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This seems unbelievable, but I've had some bad bloody wounds in circumstances where I was fully aware third party assistance was nowhere to be had.

The mind/body enters an interesting mode in my experience, where I become disassociated from the situation and can focus on what needs to be done. The pain strangely suppresses temporarily, until a sense of completion/achieving stability is restored.

Living things are inherently survival machines.



> The pain strangely suppresses temporarily

Pretty sure that's called shock.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_%28circulatory%29#Signs_...


I'm pretty sure it isn't.

Edit:

To elaborate, I've had other experiences medical professionals assessed as shock. They were paralyzing, and usually involved uncontrolled involuntary shaking and tears.

This is something quite different. If I entered into such states of shock in the survival situations I'm referring to, I would have bled to death.

My assumption is it's a massive release of adrenaline and endorphins.


Where do you see reduced pain on that page? I would have guessed adrenaline to be suppressing the pain, but that link talks about adrenal insufficiency. “Pain” is only mentioned in the context of experiencing new pains in the abdomen.


Hmm, I think I needed to read that a bit closer. Maybe neuralgic shock is the term then. I hadn't realized they had broken shock up into so many categories now. Thanks for the second-check.


"Living things are inherently survival machines."

How fascinating, then, how despite this so many people manage to voluntarily give up their own lives.


If life feels for too long more like surviving than living one might get tired of it.


Yes. A retired professor emeritus of anesthesiology in my department, in his 80s, bedridden, and on dialysis, told our department chair that his life had become too unpleasant and boring to continue with the round the clock routine of treatments and tests that would be his lot until he died. He directed that the dialysis machine be disconnected and died comfortably shortly thereafter.

>A natural death from kidney failure does not hurt. As toxins build up in your blood, you will start to feel sleepy.

https://lifeoptions.org/living-with-kidney-failure/comfort-c....


My childhood cat died of renal failure in our home.

It was anything but painless if her cries throughout the night, too weak to stand, until finally succumbing were any indicator.


This is so succinctly profound. Thank you


I guess, if you find it fascinating that we're capable of overriding our instincts.

As someone fertile who has managed to avoid reproducing for >40 years, I don't find that particularly fascinating.




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