THE REALITY OF PAIN - PSYCHOLOGY

It Was Real to Them

1. The Line

“I didn’t understand it then. I’m not sure I understand it now. But it was real to them.”

From the TV Series The Testaments (S01E04). It shows a cluster of ideas in psychology that all orbit the same insight:

subjective reality shapes real suffering.

2. Cognitive Appraisal Theory

This is probably the closest fit.

The idea is simple but powerful:
it’s not the event itself that determines your suffering—it’s how your mind interprets it.

• Two people can experience the same situation
• One feels devastated, the other shrugs it off
• Because each appraises (interprets) the meaning differently

So even if someone else is “objectively worse off,” your pain is still real because your mind has judged it as significant, threatening, or overwhelming.

That line from the show fits perfectly:

“It was real to them.”
Meaning: their interpretation made it real, emotionally and psychologically.

3. Social Comparison Theory

Humans constantly measure their suffering against others:

• “I shouldn’t feel bad—others have it worse”
• “My problems are nothing compared to…”

But psychologically, that doesn’t erase your experience.
In fact, it often creates guilt layered on top of pain.

So even when suffering seems “small” compared to famine or war,
it still registers fully in your internal world.

4. Relative Deprivation

This one sharpens the idea:

People feel distress not based on absolute conditions,
but on what they believe they should have vs. what they actually have.

So:

• Someone in comfort can feel deeply deprived
• Someone in hardship might feel comparatively stable

Again—beliefs define the emotional reality.

5. Constructivism

This is the broader philosophical backbone:

We don’t experience the world directly—we experience our constructed version of it.

Meaning:

• Beliefs
• Culture
• Language
• Personal history

All of these shape what feels real, painful, meaningful, or unbearable.

6. Closing

“I didn’t understand it then… But it was real to them.”

What’s implied is almost clinical in its accuracy:

• Their suffering might look irrational from the outside
• But internally, it was fully formed, justified, and lived

Not fake. Not lesser.
Just constructed through a different lens.

If I had to compress everything into one line, it would be:

Pain is not measured by objective reality, but by interpreted reality.

Now, a more philosophical view.

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