Life

Radio review: The doctor who really feels your pain

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann is an Irish News columnist and writes a weekly radio review.

Nuala McCann
Nuala McCann Nuala McCann

Room 5 Radio 4

Joel is a man who really feels your pain.

No, really, he feels it because he has mirror touch synaesthesia.

It means his brain takes in visual information through his eyes and turns it into a tactile sensation in his body.

As a child he enjoyed watching Bugs Bunny cartoons.

But while other children might have laughed along, he became the rabbit, he felt that he was biting into the carrot just as Bugs Bunny did, he felt two big teeth on his lower lip and he felt he had two long ears.

This series of programmes about rare conditions came about because of the presenter’s own experience.

Helena Merriman walked into a doctor’s surgery one afternoon and was given a shock diagnosis.

She decided to interview people who also had rare conditions, to explore how it changed them.

Joel is a doctor based in America.

As a child he found school difficult because even when he was watching other children from the edge of the playground, he felt that he was dancing and running around with them.

The others sensed he was different.

At the same time, he thought everybody else was like him.

It’s living on what some might call a constant state of an “acid trip” – people with synaesthesia see colours and shapes with sounds and music; colours with letters and taste with sound.

As a young doctor, he would find himself pulled into his patient’s world – literally feeling their pain.

The crisis point came in the worst moments on a psychiatric ward.

He was treating patients with psychosis and would find himself lost in the experiences of those patients - flipping down faster and faster.

He felt that if he went too deep, he might not be able to come back.

“It was never a fear of the patients, more a fear of my own mind and what my mind was capable of doing,” he said.

“If I were to let go, I might not be able to grab on again, I might be lost in psychosis myself.”

In his private life, relationships were difficult. If his partner went away for a while, he would feel, literally, like he was physically missing a limb.

And he carried all this as a secret, afraid what it might mean for his career as a doctor.

In the end, the diagnosis of mirror-touch synaesthesia was a relief. With a name, what he was feeling, became a little less powerful. It could be managed.

And maybe, said Joel, it could be a wonderful gift too.

What he had been suffering is what’s called “empathy burn out” … you can really have too much.

Now, Joel has learned how to shift his focus – to look inward at his own emotions.

He takes us with him through a rollercoaster ride of a lifetime – and ends with a message to his younger self – the confused and bullied child who could not understand what was happening.

“If I could go back to my younger self … I would say I know this hurts, I’m sorry it does and it’s going to be okay. … there’s always a way forward,” he said.