When I Was 7, I Stopped Feeling Any Kind Of Pain – Now I Know Why

The author, roughly 8 years old, at a family barbecue, and smiling despite everything going on at home.

I got my wisdom teeth pulled without anesthesia or laughing gas.

When the dental surgeon sent me home with a packet of prescription-strength Advil, I didn’t take it. Instead, I drove to the community centre and taught my weekly guitar class, my cheeks swelling into grapefruits as my students practiced their D-G-A chord progressions.

Ego-wise, calling out wasn’t an option (I was only loveable because I was reliable, I told myself) and this didn’t warrant a sick day, anyway. I barely felt a thing.

I also don’t remember feeling discomfort when my knee popped out in gym class, or when I fainted during a sweltering marching band parade, or when my appendix almost exploded.

My high pain tolerance didn’t just apply to physical wounds, either; it also dulled the emotional ones. Fear, guilt, awkwardness, jealousy, grief, heartache – I could numb it all.

I learned this skill when I was 7 years old.

My older brother had undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Emotions swelled inside of him, too big to contain, so he’d punch holes in the walls, or burst into our rooms at 3am, or threaten to end his life. Reactions only fuelled the fire – my mother’s anxiety and my father’s guilt like kindling below the log.

Coaxing my brother up from a low or down from a high required a calm, collected presence – someone who could stifle their reactions and use logic to mediate the situation. Someone whose own emotions didn’t get in the way. I was the ideal candidate.

By middle school, my parents had started relying on me to deescalate his episodes. When I succeeded, I was called all of the things I wanted to be: a good girl. The easy one. Such a blessing. Twice, the dispatchers on the other end of the 911 call complimented my maturity and bravery. So did the cops who took my brother to yet another inpatient facility.

Eventually, I wore my robotic mask into the world to see how other people responded. Teachers loved that I got straight As and never spoke out of turn. Friends stopped calling me bossy. Adults deemed me “one of the most well-mannered children they’d ever met”.

It seemed that everyone else liked me better when I had no needs of my own, so somewhere along the line, my emotional suppression went from a temporary tactic to a permanent state of being. By the time my best friend died by suicide when we were 19, I felt almost nothing.

The author and her best friend Will on a trip to Disney World in 2008, four years before his death.

This skill had its perks, but it also had its detriments: all logic and no emotion makes Maria an abysmal girlfriend. The only thing I could feel was the hit of dopamine that accompanied a new love interest, so I sabotaged relationship after relationship in pursuit of it.

Yes, I was incapable of feeling pain – but I was also incapable of empathy, vulnerability, and connection.

At 28, I ended a three-year relationship with a good guy so I could pursue an impulsive fling with a not-so-good one. Something had to give. I was tired of being a romantically inept robot. Desperate to figure out what was wrong with me, I booked an appointment with a psychologist who specialised in childhood trauma.

Right off the bat, she diagnosed me with a dissociative disorder.

If I were capable of feeling anything, I would’ve felt relief. My high pain tolerance suddenly made so much sense.

According to ‘I’ve Carried The Mental Load For 7 Years. I Can’t Look At My Husband Anymore’