Many of us experience loads of pain. We might not know where it is coming from, it can be an unexpected source. With feelings comes great responsibility.

I am a pain virtuoso. I live off the pain of other people. It might sound tragic, and indeed it is. However, I adapted to this kind of life a long time ago. There are not many pain virtuoso's in this dark world. Only a few of them knows each other, and they must keep their identity in secret.

We belong, as I like to call it, to a "Damned society", which is mistreated by others and perceived as evil. The truth is we are just wronged people. There is nothing out of the ordinary about us. We channel energy by gathering people's pain. I call myself a pain virtuoso because it's like playing on the piano.

The piano is symbolically beautiful. You caress your fingers on the piano keys, creating a musical symphony that is including a variety of sounds. However, in my case it's not sound but the types of pain, various types.

How do we manage the pain we receive as pain virtuoso's? It's simple. We hire ourselves as a local psychologists, and we receive pain all over. It tends to become stressful and overwhelming over time but most of us have a method for it. We simply let go of our care for those people, we simply hide our feelings and thoughts, keeping them down our heads.

I wouldn't write all about my job if not for today. Today a special girl came into my office for therapy. I was shocked at how polished she looked. She was a living doll.

Beautiful and expensive clothes, detailed makeup and so on. I wouldn't imagine anyone like her having a lot of pain. I was wrong, so wrong.

When she came and sat in the therapy room, I was sure it was a mistake. I quickly checked the time and the name of the patient. It was her. I hid my shock quickly, feeling those intense emotions inside me. What does she do to me?

She was talking for half an hour about her life and issues. Which all led me to think it must have been a disaster in life.

The pain I received from her was deeply overwhelming. Her feelings crashed over me like a wave. After she left my clinic, I was a mess. I didn't know what to do with myself. I have never experienced this type of pain before.

Most of my patients were from poor backgrounds, abandoned families or abusive parents. The problem with this special girl was different. She was special in many ways. Her walk left a trace even after hours. Her issue was that she lived in a beautiful home, with a pure blessing as a family, but on the inside, she was deeply broken.

Broken, in every meaning of this word. She was left on the surface of life. What she didn't know was that life will be much harder than her parents described. Life's responsibilities came crashing down, and she was unable to manage all of them. The girl patient left her family home soon enough, and she was ready for an "adventure". However, life gave her quite the opposite.

Her looks were blooming, and she looked like pure joy. Nevertheless, he knew that she was all trouble, especially inside her head. When I looked inside her heart, I saw darkness. It was hard to gather all the pain, there was so much of it.

When I went home, I settled into my evening chair and contemplated all the pain I received today. As I mentioned, I live off the pain, and the pain of the poor polished doll made me tremble. How can someone feel so much?

People say that we shouldn't compare the pain of others to our own. I believe that is true. Pain can't compare to pain. The word is the same, but the story behind it isn't.

As our kind mostly knows by now, we are vulnerable to experiencing pleasant emotions. The gathering of pain became our habit and a valid thing to keep us alive and well. We do it to survive.

I didn't meet anyone of my kind. I was told by my parents, at a young age, that most of us didn't survive because the pain received was unbearable. That realisation was enough to make me wonder if my mission on Earth is just to live.

Just to live, as I like to call it, is living without happiness. In my life, I tried many times to experience desired joy. Every single thing I did for my good, didn't give me joy. It only made me frustrated with how much I try to be pleased, but it doesn't even happen.

Experiencing joy is a distant matter for me now. Many times I experienced failure. Feeling hopeless was just a part of it. I recall many of my patients saying that happiness is relative. People like to experience it, or they simply don't. I met so many people who were living in a state where they didn't know what was pleasing to them anymore.

I ask them this question each visit. "What has made you pleased today?". Some give me wrong answers. Those types make me question if that's how I want to feel my entire life. I always tend to tell myself that I am enough.

Being enough is just the right amount of what I need to experience. I accept it.

—

The next day starts the same as usual. Morning coffee and my usual walk to work. I wonder what pain will I receive today.

Countless patients were assigned today, I notice as I glance at the registration list. Maybe this will make me enough. I take my job as a carefree job to help other people. But I do the thing they would never suspect me of, I gather their pain to feel relief. The only emotion that is close to pleasant.

Many of the stories being told are too much for me. After almost every therapy, I visit the bathroom to empty my sadness. I do it with tears in my eyes. It's too hard for me. It isn't for me.

The long day came to an end. I was ready to gather my things and go home.

All of a sudden, came a patient from yesterday. The special one. She was standing outside the clinic smoking. I wonder what is she doing here. I know I am not supposed to ask her anything besides therapy, which makes her seem like a forbidden fruit to me.

When I come closer to her, I notice the fresh tears in her eyes. She struggles to stand still with her trembling legs. She holds out a cigarette and puffs the smoke out of her mouth while the tears come down her cheek.

I attempt to walk as slow as I can, so I don't pass her that quickly. When I pass her and I am ready to forget about what I witnessed, she caught my arm shockingly. "Please, wait" she cries out.

"This is my last day, and I am ready to die. Would you be willing to hear my last words?" she mutters her question while blowing the smoke.

I set out to understand what I have heard. But it all doesn't make any sense. Why, why would she tell a person that she met a day ago, such a thing?

I turn to her in shock without saying a word. I wait for her to tell me more.

"My life is destined to end today. I am diagnosed with an incurable illness that eats up my brain every day. I don't know how much I have left. But I know I am ready, ready for an end."

I couldn't bear it any longer, a small shred of tear begins in my eye, but I quickly wipe it off.

I don't say a word, but I sense she doesn't need me to. She is still holding my arm, but I do the thing I would never expect myself to do. I hug her quietly and hold her in my embrace for what seems like infinity.

Why did I do it? I showed my vulnerability. But I sensed in her that she is experiencing mountains of pain now and all she requires is support.

I give it to her, a tight embrace. The last embrace she ought to receive in her lifetime. This thought shreds my heart into pieces. Thousands of pieces I'm certain won't heal for a long time.

Life is bound to an end. People die every day, and on many occasions it is unexpected. The pain I received today from the doll was enough to fuel me forever. It was the pain of a dying person. Later that day, I walk with her to my house, and she pleaded with me to spend her last day with me.

I would never expect my life would end the same day as hers. But this is what is called life. Full of unexpected things and pure intensity.

This was my last day of gathering pain from others. I fulfilled my life mission as a pain virtuoso. My parents used to say to me that when I feel proud, then it's time to end. End it all and fall into an endless sleep.

The ending of sleep is for my soul a cleanse. A cleansing wave that is final.