Black Affronted

The physio used the tips of her fingers to poke gently into the vertebrae. ‘Ouch!’ I moaned when a deep prod seemed to hit a nerve. She was in the middle of my back, and yet the pain which has dogged my existence throughout the last three weeks has been concentrated in the small of my back and below that. 

The pain was evident in a place quite separate from where the injury had occurred. The injury was in the middle of my back, in a vertebrae. The aching pain was in the small of my back, in a muscle. 

Referred pain, she called it.

It made me think of how wrong we humans are to take offense at each other. Someone says something which feels like a criticism, or even is a criticism, and we are affronted, ‘black affronted’ as they say here in the northeast of Scotland. We become defensive; our feelings are hurt; we are likely to think that whatever was said isn’t fair. 

The offensive remark, however, may have been birthed in a secret place, a place quite separate from the trigger for the sharp words. Something possibly even beyond the person’s conscious memory occasions an apparently unrelated reaction.

Referred pain.

We are all walking wounded. Some of us may nurse hurts, may rehearse grudges, may refuse to forgive. Others may not even remember past injuries which are, nevertheless, responsible for current impatience, shortness of temper, critical attitudes and sharp words.

We are all walking wounded.

Like a speaker I heard a year ago, I am going to make a determined effort never again to be affronted.