Constant companions

So he says, "You like pain."
And I say, "Really?"
"Yeah. Most people visit me for a couple of reasons. They come in here because they think tats are cool or they like the endorphin rush. You? Well, you come in here because you like pain."
I had never thought of it that way before. I used to listen to my dad's friends or men in the family talk about the stories behind their tats when I was a kid...where they were during WWII when they got this tat or what was the story behind that design. I love body art! Always have, always will. How did pain come into it?
So, I have been thinking about that when I hear someone say today that they have lived with their fears so long they have forgotten about them. She was talking about fear of intimacy and being loved. She said the fear was engrained in her sense of self and had been part of who she was for such a long time that she no longer recognized it as a fear but as part of her character.
And I'm thinking, hum. My ghosts are there. Are they something I wear like my skin to protect me against things I perceive as dangerous, or are they a memory line in my brain scratched so deep that it is cut to my very core? I'll never be able to live without them.
Do fears and pain shape us? Or is it because we have allowed them to?