What's worse?

I believed for decades that mental pain was easily the worst. I endured a lot of physical pain and tea throughout my life and my mindset was firmly embedded in the belief that I could ignore pain relatively easily.

Dealing with a long list of other issues throughout my life was a deeply resonating pain that never left.

Then I got old and my physical body began falling. Ignoring the pain doesn’t work anymore. The icing on the cake to change my belief was the latest addition to my physical problems . Two bulged discs in my spine pressing on nerve roots literally crippled me and resulted in being bedridden for about five months before having surgery.

The pain level physically was off the charts. So laying the physical pain alongside the mental pain during that time makes me think that they were both extreme but the physical pain definitely was the winner.

@Creamyyy

BOTH BUT MENTAL SCARS SNEAK UP ON YOU

They tend to go hand in hand for me. When I dislocated my knee it was extremely painful but I think the years of mental pain after hurt more.

Internal suffering for me.

Because you can feel good inside while your toe is just sending pain signals

Hmm. I feel as though mental pain is worse.. requires an ability of control to manage. physical pain.. you can disassociate or your body goes into its own instinctive mode and can send adrenaline or other mechanisms to numb the pain. Chronic pain can no doubt be exhaustive as the bodies way to cope only lasts so long and disassociation comes with it's own consequences but I still think mental pain reigns. The mind controls where the body goes. A strong mind can lead a body out of pain. Like a workout, it knows it's good and will lead to better outcome. I think a mind in pain would struggle much more in getting to that victorious point.

@Creamyyy

mental my trauma is like a life long battle of cancer i feel like real physical pain is nothing compared to my emotional and mental pain I could take tylenol  all day long or any psych med but nothing will ever beat the pain from my minds wall and my heart and soul

@Creamyyy, The worst pain one should never have to endure is metaphysical pain; deep, soul-level pain that can either crush or permanently transform a person. The most profound form of this pain stems from trauma that seeps into every layer of life: health, family, relationships, vocation, and wealth.

Today, trauma is often overused to describe anything that disrupts a continuous state of happiness. But actual trauma isn’t a fleeting moment; it’s a sustained, embedded state that lingers, alters, and reshapes one's very being.

It can thrust someone into an uncontrolled, free-run state, leave them numb, or split their identity, forcing a shift into a different version of themselves. It’s like reloading life with a new operating system, a new way of thinking, surviving, and being, while still carrying the deepest, most indelible aspects of the self. Those parts rarely change, unless one consciously chooses to rewrite them. But everything around them does.

Many great philosophers, artists, and healers are born from such transformation, channeling their pain into timeless insight and expression. Eg. Frankl, Nietzsche, Van Gogh, Johnny Cash to name a few.

Mental pain hurts the most it always gonna be a painful memory where physical pain eventually heals or you can get something to help with the healing