances may discover or reveal innate character (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse), but doesn't "build" or "develop" it (whatever those mean). While I'm a great fan of active, outdoor hobbies, I never
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I remember reading somewhere that people who can't feel pain, generally don't live past their 20's. Something almost always ends up killing them without them knowing.
Which, as an aside, is why I've always been puzzled by the various claims that "fish (or insert your critter here) don't feel pain" (usually claimed by anglers so they can stick various pointy things through the animal's jaws) since it's such an essential evolutionary trait. It's more than likely that pretty much anything that has a reasonably complex nervous system can feel pain, including insects.
They've discovered the Emo Gene! (Score:5, Funny)
Up next, the Goth gene!
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What terrifies me is that I could easily see this form of child selection occurring. Remember how vain and cruel those girls from high school were? Well, guess what, those girls become the vain and cruel wives of rich men, placing them squarely in the realm of people who can afford to perform genetic screening on their kids and "weed out" "negative" traits.
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Remember how vain and cruel those girls from high school were? Well, guess what, those girls become the vain and cruel wives of rich men
That's anecdotal.
But even if it were true, then those same wealthy individuals would already have spread their own nature (vanity, cruelty, etc.) through their genes, as well as their behavior around their children, and those children will be sent to private schools and placed on a course to MBA-ish jobs when they graduate. If you were fearing the "dicks in high places" syndrome, it's already been deployed.
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Also,
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isn't this obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Painful, yes. But 'stress' is just that.
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This study might explain why some women can treat men like toss-away toys, and not care. If they lack the emotional trauma == physical pain gene, they might not realize that they are causing actual damage, because they've never experienced it themselves. As example:
I recall a girl in college. Really cute and a very smart Bio major. Also a sorority girl so I figured I had scored on all fronts - beauty, brains, and sexy. We went out on a date and it was fantastic, with the night ending with a pass
Re:isn't this obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Irony - A year later I saw her on campus and she wanted to know why I stopped calling. She claimed I had hurt her. As if rejecting me four times didn't hurt. (rolls eyes). A typical, socially-inept, clueless female nerd.
That's not irony, that's an attention whore. Once you stop doting on them they'll come to you and try to get your hopes back up.
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A single date with no sex doesn't count as "treating men like toss-away toys, and not care". If you expect sex, love, or a relationship after one date and one kiss, there's something wrong with you, not with her. Maybe she isn't over her ex-boyfriend but would consider you once she is (in a year or two). Or maybe she is also going on dinner dates with other guys and hasn't made up her mind yet. Or maybe she likes you enough to have nice dinners with you but doesn't find you attractive enough to have sex
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You should listen to what people here are telling you about your misinterpretation of the situation (even the ones who seem to you to be being jerks about it). You might learn something.
Here's a similar mind-bender: someone can like you and want to try moving ahead into some intimate contact, and your reaction to that can turn them right off. Being really uptight about the thing, showing that you're ready to be "hurt" if things don't go as you want, demanding explanations--all these sorts of actions on your
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When you start with the wrong premises, you draw the wrong conclusions. Your story is a classic example of a girl who does not understand women and thus draws the wrong conclusions. Let's take it from the top, shall we?
I recall a girl in college. Really cute and a very smart Bio major. Also a sorority girl so I figured I had scored on all fronts - beauty, brains, and sexy.
This is your first fuck up. You haven't scored until you've scored. What really happened: You got too enthusiastic and fixated on this on
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[editing fixed]
YOU: "You can put that off to some other day, can't you? I've asked you out several times over the past few months and you keep giving me excuses. I could go hang out with some other girl but I'd rather spend time with you. I'll be there at 7. See you then." *walks away*
^^^ You see what happened there? You were assertive. You didn't accept her bullshit and you didn't take no for answer.
Yeah but that approach is a one-way destination to eventual divorce. No woman (or man) wants to be married to a jerk that bosses her around like that. Yes I'm sure that approach succeeds in getting some wet-behind-the-knees girl into your bed, maybe even engaged for marriage, but you can't build a lifetime relationship on that "Me Man; Me tell you want to do" method. You only setup longterm failure.
That doesn't mean your advice is total trash. At one point I did mention another date I had w
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Got a friend with a similar situation. The problem is that your expectations were too high, while her expectations were much lower than yours.
It is like hugging everyone when you meet them - this decreases a "value" of a hug. To a non-hugger (i.e. someone who only hugs special people) being hugged by a hyper-hugger the situation is interpreted as "wow! I am hugged by this person, it means that something is going on". Of course, you get to see the big picture when you realize they hug everyone they see.
For s
Re:isn't this obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>>>This study might explain why some women can treat men like toss-away toys, and not care.
>They can't treat men like that, only whiny little pussies.
Really? Well I know just such a woman. She married a guy, then she divorced him because she was flirting with guy #2. Then she married guy #2, but meanwhile she was flirting with guy #3, so divorced guy #2 about five years later. She married guy #3, but was flirting with guy #4, and then divorced guy #3.
Three men. NONE of them were pussies, but she still managed to hurt all three of them with her actions, because she doesn't care about other person's feelings.
Re:isn't this obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:isn't this obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep.
Look for the single women, not the divorced or married ones.
Re:isn't this obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously you've never had a vampyric, somatic narcissistic woman sink her fangs into you. Bedroom skills have nothing to do with what makes them happy. what makes them happy is taking every social, psychological and financial resource you have for themselves, they feed off your pain.
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This is where the word "vamp" comes from. It was invented in the 1920s and comes from the word "vampire" meaning a woman who sucks the life out of men. So next time you hear Entertainment Today or some other fashion show comment that an actress is "vamping it up" realizing they just insulted that actress. They probably don't mean to do it, but they just called her a vampire - a parasite off men.
And no I doubt in my example all *3* men sucked in bed. Blame the gander not the goose.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:isn't this obvious? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:isn't this obvious? (Score:5, Funny)
That's nothing. I've had my eyes plucked out by rabid bats. I've all my fingers broken, heal badly, and then broken again with a nutcracker. I've had my head chopped off and sewn back on backwards, only to have it done all over again after the lawsuit. I've had the skin on my penis peeled back like a banana with lasers and BBQ tongs.
A broken heart? I don't get them, I give them.
Re:isn't this obvious? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's nothing...
I've had my intestines removed and used as a personal restraining device. All of my toes and fingers removed and subsequently re-attached to one hand. Said hand was than forcefully punched into my own face with some guy shouting, "Stop hitting yourself" over and over. After that was over I had my abdomen sliced open by a light saber and some Jedi Knight used my womb to shelter from the cold for hours.
A broken heart? I really do miss that Jedi
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All right, all right, you win.
Although I do at the moment have one of those paper cuts that you get along the inside edge of your index finger, the kind that hurt like hell when you get hot wings sauce on them. For all I know, it might get infected and then I'll need a shot.
And let's not even get started on the emotional pain of all the Burnout Paradise races I lost at 5am this morning to sa
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I was the stunt double for ALL episodes of Happy Tree Friends!
And I still miss Giggles.
Beat THAT!
Re:isn't this obvious? (Score:4, Funny)
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But I would look up where he lives and stay away from there. He might be craving brainz.
Re:isn't this obvious? (Score:5, Funny)
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No I'm not.
Re:isn't this obvious? (Score:5, Funny)
Considering he once downed the entire world, I'd say he's no longer on top of his game.
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0 AD called and want their news back... didn't you hear he got soft when he became a family man?
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Paging Hank Williams Jr. (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds like you've got the start of a good country music song right there...
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In my experience, it is the first "real" broken heart that hurts the worst.
But each of the next ones gets less and less.
I'm not sure if this is due to emotional scar tissue building up, or if I don't let myself entirely commit to the idea anymore, but it gets easier with time.
But the first one... Damn, it does hurt. And it takes a long time to heal, if it ever does...
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Hmm... wanna know what they say in the pickup community about this?
It's called "one-itis". And the only cure is FTOG (Fuck Ten Other Girls).
But those asses actually *get* to FTOG, so it works for them. ;)
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Does this mean (Score:2, Funny)
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You don't need to win. You just have to scare your victim (ex-girl) and harass them into wasting their time, money, and effort fighting the case. Ask RIAA. They've perfected this tactic.
Well now the war mongers know what to do..... (Score:2)
... to increase their profits.
Invest in gene detection of that specific gene and use the knowledge...to instigate profit generation.
1) exclude
2) cause hurt
3) profit
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(first /. post from my kindle!)
Honest question: huh?
I've actually never seen a kindle, but did I miss something on the spec list? You can browse from it? Did you hack it?
A General Theory Of Love (Score:2, Informative)
Great book on this very subject, very insightful. Don't let the title dissuade you, it is actually chock full of empirical data and good lessons in anatomy and the psyche.
A General Theory Of Love [amazon.com]
Oblig. Simpsons quote: (Score:5, Funny)
I could've saved them some money (Score:2)
Apparently these folks are so busy doing research they've never taken the time to get into a relationship, let alone get their heart broken. If they had, they'd know it hurts without requiring research funding to "prove" it.
Heck, I've been married over two decades, happily for the most part - but I still remember how much heartbreak hurts even after all that time...
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That's not the point. There's plenty of things we can observe as apparent fact. The research is to work out the how and why.
Sometimes that research confirms what we hold to be self evident truths while providing an empirical description of the functioning of the phenomenon, and sometimes it shows the truth to be false, based on misconception or otherwise.
The research is important; knowledge and understanding is important.
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The question is whether that "pain" is a psychological association or a physical effect. This research shows that you don't just perceive it as pain, but that it is actually mediated via pain receptors.
That has medical implications. For example, if it's mediated via pain receptors, pain killers may actually help, and people may become addicted to pain killers because of the physical consequences of social rejection.
Makes Sense... (Score:5, Informative)
All jokes aside, though, I think I would have been more surprised to have learned that heartbreak and social rejection does not cause some kind of negative reinforcement within the human psyche. It is, of course, still interesting research.
Re:Makes Sense... (Score:5, Funny)
NO NO NO, God designed us 6,000 years ago to feel real pain on rejection from other humans because he is a sadistic control freak.
You people who reject the Bible's completely 100% accuracy really sicken me, how dare you attempt to think logically and critically!!!!
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Isn't it logical to think that society as we know it is shaped because of feelings and pain we as a species experience? Your reality would be entirely different if that wasn't true. It is an intended outcome.
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It's not just about being picked off by predators. The real advantage of humans is that we are *smart*, and can communicate better than the other smart chimps. It's not much good having decent vocal chords if you're just going to ignore your fellow man.
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Loners, stragglers, and folks that never learned that rejection is a *bad* thing would/could have been picked off by predators easier and such. Hopefully, of course, that doesn't mean that slashdotters will start dying off anytime soon.
I don't think so because evolution isn't a 100% direct decendant game. If you help your family, you help your genes. These days I feel absolutely no genetic relation to the people that live around me apart from being homo sapiens since I live in downtown of a large city with lots of immigrants, But for no more than 200 years ago, chances were very high that most everyone you knew came from the local village and their ascendants too. In some branches of our family we have records dating back to the 16th cent
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All jokes aside, though, I think I would have been more surprised to have learned that heartbreak and social rejection does not cause some kind of negative reinforcement within the human psyche. It is, of course, still interesting research.
I think the interesting thing here is that the mechanism for reinforcement of physical avoidance and social avoidance appear to be using some of the same gene networks.
This is also not surprising: evolution is an opportunistic, elaborative process, so it tends to result
Painkillers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it mean that painkillers like Ibuprofen would help to lessen the pain of being dumped? That is a kind of an acute issue for me right now.
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Re:Painkillers? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Then goto domai.com, click on the "newletter" link, and enjoy the photos. Self-pleasuring releases the same painkilling endorphins as actual sex.
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That's probably because you suck at sex ;)
I'm only half kidding. For sex without love to be worth it it really helps to get it right. Crap sex with love is still worth having; crap sex without love is often just crap.
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>>>crap sex without love is often just crap.
Which is why I just watch playboy.com instead. "Nobody knows you like yourself."
Re:Painkillers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Pain killers like the kind your brain gives you when you get laid would work better. Seriously, go have some meaningless sex - it WILL help.
Mod parent up. I've had my heart broken a few times, but there's usually one relationship that kills you the most, and it's that one that lingers throughout your life.
At the time, I tried working longer hours, regularly drinking heavily, lots of drugs, socialising with friends, going for long solitary walks ... you name it. Distractions like working longer hours do help (provided you're past the "I'm out of my mind with grief and want to kill myself and take everyone with me" stage, but anonymous sex beats the other methods by a mile.
You'll earn bonus points if your anonymous sex partner is especially pretty; you tend to experience everything with heightened awareness in the first few weeks or months, so chances are high you'll remember your partner's face and body (and possibly her name). Being able to move very far away earns you the Daily Double, just so long as you don't risk losing everything by travelling back in the first few years to wallow in the nostalgia.
When all is done and you've moved on with your life, be sure to watch or listen to some Sam Kinison [youtube.com] videos from time to time to keep things in "perspective".
Re:Painkillers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Those are the two things I applied a year ago (and am still applying) to get over a broken heart. I left my country, started travelling and kept travelling, and have shagged lots of different lovely girls along the way. It really works. And I've met some great people.
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Re:Painkillers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Those are the two things I applied a year ago (and am still applying) to get over a broken heart. I left my country, started travelling and kept travelling, and have shagged lots of different lovely girls along the way. It really works. And I've met some great people.
Oh isn't this typical! Someone says they're hurting because they've lost the one they love and the answer is "Yeah, I'd miss the sex too." A broken heart doesn't come from a lack of nookie you insensitive bastard. It comes from the gut-wrenching experience of having invested months or years into a relationship that suddenly ends. And usually because of that kind of investment, the other relationships in that person's life have suffered neglect to maintain the romantic one. So it's a double-whammy -- not only are they suddenly alone, but everyone they used to know is either gone or distant to boot. It's not just the rejection of a former lover that hurts, its waking up from that and discovering you don't have any friends around you either -- possibly because your ex has them all now!
Sex is not going to fill that hole if you have any kind of heart, okay? Every man seems to think it will and they go on a massive f*ck-fest. It doesn't work. After their 15 seconds of fame is over, they're still lonely. And it's not just men either -- women with low self-esteem do the same thing. That hurt you feel late at night that makes you want to clutch a pillow and imagine someone holding you does not come from a lack of sex. It comes from a lack of love. And for that, there's only one thing to do; Start meeting new people. Not just people you're sexually attracted to (chances are you're too depressed anyway to be objective about this) -- I mean anyone that seems even remotely interesting. Reconnect with the human race. Don't take pills, don't buy a big sack of condoms, and don't hit the frozen dairy aisle -- get up, go outside, and don't come back until you've learned at least one new thing about someone you didn't know before. And find friends that don't say things like this idiot did -- sex is not everything. Any real friend will tell you this.
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I never said any such thing. You've completely misunderstood. What's missing is the reciprocated love, but casual sex takes that pain away. It's a medicine, not a replacement.
Actually, yes, it does. It's nothing like being in a loving relationship, but it fills the hole and takes
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What's missing is the reciprocated love, but casual sex takes that pain away. It's a medicine, not a replacement.
It's still like eating three snickers bars in a row. It doesn't take away the pain, it just covers it up for a few minutes until you realize you're still hungry for something and go for the next bad coping mechanism on the list.
...but it fills the hole and takes the suffering away. It's the medicine that heals.
Having meaningless sex doesn't heal, it just obscures the real problem -- meaningless sex isn't real different from masturbation.
And please, don't condescend to me. You're way out of your depth here. You clearly do not understand how men work. We're built fundamentally differently from girls when it comes to emotions. What the emotional world looks like to you has no relation to how it is for guys.
I should apologize for advising people to build mutually empowering and beneficial long-term relationships instead of one night stands? I do have a good g
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Does it mean that painkillers like Ibuprofen would help to lessen the pain of being dumped? That is a kind of an acute issue for me right now.
Yes, a whole bottle of painkillers at once and you'll never feel pain again. That'll show them all !
My breakup strategy (Score:2)
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The analgesics like ibuprofen and aspirin are operating on a different set of receptors. My limited understanding of neurochemistry is that pain caused by a lack of opioids is a different part of the same mechanism -- basically the threshold on the relevant nerves is lower, so they fire when they shouldn't. Your body is no longer producing as many opiates, which makes you hurt everywhere; you're going through withdrawl in a very literal sense.
Basically, there's no cure for opiate withdrawl, whether endoge
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The last one got me pretty bad. The absolutely best thing I've found is running. The endorphins really help a lot. You may have to work up to it, though. If you're not already a runner then running for about 10 minutes a day and increasing slowly up to 30 minutes over a 2 month schedule is probably OK. Check out some beginning running web sites. Running in the morning is good because you'll feel better at the start of the day.
Also, give yourself time to recover. Getting dumped is just like any other
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Does it mean that painkillers like Ibuprofen would help to lessen the pain of being dumped?
Try it and see, then report back. But I doubt it.
Just because some of the same gene networks are involved does not mean that the specific biochemical pathway blocked by a given painkiller will work.
Re:Painkillers? (Score:4, Interesting)
No, those work at the wrong place. The ones you'd need are the substances is the most hard drugs (which are also in most hard pain killers, with just one molecule changed a tiny bit).
Unfortunately they are both addictive as hell, and will make your life even worse. ;)
I wonder though, why nobody invented the inverse drug. Something that makes you feel like crap, but if you stop taking it, you will feel really really good, and with some time, you will have "irreparable damage" with being unable to feel very bad anymore.
Now that would be a twist, wouldn't it? ^^
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"Alcohol -- still your best drug value."
Yeah that's what you need when you're in emotional turmoil: lots and lots of a depressant [about.com]. What may help is the social aspect of drinking since it's usually done with friends and the fact that it relaxes you enough to let the emotion out, not the alcohol itself. It's called "crying in your beer" for a reason.
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Ergh. Maybe in small doses to help you sleep. In larger doses diphenhydramine causes auditory hallucinations. Not a good idea for somebody already emotionally unstable.
It's Okay.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It's Okay.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What are you talking about? (Score:2)
For the average Slashdotter, a broken OS *is* a broken heart.
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I know a bit about these things, and I can tell you that it always pops out somewhere.
They will always be so "cool" because they vent it at something that you don't notice.
And before you know it, you have to visit your friend at the hospital, because he literally destroyed his asshole and some other stuff, because he was a extreme closet-masochist. :P
Good luck helping your friendship over *that* awkward situation!
You left one part out. (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like they isolated the "whiner" gene. (Score:5, Interesting)
The article seems to state that those who reported higher levels of physical pain also reported more easily feeling rejected in a social situation. Therefore, it stands to reason (at least to me) that they have isolated the gene which causes people to complain, rather than any link between physical pain and emotional distress.
Yeah, I know, what kind of slashdotter am I, if I actually RTFA?
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Sorry, but your attitude personally offends me very much.
I had to stand emotional pain on a level that made me think it's all just a big experiment by aliens to test me, so I could stand it and survive.
If you're hurt physically, everybody sees it, and they will drive you to a hospital and shit.
And I did not get beaten up ever.
But if you're hurt emotionally, not only are you totally ignored. They think that when they see nothing, nothing happened. And when you actually notice yourself, how wrong this all is,
Thanks Slashdot. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Thanks Slashdot. (Score:5, Informative)
dude, kick her to the curb, because you will feel that again and she WILL do it to you again.
If you like feeling betrayed, stay with her. If you want to stop the pain, throw her and all her crap out the door. There are 10,000 more just for you that are far better than she is. Out there waiting for you.
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Consider the source (TFA) (Score:2)
This is from the same page at The Telegraph, UK:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6049924/Zombies-would-most-likely-wipe-out-humanity-if-they-really-existed-claim-scientists.html [telegraph.co.uk]
How much credibility does this site actually have?
Very old news! (Score:2)
This is well-known for a long time by psychologists and neurologists!
The pain center in your brain is activated in the same way for physical and psychological pain.
But of course, some assholes still want to claim, that it were "just words" and it did "not really" hurt.
I know from personal experience, that someone can hurt you more this way, than he could ever do with physical torturing.
Your body can mostly heal, and we have all that medicine, and hospitals and all.
But when someone "beats up your soul", you
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Re:slashdoters (Score:5, Funny)
Don't let the door hit you on your way out, Mr. Drama Queen.
Re:As for me (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah me too. Found out my problem was not enough exercise. I've hit the workouts harder than I ever have in my life and its minimized the emotional pain. I just feel better in general.
Google Shaun T's Insanity workout. Guaranteed you cannot do it without 10 breaks.
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Google Shaun T's Insanity workout. Guaranteed you cannot do it without 10 breaks.
Since the first hit shows that it comes on 11 DVDs, I'll believe you.
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I believe the expression goes "cowboy the fuck up and take a salt tablet".