The Tyranny of Emotional Pain

Have you ever noticed how subjective and suggestible emotional pain can be? Physical pain isn’t that way. No one needs to tell you that cutting your finger hurts. Your body lets you know.

Emotional pain is different. What people in one generation or culture finds very painful can be not painful at all in another time or place. In our culture, people give each other gifts on their birthday. If you expect a gift from someone and don’t receive it, you might get your feelings hurt. But other cultures don’t have that custom, so you wouldn’t be hurt by not getting a gift.

The feeling of pain is relative to one’s expectations. Unmet expectations can be painful, but not like physical pain, which is always painful. If something is emotionally painful in our time that wasn’t painful in some other period of time, that tells us that much of our emotional pain is subjective, suggestible, and ultimately, we have a degree of control over our experience of emotional pain.

Further, I would argue, in our day we’ve allowed ourselves to be tyrannized by our own sense of pain. Sometimes people can feel socially pressured to feel pain, simply because people around us act like we should be in pain.

A friend of mine went through a breakup with a girlfriend recently. Immediately, everyone started consoling him and treating him as though he’d just experienced something traumatic. However, he took it all in stride. It was no big deal to him. He simply said, “it didn’t work out, and I’m cool with that.” But if he’d reacted according to these social cues, he could have acted devastated. If he’d acted like he were crushed and utterly heartbroken, he could have been rewarded with lots of sympathy and attention.

That’s probably the culprit in many cases. Being in pain gets us sympathy and attention, and most people like that. You feel loved when people come to your aid and show you compassion. Thus, expressing emotional pain can be a socially rewarding experience, which incentivizes further expressions of pain. Before you know it, you’re a hot mess all the time which is fueled by ever escalating expressions of pain.

One of my main concerns in this matter is emotional manipulation. Christians are naturally drawn to people who are hurting. These days, people know that expressing pain is a sure way to garner sympathy from Christians, and even to control them. All someone has to do is say, “I’m hurt,” and they become the marionette pulling the compassionate Christian’s strings.

This happens at the interpersonal level, but it also happens more broadly, as churches and even whole denominations can be emotionally manipulated by people who have learned that they can hold power over them simply by turning their Christian compassion against them. (See Joe Rigney’s book Leadership and Emotional Sabotage for more on this).

Pain is Suggestible

We may not like admitting this, but much of our emotional pain is felt through the power of suggestion. We wouldn’t have necessarily perceived an incident as painful until someone else suggested it to us. In other words, we can be socially conditioned to feel pain for things that wouldn’t have otherwise been considered painful, or at least not as painful.

How does this happen? Some things we feel are painful occur because a social norm was violated, and someone suggests to us that we should feel pain as a result. Going back to my birthday gift example, there’s no law or moral obligation for anyone to buy anyone else a birthday gift. If someone doesn’t buy me a birthday gift, I shouldn’t get upset about it.

But suppose the next day, I tell someone, “I didn’t receive any gifts on my birthday.” And suppose they immediately recoil in horror, with expressions of shock and sympathy, and say, “oh! I’m so sorry! That must have been so hard for you! How are you doing today? Are you OK?”

My friend’s reaction suggests that emotional pain is the most natural response, and also that I would be showered with sympathetic attention if I act hurt by it. Suppose I go a step further, and start telling other people how “hurtful” it was that they did not buy me gifts. I’ve now crossed into emotional manipulation territory, because I’m trying to elicit compassion from people while guilt-tripping them for violating an improper standard.

Google Ngram searches indicate the pain oriented words like “hurtful” and “trauma” have been on the rise in the last two decades.

Pain is Communal

There’s another layer to this phenomena: pain is also communal. Pain-sharing can be a bonding mechanism people use to feel closer to each other. When lots of people feel pain for the same reason, the bonding effect multiplies. That’s why support groups of various kinds are so popular. This phenomena was vividly depicted in the film “Fight Club,” where Edward Norton’s character spent his evenings infiltrating various support groups for trauma-bonding.

People bond over pain by saying things like, “tell me how badly you were hurt by this. I want to listen to your pain and hold your story. Then, I’ll tell you my pain, my story, and how hurtful it was to me, too.” Don’t underestimate the power of pain to bring lonely people together.

How Pain Becomes a Tool of Manipulation

There’s a concept creep with pain and the words we use to describe it. Take the word “hurtful,” for example. People who have done nothing wrong may nevertheless find themselves accused of doing something “hurtful.” The only evidence provided is the feelings of the accuser. To them, pain is sovereign.

This kind of emotional blackmail happens all the time, and it can only happen in a society where truth takes a backseat to emotions. And pain is the most sovereign of all emotions.

Children do this all the time. They do something that didn’t actually hurt, but they look over at their mother to see her reaction. If she looks concerned, turn on the waterworks.

Adults do it too. When people are opposed to something but lack a good argument against it, they talk about the “pain” that course of action would cause. It’s quite an effective strategy. It works because it bypasses the cognitive faculties and appeals directly to the heart.

Sometimes, if one person’s pain isn’t quite enough, they may call an anonymous “cloud of witnesses” to testify on their behalf. They say things like, “I’m not the only one who feels this way” and “I’ve heard from several others who are also upset.”

This tactic is particularly gross because it makes the speaker sound like merely a brave representative for an invisible, disgruntled army ready to beat down your door. People who do this may not consciously realize they are being manipulative, but that’s what it is.

“Church Hurt”

Churches are especially susceptible to this kind of emotional manipulation for two reasons. First, pastors care for their flocks, feeling compelled to care for the hurting and bind up wounds of the brokenhearted. Second, church members know this, and they, too, view the pastoral primarily through the lens of caring for those who are hurting. They believe the pastor’s primary duty is to heal everyone’s pain, no matter the cost. If people feel hurt because they didn’t get their way, they turn it into an accusation against the pastor, whose actions are considered “hurtful.”

Thus, a faithful pastor who truly cares for hurting people may be vulnerable to emotional manipulation, because his compassion can be weaponized against him, often to the detriment of the church.

Here’s some examples.

• Someone is “hurt” because the pastor didn’t condemn an act of racism that was in the news that week
• The pastor preaches against abortion and people worry about the “hurt” it will cause to women who have had abortions
• Someone is worried that their unbelieving LGBTQ friend that’s been visiting recently will be “hurt” by the pastor’s preaching against homosexuality
• A single man or woman feels “hurt” because the church talks about marriage and family too much, making them feel unwanted

Again, we can see “church hurt” becoming quite popular in the last twenty years, especially since 2020.

Pain is Not Sovereign

Christians, pain is not sovereign. In fact, pain is necessary for true Christian growth. Sanctification often hurts, but it’s the kind of hurt that God uses to transform us.

God’s word is described as a sword, and swords were made to cut. It hurts when we get cut, but biblically speaking, that kind of pain is good. Scripture is profitable for things like teaching, reproving, and correcting, which means confronting our own ignorance and errors with truths we’d rather avoid. That may hurt, but it’s the kind of hurt needed to grow.

Conclusion: How to Resist this Temptation

So, what do we do about this? I have two suggestions.

First, don’t automatically assume the legitimacy of emotional pain. When you feel hurt by something someone said or did, don’t simply assume the other person is in the wrong. Diagnose whether or not the pain is actually related to a real offense, or if it’s just unpleasantness or discomfort that you’ve promoted to the level of pain. The pain might be an invention of your own mind, or it may be pain you feel through the power of suggestion or social pressure.

To diagnose it, ask yourself these kinds of questions:

• Is what they said true?
• Did they violate a clear biblical standard in what they said/did?
• Is the pain I feel a conditioned response based on how others have reacted in similar situations?
• Am I upset by something because all the people around me are also upset and I gain a sense of belonging by sharing their grievances?

You may find that the other person wasn’t actually in the wrong, you just didn’t like what they said. If that’s the case, then the problem is you. If you accuse someone else of wrong based purely on your emotions, then you are actually in the wrong and inflicting a real pain.

False accusation is a sin. Consider these texts:

• “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Ex 20:16).
• “If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.” (Deut 19:16-19)
• “Unequal weights and unequal measures are both alike an abomination to the Lord” (Prov 20:10).

If you continue to nurse this grievance because you feel hurt, you are giving in to a sinful passion that you should mortify instead. If you feel hurt because everyone around you feels hurt, then you are allowing yourself to be emotionally manipulated by them. Take responsibility for your own feelings. Do not let the feelings of others control you.

Second, change the way you talk. Consider issuing a moratorium on words like “hurtful” or “trauma” or “wounded” unless you can identify a specific sin committed against you.

Words have power. You may be surprised by how a simple refusal to talk about your pain can help free you from it. You may even end up feeling hurt less often (which is another way of saying, you’ll get emotionally stronger). You can starve your pain by refusing to stew on it and constantly giving it attention.

Don’t let your pain define you. Refuse to be fragile. Trust God, and rise above it.

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