After a particularly tearful session with my therapist, I was feeling as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Despite unburdening myself for the time-being, I still told myself as soon as I left her office, "I will never let this happen again."

For the past few weeks I had felt near manic. One day everything seemed okay, and the next I felt like going out and literally hitting a stranger for no good reason (although I never would). I couldn't concentrate on anything from homework to conversation. I didn't want to be alone with my thoughts, but at times just the sound of another person's breathing was too much for me to handle. Sometimes when I'm faced with emotionally heavy situations I feel as if a swarm of flies have taken up residence in my head. Like thoughts, but not, they zip back and forth so quickly I can't even make out what they are. It gets so loud I feel the only way to stop it is to shut my eyes, cover my ears with my hands and push as hard as I can, and fight the urge to scream. I can't breathe. From within my own silent, invisible hurricane I try to gain enough clarity to see life for what it is, and I realize this is just what it feels like for a soul to be broken.

This isn't something new. It's a suffocating feeling I've battled, and beaten, and ignored since I was 13.

My most recent trigger for this is new, but in reality it's just another pathway that lead to the same feelings I've been trying to get away from.

Hurt. Loss. Love.

My therapist stated that what she'd seen from her practice is a world that is phobic of these three four-letter words.

I told her that I didn't ever want what I lost back. I knew that now. But I still couldn't reconcile that realization with the hole in my chest. As she sat across from me, a breathless tear-stained mess, she gave me an empathetic smile and said, "But it still hurts, doesn't it? It's okay to feel hurt. Pain is not weakness. Pain is human. In fact, if you weren't in pain right now, that's when I would be worried."

I've been given the task of exploring the positive side of pain. And from the conversations that I've had, there are three different positives I've found that come with feeling like you've died inside.

The first is a brilliant sense of empathy. True pain comes to people in different degrees, and through various circumstances, but it is pain nonetheless. Nobody is here to judge the validity of one's pain, or the weight of theirs against another. What pain can do for us is grant us the capability of knowing how to be there for each other. And one can only hope that with his heavy responsibility of understanding another's pain, you would be wise enough to know not to leave anyone in the very condition that so nearly killed you.

The second positive is the potential for growth and healing. I know this sounds cheesy, but it's totally true. When we are left to deal with certain types of pain on our own, we grow to acknowledge (or remember) that even though people are made to dwell together and lift each other up, you do not need another living being. This sounds harsh, but it's also true. You can, and you will, survive on your own. But this growth also leads you to realize that you may not want to survive alone. To do that, maybe you need to fix yourself, fix your outlook, your expectations of others. You may come to focus more on something you've been ignoring for a while. A project, fitness, education. You may realize your need to work harder for the reconciliation of a relationship. You might find there's nothing to work on except getting a grip on what you want from life. Whatever your search for growth and healing, you will almost always find that something productive can be inspired by your pain.

The final positive found in pain is simply the knowledge you cared enough to hurt to your very core. This positive might sound a bit depressing and masochistic, but believe me, it's not about wanting to hurt. This is the idea that you risked being vulnerable...you risked loving, that you are capable of loving.

The analogy that I was given for this positive is the pain you feel after the death of a beloved pet. My cat, my Angel, died after 16 years with my family. He was my first pet and I felt I would rather have died with him than feel what I felt the day I saw the light leave his eyes. After this, most pet owners vow to never ever buy or take in another pet because it hurts too much. But the idea is, you are only hurting because you loved so hard, because the experience before the hurt was so wonderful. The pain is so devastating that a lot of us choose to forego countless beautiful moments just to avoid the pain. As for my experience with this fear of pain, I can only say thank goodness I already had another cat and two dogs at home, otherwise I'm certain I would have waited a long time before getting another pet (and those 3 were pretty vital to my healing).

Nobody wants to feel the pain of being hurt, the pain of loss, or the pain of love. And while it makes sense that you would be able to avoid pain by keeping away from love, there is beauty that can come from pain. It's extremely hard to believe, I know. As I'm writing this I feel like rolling my eyes and deleting it all. I feel like pretending I never heard this and just reveling in bitterness, letting depression and the decay in my mind take me over. But deep down I know this is true, because it's the way that God has made it. Think of it as sort of a refund for all the crap that has to be allowed to happen in this life. A divine course-correction. A hidden gift for giving so much of yourself.

Pain isn't the end, and shouldn't be.