High tolerance for pain? What does that mean exactly and how does one know if they have it? Pain is subjective after all. 

After minor elbow surgery I was told I must have a high tolerance based on the internal issues of the elbow and my ability to use my arm at all before the surgery. 

I think I have a high tolerance based on the ankle incident. I tripped down the stairs, missed two steps, landed on the side of my right foot with all my weight, thinking I “tweaked” my ankle, laced up my boot tight (not tying the boots could be why I tripped but who am I to say) and continued on my merry way to muck horse stalls at a rescue for 4 hours. Only on the drive home did I think not being able to bend my ankle was probably a bad thing. A trip (an actually trip in the car) to urgent care revealed my “tweaked” ankle was actually a broken foot… “Shut the front door, a broken foot?”… guess I really do have a high tolerance for pain.

What I did not expect was the high pain threshold extending far beyond walking on a broken foot for hours. I am blessed with the super ability to stay in toxic situations for really, really long periods of time. How cool is that? 

In November of 2005, I entered the high tolerance marathon of my life. I had no idea I qualified for the race but clearly someone, somewhere thought I was ready to take it on. I pinned on my bib #419 and began running. For twelve toxic years I endured the race, I ran, I walked, I crawled, l lay down, I slept… rinse and repeat. 

If not for my super power of high tolerance I don’t think I would have made it up heartbreak hill or back down the other side. 

Without that super power I would not have been able to endure the parts that were not good for me so I could see the parts that were. Without that super power I would not have recognized my lessons that were appearing before me or rather hitting me abruptly in the face so I would see them.  I don’t think the race coordinators grasped how long some of these lessons might take me to learn but were kind enough to cheer louder and harder the longer it took.

The thing with a high pain threshold is you don’t know you are in pain. You get numb and it just becomes your normal. The pain needs to increase significantly in order for it to register there is a problem. In my case it took a really long time to register. (I told you it was a SUPER POWER… can’t a girl get a cape around here?)

While I was running, walking, crawling my marathon I was only focused on getting through each day without tripping (been there, done that). Until the pain increased I was unable to see the reasons I was there in the first place. There were reasons… without the toxic twelve I would not have eventually seen what was in front of me the whole time and all that pain would have just appeared at another time in another place and who knows how long that threshold would have lasted.