The wrong niche: Interpreting chronic emotional pain

Emotional pain is a hallmark of humanity and the subject of many literary tragedies. However is chronic emotional pain just "human" or does it have deeper roots in how we live and interact with our enviornment? As someone who has spent a lot of time introspecting my own emotional pain I have a few thoughts on the nature of chronic emotional pain.

I will approach emotional paining using a perspective based in niche theory. Niches are the environment that surround a given organism. These niches have food, shelter and social interactions that support or detract from the organism. Extreme example of detractions include predation and parasitism, but some detractions can also remove these predators and parasites. There can also be good support in the form of food and unhealthy support in the form of toxins which while additive cause net losses in the organism.

The niche fit hypothesis predicts that cumulative health and fitness is from the cumulative interactions or "fit" within a niche. In this context, emotions are the overall neuronal awareness of niche fit that sum up the organism's metabolic inputs over time and interprets relavent trends. These trends focus on how past and present metabolic states inform future potential. Ultimately while neurons and brains do many cognitive things, at a basal level they are concerned with interpreting neuronal inputs that relate to health, survival and fitness.

Emotional pain is a summation that indicates poor metabolic niche fit that pertain to health, survival and fitness. It interprets that past and current metabolic indicators suggest that the niche is undesirable for future health and survival. Emotional pain thus pushes for a change in behavior to shift metabolic niche interactions. This may include basal indicators such as increases in food or sleep or more complex indicators of metabolic states such as social behaviors and social support.

For example, loneliness is a flavor of emotional pain that interprets past, and current inadequacies in social support that will endanger future metabolic states. This includes food, shelter and reproductive possibilities being bleak or undesirable given that current social interaction trends continue. Because social interactions directly supply food, shelter and reproductive possibilities, emotional pain that include loneliness should be considered as just a more complex form of hunger/starvation. This may explain why lack of social interactions can be so painful in humans which are social species that rely heavily on other humans for food, shelter and reproduction.

Loneliness is fairly simple. However, a person might feel lonely, but also be sleep deprived, nutrient deficient, intoxicated (suffering the metabolic consequences of alcohol), sore from physical exertion, and concerned about money (being able to eat). Now the emotional pain is even more complex. The solutions involve improving social behaviors, sleeping more, eating better, drinking less alcohol, pacing physical labor and working more efficiently. While these do not necessarily exclude each other, some are used in direct relation. For example, drinking alcohol could be used to improve (perception) of social interactions. Thus a real solution requires genuine improvements in social behavior without the use of alcohol which is a slow and difficult process. Nutrient deficiency is also difficult to gauge because toxins like caffeine and alcohol are also within to food/drink. Regardless these emotional state may indicate complex, self-perpetuating loops that trap an organism within an unhealthy niche.

In this example of complex emotional pain, the inputs that are interpreted to effect metabolism (food, shelter and reproduction) can produce unique flavors of emotional pain. The first challenge comes when the number of distinct inputs and their frequencies become indistinguishable mash of emotional pain. The second challenge comes when several inputs are interconnected and reinforce the intensity and frequency of metabolic insults and corresponding perception of emotional pain. This creates a nested problem that can evade identification and can fester for prolonged periods of time resulting in chronic emotional pain.