A REAL PAIN: To Numb or Not to Numb?

Numbing pain is not a conscious choice. It’s a common survival strategy, a self-protection from emotional overwhelm, during and after trauma. And, it is often passed down for generations. Take cousins Benji and Dave, for example, in Jesse Eisenberg’s film, A Real Pain. They both struggle with their feelings in very different ways, revealed in the stark reality of traveling back to Poland where Grandma Dory survived the Holocaust. That can make you feel. The pain is real. The question is: What do you do with it? If you tend to numb, how can you safely feel your feelings?

When Feelings Are Too Much

Benji (Kieran Culkin) is the poster child for feelings that are too much. He tries but doesn’t know what to do with them. He’s hurt. Jealous of Dave (Jesse Eisenburg). Feels left behind. Left out. Sad. Lost. Depressed. Too anxious to find a way to live his own life. His days are constant struggles. Grandma Dory was his rock and closest connection. Then she had to go and die.

Loss can feel unbearable. Loneliness, the worst imaginable fate. Benji wants more of Dave. Dave tries, but Benji can be a real pain for the closed-down, numbed-up, focused-on-family-work-just-getting-by Dave. He doesn’t look anxious, troubled, or OCD, but he is. Dave has a lot of pain too.

But Dave has reasonably effective defenses. He’s motivated to succeed, able to work, manages his feelings, and has (somehow) fallen in love, married, and become a dad. He’s not unhappy.

Benji is terribly unhappy and can’t find a way out. He uses drugs, smokes a ton of weed, and feels that suicide might be the only option to get free of pain. This freaks Dave out. He loves Benji and feels helpless. What could prove to Benji that Dave does care? Will going on the trip to Poland that Grandma Dory left money for, and wanted them to take together, do the trick?

Yet, it isn’t that simple. The trip opens up Benji’s pain. Big Time. Maybe, for Dave, not being as close to Grandma Dory, has had it pluses. How does Benji’s closeness figure into Benji’s problems? 

Closer to Grandma = Closer to Pain

Transgenerational trauma is a real thing. Benji’s close relationship to Grandma Dory was a mixed bag. Surviving the Holocaust, being a prisoner of terror in the camps, close to murder and loss, creates lifelong trauma and numbness. Under that numbness, the pain lives on. You can’t help it.

As much as Grandma Dory tried, I am sure, as every survivor of trauma tries his or her best, she passed on her tendency to numb (it was her survival). And, the sensitive Benji, absorbed her pain.

Without help, no trauma survivor knows what to do with that pain. That pain is too much. You can’t “know” it, or feel it. It seems impossible to ever resolve. Even the after-effects. You go on.

That’s what Dave has done. Dave goes on. He keeps going on. Benji – not so well.

Trauma Triggers for Feelings in A Real Pain

The trip’s not going well for Benji. Returning to the scene of Grandma Dory’s trauma has too many triggers. The place. James (Will Sharp), the well-meaning tour guide. James is a major trigger.

Benji loses it when he feels the buried pain. So much for “forgetting” pain is there. The place. Being on the train. Where all the pain happened. Sitting in first class. That’s just not right to Benji:

“People can’t go around the world being happy all the time. And look. All the pain. Are we just not going to feel it? 80 years ago, we would’ve been shoved in a train. Are we just going to forget about that?”  Benji storms off to Coach. “Forgetting” is what trauma survivors try to do. Forgetting is a way to try to go on. That’s what Grandma Dory did. Benji does, too, with his pot.

But forgetting isn’t really possible. There are always triggers. Especially if you’re sober. And open. Numbing doesn’t always work. And, as Benji is now trying to say: Numbing isn’t the best option.

Feeling is. Yet, feelings are where the difficulties lie. Feelings are hard. They carry the pain. Dave says: “If we wept for all the sad things in the world, what would that accomplish?” Benji replies (wisely): “Maybe shit wouldn’t constantly happen.”

That’s right. Numbing isn’t the answer.

Benji knows. He’s talking about his life. Shit happens. That’s for sure. When he uses his energies to numb his pain, he’s in a constant cycle of repeating everything that rubs that pain in deeper. Like his feelings of loneliness and resentment about being left out. He can’t get unstuck from it.

Feeling Things Can Get You Unstuck

Maybe now, Benji has a chance to get unstuck. Will he? Feeling things is the answer. And, if you can’t feel sad, if you can’t allow your grief, that keeps you numb. And, numb isn’t for the better.

Then, there’s James, the guide. Trying his best. But, yes, a major trigger for Benji. Why? Because he’s the epitome of keeping things numb. Numb and without “too much” feeling. Like Dave.

Benji’s feelings are breaking through. And, he’s up to his ears with James’s constant barrage of stats. Even in a cemetery, where you’d usually feel loss: “Hey, man, it’s making the whole thing cold. And, it’s losing the feeling that these are real people here.” Guilty when he sees the pain on James’s face: “I mean, it’s an amazing tour. I’m totally loving it. It’s really Dave’s speed. But could we cool it on the facts and figures for just a little bit? Is that cool?” Benji’s trying to be ok to feel.

Pain is real. Feeling it makes it more real. That’s a good thing. But it doesn’t always feel that way.

Marcia (Jennifer Grey), one of the tour members, agrees with Benji: “Dave, we numb ourselves.”

Dave, cautious with his feelings, says: “I get all that, but it seems like there’s a time and a place to grieve and maybe it’s not the time.” (In front of other people?) Benji, always honest: “Yo, Dave, we’re on a fucking Holocaust tour. If now is not the time and place to grieve, to open up, I don’t know what to tell you, man.” For Dave, like many who numb, it isn’t easy.

He lives with shame.

Shame & Too Many Apologies in A Real Pain

Benji seems shameless. He says whatever’s on his mind. Explodes at the drop of a hat when triggered. Does whatever he pleases. He’s charming. Annoying. Clearly in pain. All the tour members, having dinner together, see it.  With Benji off playing the piano, they feel for him:

“He’s clearly in a lot of pain.” Benji makes his pain unmistakable. Dave, not so clearly in pain, doesn’t: “Isn’t everyone in pain. I mean, look at where we came from. Isn’t everyone wrought?” Dave, though, keeps himself buttoned up. Is embarrassed by Benji. Constantly apologizes for him.

Apologies aren’t about Benji. They’re because Dave lives in shame about his feelings. And, fear that they’d overwhelm him like they’ve overwhelmed Benji in the past (the suicide attempt that scared Dave). But his feelings pour out. He might “look” OK, but he’s not. He jogs, works, meditates, takes pills for his OCD, “I move forward because I know my pain is unexceptional….”

It’s not, though. Everyone’s pain is real, personal, and deserves to be heard. “I don’t burden anyone with it … I’m sorry …” He starts to cry. Continuing to apologize for “oversharing.”

Shame and apologies leave him terribly alone. (No, Dave, you’re not supposed to be “strong.”) Strong isn’t about numbing. It isn’t keeping your feelings to yourself. Strong is being able to feel.

Telling someone your feelings isn’t weak.

After Benji doesn’t return to their room one night, and Dave (freaked out again) frantically looks for him all night – Dave gives Benji a big dose of exactly what he thinks and feels.

That’s a big relief, I’m sure. And, makes them closer.

Can They Go on Differently Now?

Benji might be a real pain to Dave sometimes, and Dave to Benji too. That’s just a part of love.

And their love is as real as their pain. Can they see that now? Will it help them go on, differently?

Being real with each other, visiting Grandma Dory’s house together, brings them to a new place with each other. As they land, back home, can they continue to break their tendencies to numb?

We can only hope they don’t go back to their old ways. Yet, we have to wonder. Benji refuses Dave’s halfhearted invitation to dinner. And, he sits in the airport alone, as if he has nowhere to go.