Spock and McCoy Tackle Chronic Pain…

July 25, 2026

This morning I woke up barely able to breathe because my mid back, hips, shoulder, neck, jaw, and head were in extreme pain. I felt paralyzed. Instant panic, because I have been having prolotherapy interventions that have had my waking pain level at maybe two or three out of ten rather than the usual eight or nine. It’s been a massive relief to have the brain fog gradually lifting and to “feel” more like myself.

I put “feel” in quotation marks because long ago I mastered the art of NOT feeling. Numbing. Dissociating. I am an expert. Even prior to my car accident, which began the concussion #5 and shoulder issues, I was an expert at refusing to actually feel my emotions. It was the only way I knew how to remain functional. I am pretty sure that’s also why I have an extremely high pain threshold, which sounds great but really intensely sucks.

One of the things that fascinates me about chronic pain is that our brains process it via the same neural pathway as it processes trauma. I love how much sense this makes, because being in pain for an extended period of time IS traumatizing! Throughout this nearly nine year long pain journey, I’m lucky to have had excellent psychological care (for the most part) but the emphasis on processing trauma stored in the body has caused me a lot of grief. Literally. Grief that I have refused to feel, sadness and fury and fear and despair that I have thought I was coping with by analyzing, deciding how I SHOULD feel, and then living as though that was so when it was not. Reacting based on logic. This is why people who know me best sometimes call me Spock, which I love. Being driven by logic and looking down on people who can’t get a handle on their emotions has long been a secret point of pride for me, but it does lead to some pretty intense overthinking.

Overthinking is exhausting, but when your emotional safety feels connected to analysis and thought, the idea of feeling the feels is terrifying. Or at least I think it would be, you know, logically. There have been times in my life where I thought there was something profoundly wrong with me, because I didn’t seem to react to things the same way that other people did. It’s a running joke, me being the queen of the overthink, but lately it has felt more like an impairment than the superpower I previously thought it was. Maybe McCoy and his emotional outbursts really were essential to balance out Spock’s logic and not just part of one of the most heartwarming comedy duos in TV history. Dammit Jim! I’m a thinker, not a feeler!!!

I don’t want this to be a lengthy post. There are numerous examples of my overthinking/underfeeling which I would like to expand upon but those will have to wait. What I would really like to share at the moment is a video I stumbled upon on YouTube called “Why Therapy Fails Highly Analytical People” which felt like it was about me specifically and has caused a shift in the way I plan to approach things from here on out. The YouTube channel is called “The Clinical Breakdown” and it is excellent.

I knew that I was intellectualizing my emotions, but I didn’t realize that in doing so I was preventing myself from being able to feel them. I have heard myself say to friends and psychologists “Why can’t just knowing things be enough?!” Well, the answer seems to be that the knowing and the feeling use two completely different neural networks, and never the twain shall meet. Sigh. Enter interoception. I know that I have very limited interoception, but I thought that was due to my ADHD and I have just accepted it as a deficit and never really attempted to develop it, even when it was part of my post-concussion physiotherapy. Why on earth would I want to FEEL emotions in my body?! No thank you!!!

One of the hallmarks of ADHD is difficulty with emotional regulation; I can vividly remember thinking that I was insane when I was a child because every time I felt a strong negative emotion it was so intense that I felt engulfed by it, trapped inside of it, physically unhinged and like I was going to disappear. Terrifying. Enter the “survival level analytical brain” as described on another Clinical Breakdown video called “How Smart People Sabotage Their Own Therapy.” Intellectualization, using logic as a shield, and the insight action gap described therein have served me quite well, but I guess not really… In fact, they have probably made the chronic pain journey more difficult. To quote Tomas on the channel “If your understanding doesn’t lead to change in how you act, it isn’t progress. It’s just new flavour of avoidance.” Ouch.

^Well, shit. It’s a good thing I came across these videos so that I can understand the brain science behind my emotional impairments.^ Dig my use of the sarcastrophe?! Uh oh, I’m using humour to deflect. In the past, I would have called that understanding good enough and expected it to change my patterns and emotional reactions. That’s only half of it – I guess the next step is to feel some feels, and I will have begin with the fear in my gut as I even consider doing this. I’m tired of holding unprocessed emotions in my body. It’s painful, anxiety inducing, exhausting… It’s no way to live, and as I am no longer having thoughts of suicide due to the effects of long term post-concussion issues and almost a decade of chronic pain, I want nothing more than to live the rest of my life as fully as possible. I’ll have to take the McCoy with the Spock, and hope that they can find some sort of balance. I’ll also have to re-watch the original Star Trek series for comfort and comedy as I attempt to rely less on logic and more on emotions. Highly illogical!

Here are links to The Clinical Breakdown videos referenced above: