Notes from Maine - 2023/01/29
I woke up at 5am the other day. Usually, it’s no big deal. I don’t have trouble getting back to sleep. Other times, 5am turns into a slideshow of regret. Bad decisions I’ve made, hurtful things I’ve said, times I’ve been careless, or even accidents that I failed to prevent parade through my head. I’m sure that these memories are helpful in some way. If they weren’t painful, then I might be careless again in the future. But you have to be able to forgive yourself as well.
I used to have a very sweet dog who was also monstrously big. He developed epilepsy that I tried to treat for years. Eventually, his neurological problems (or maybe the medications that weren’t even working) caused him to have outbursts of violence. A friend was over with kids. The children went to pet the dog and I intervened.
“Let’s give him a little space,” I said, putting myself physically between the monstrous dog and the kids.
A moment later, he snapped. It was just an instant, and he was nowhere near the kids. But if I hadn’t been paying attention… I still think about that. Nobody was hurt. I’m not sure anyone else even noticed. But I noticed. I still imagine what might have happened. Until the day he died, I never let him within striking distance of anyone but me. That memory doesn’t need to haunt me, but at 5am the rules are different.
I feel it down in my stomach. It’s a physical ache, like when you see someone trip and fall.
When I looked up “sympathy pain,” I found out that between 25~72% of men experience “Couvade Syndrome” for their pregnant partners. That’s an enormous range of percentages—pretty much meaningless when put that way. It turns out that the number varies a lot by country, but first…
“Studies of different cultures have reported that expectant fathers experience physiological and psychological changes during their partner’s pregnancy. These symptoms are classed as Couvade Syndrome (sympathetic pregnancy) symptoms.”
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1557988318810243
Some interesting quotes from the study:
“…it was concluded that men’s symptoms are a reflection of their level of attachment to the unborn child and involvement in the pregnancy…”
“…A particularly significant finding was that the expectant fathers also complained of leg cramps (55.8%), increased appetite (55.8%), stomach distention (49.2%), and weight gain (45.2%). All these reported signs are also very common and considered normal physiological changes in pregnancy…”
“Our results also showed that Jordanian expectant fathers complained of being unable to keep food down (42%), vomiting (41.7%), indigestion (32%), and poor appetite (23.5%). In addition, it was very interesting to discover that a few of them reported weight loss (12.9%), which is very uncommon during pregnancy.”
Here are some countries and the prevalence of reported Couvade Syndrome:
Sweden 20%
UK 25%
Australia 31%
US 25~52% (I don’t know why there is a range)
Jordan 59.1%
Thailand 61%
Poland 72%
This is a fascinating bunch of research, but not precisely what I was looking for. I was trying to find a name for when you’re watching someone skateboard, they face-plant, and you say, “Ooof!” and put a hand to your chest. For me, it’s particularly bad when something happens to a child. Movies don’t do it to me, but a YouTube video can cause a reaction. Some part of my brain shuts off that visceral empathy when I’m watching fiction.
I searched again and read a study entitled, “Feeling the pain of others is associated with self-other confusion and prior pain experience.” The abstract begins, “Some chronic pain patients and healthy individuals experience pain when observing injury or others in pain. To further understand shared pain, we investigated perspective taking, bodily ownership and tooth pain sensitivity.”
Reading on, I’m not sure this is precisely what I’m talking about. They discuss feeling a pain in your tooth while watching someone with cold sensitivity eat a popsicle. My reaction is always in the same place, like in the pit of my stomach. It’s akin to that “whoopsie” feeling you might get on a rollercoaster, but it’s entirely unpleasant. I enjoy a rollercoaster. I hate the feeling I get when I see someone have an accident.
That makes me wonder if I could learn to anticipate it and actually get some kind of pleasure out of it. I like spicy foods. I like the breathless anticipation of competition. I’m not an adrenaline junkie, but I do like high-pressure situations every now and then. Is there a version of me that would derive satisfaction from those 5am memories? In the 70s and 80s, it seemed like every sit-com on TV was based on cringey misunderstandings that put someone into the position of being a fool. The American version of “The Office” is pretty much all cringe for the first season, and I enjoy that….
I’m going to stop thinking about this now. I’m worried that I’ll wake up at 5am and enjoy being miserable.
