https://pixabay.com/users/12019-12019/
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Excerpt from “The Sweet Spot” the pleasures of suffering and the search for meaning
“To see the puzzle in a different way, think about the function of these psychological states.
Jeremy Bentham said that “nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, Pain and pleasure” and he saw them as inherently opposing forces, pushing us in different ways: approach and avoidance, carrot and stick.
But how can you approach and avoid at the same time.
We’ll talk about Freud in a little while, but I”ll just note here that whatever one might say about his views, he did appreciate the weirdness of the phenomena.
He writes that since the primary aim of a person “ is the avoidance of unpleasure and the obtaining of pleasure; it follows that seeking out pain is “incomprehensible.”
Perhaps the way out of this puzzle is to conclude that pain is never pleasurable.
We seek out pain, sure, but maybe we do so only because this provides every benefits.
This sort of trade-offs is the stuff of life.
You run outside on a chilly day, shivering and uncomfortable, to retrieve an important package that has been left up the walk.
Or undergo a painful operation to fix a long-standing medical condition. Or sit, board and unhappy, in a government office to renew your drivers license.
Or even withstand torture so as not to reveal the identities of your comrades.
There are many reasons to choose pain and suffering that don’t deny awfulness.
And the next chapter, in benign masochism, includes a lot about how we choose Pain to obtain pleasure just a few seconds afterwards.
Such explanations don’t deny the badness of pain.”
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PTSD - A Way Out.com 
Posted by For the Love of Books on November 8, 2021 at 7:19 pm
I can relate to “exquisite” pain. I have large patches of a very itchy skin rash on my shins (I’ve seen a doctor and have ointment that is rarely used) and the intense pain when scratching doesn’t make me quit. It begs for more. It’s funny how with emotional upset I’m drawn to scratch even when there is no itch happening. The resulting damage creates pain of a different sort and makes sleeping difficult. Good pain, bad pain. It’s sad but understandable why in this case good pain leads to bad pain.
Posted by Marty on November 8, 2021 at 7:39 pm
I have chronic pain. In the chronic pain group of 15 everyone but me thought pain was evil,
They thought pain was emotionally negative, nasty,
Pain is neutral
That’s the truth
I never added extra physical pain
Emotional trauma pain is my Achilles heal
Posted by Marty on November 8, 2021 at 7:42 pm
This book has been informative so far
Look at those who cut, cause pain to relieve their other pain
Hard to understand
Posted by For the Love of Books on November 8, 2021 at 8:06 pm
It is hard to understand, but then I’ve never been where they are to experience the motivation behind cutting.
Posted by Marty on November 9, 2021 at 2:38 pm
Me either
But I read about it
Posted by For the Love of Books on November 9, 2021 at 5:18 pm
When we were in first aid we were taught to always look for other injuries because the most painful one could mask the pain of the others and tragically they could be missed. Maybe that is one principle behind cutting. For a short time it masks the pain they are living with.
I’m sure it is much more complicated than that though.