#the body in pain

[memoriesofthingspast]

joy harjo; “in mad love and war”

[checkoutmybookshelf]

"To have great pain is to have certainty; to hear that another person has pain is to have doubt."

-- Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain

Another book and quote I tend to think about when the RA is flaring. We have really, really got to fix the twisted sense that pain is somehow lesser simply because you aren't the one feeling it.

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[echoland]

[laku-incarnate]

Elaine Scarry

[fadingwonderlandkryptonite]

Something I want able bodied people to understand is that I don't want a diagnosis cause I wanna be sick so bad; I want a diagnosis because there is already something wrong with my body but I don't know what the fuck it is.

[colourmeastonished]

Body swap movie where one of them has invisible disabilities and when the other one lands in their body they immediately collapse catatonic on the floor from the pain and fatigue and the first one is like 'oh damn guess I don't have to worry that I'm faking it anymore'

[galechives]

from Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (1985)

[galescafe]

i want to live inside elaine scarry's brain. her endless lists inside of lists as she makes sense of pain ... obsessed

[lazylittledragon]

dadkarios doods sponsored by my stress migraine

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[schizoaffectively]

You are well within your right to be angry about the help you didn't get and should have gotten.

You are well within your right to be angry about having your needs neglected.

You are well within your right to be angry.

[captainharlock]

comic i made about out-aging the person i've been grieving

[galechives]

from Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (1985)

[chronicpaingirlie]

btw something im working on learning is that disabled is something that im allowed to be in public.

im allowed to lay down on the living room floor if im in middle of a conversation & enjoying it but feeling too lightheaded to sit up. im allowed to sit at the table to do meal prep and to sit on a stool at the stove to cook. im allowed to use my cane while i run errands.

if people are uncomfortable with my disabled existence, it’s their responsibility to work on that, it’s not my responsibility to try to hide my disability from the view of abled people.

i shouldn’t be relegated to my bedroom or to my house or to places where no one else will be just to have accommodations. im allowed to just exist & not have to pretend to be able bodied for the comfort & convenience of others.

[spaceacerat]

I see you disabled people who don't know your family medical history because your family members couldn't/wouldn't/weren't allowed to go to the doctor and never got diagnosed, or don't know your family.

I see you disabled people who didn't know you were disabled growing up, physically or mentally, maybe because your parents didn't have insurance and couldn't afford it/wouldn't take you seriously/didn't think it was a problem because they had it/doctors couldn't figure it out.

I see you disabled people who have bouts of an issue that you grew up with, that are/were infrequent enough that you never really thought about it and dealt with it on your own, and when you have one in front of people who weren't medically neglected, you wonder why they look so horrified as you describe it.

I see you disabled people who didn't/haven't had any amount of care or accommodation for their disability since it started, because you couldn't get diagnosed.

I see you disabled people who grew up thinking everyone had the same problem as you and that it was normal and so you accepted it, because you didn't understand how the human body worked and had no real frame of reference nor the language to ask for help, or the people around you saw it and just ignored it.

I see you disabled people only now understanding that what you experience is abnormal, and that there are things that can be done to help it, make it easier, or at least help you understand yourself better.

I see you disabled people that will never be able to get diagnosed or get the help you need, whether from being poor, lacking insurance, or any number of reasons.

This shit is hard, and there are people who will never quite understand your struggles. It doesn't seem to get talked about as much, but I wish it was. Please know I love you, and you aren't alone.