I don’t blog or write as much as I’d like to. There are a lot of reasons for this but the biggest one is that i live with chronic pain on a daily basis. Since I was injured in March 2005, I have not had a single day where I have not experienced some kind of pain.
My head and neck are my two main sources of pain but I also have to deal with soreness and aching in my shoulders, arms, hands, back, legs and feet at times.
The long and short of it is that pain makes it really hard to write. I don’t want to write when I’m in pain. There are a lot of days when I simply don’t care about stringing two words together. If I could’ve gotten away without writing today, I would have. My neck hurts like heck and I would love to just rest it on a pillow and read a book. But I know that if I want to be a better writer and activist, I need to write/blog more. So I’m forcing myself to type this. The pain makes it hard to concentrate, though. When I’m writing, I often stop several times to play a quick computer game or check Twitter.
The pain makes me doubt myself. It makes me think I have nothing to write about, nothing to blog about. All I can think to write about is my pain and who really wants to read about me whining about that? Yet chronic pain is a problem for me and so many other women, so it should be talked about, right? I feel torn up and confused inside because I don’t know how to make my personal experience with pain political. If this blog is about disability and feminism, I don’t want to just write about my own personal struggles. However, at the moment, my struggle with pain is very personal. It is disabling. It is what I am thinking about nearly every moment of every day.
Where does that leave this blog? I’m not sure. Rather than not post anything at all, I think I am going to start writing more about how pain and disability have affected me. I have no idea this will shake out but I hope you’ll keep reading.
xoxo,
Danine
I'm Danine Spencer and I am (in no particular order) a writer, blogger, feminist, disability rights advocate, political nerd, techie, dog-lover and Diet Coke addict. Please click on the
I look forward to reading more. Chronic pain is just so difficult to deal with–I am not getting much done but am longing to get back to doing more and learning from others with it.
I’d love to hear more about how chronic pain has affected your daily life. It’s hard for anyone who hasn’t experienced it to truly believe it, isn’t it? I fully admit that I used to be somewhat skeptical regarding the nebulous invisible pain conditions. I’ve certainly changed my story on that one.
Look forward to seeing what else you have to write!
Thanks for the comment, Candy. And the encouragement. I’m a little nervous about talking about my own personal story but hopefully, some good will come out of it.
Thanks for reading and commenting. I haven’t kept up with your blog this summer (or ANY blogs) but I’ve always thought you’re probably one of the few people thatt might understand what I go through: Being stuck at home a lot, pain, fatigue, doctors, etc. Thanks for joining the conversation, Frida!
Thanks for blogging about the link between chronic pain and not wanting to write. I have undiagnosed (undiagnosable?) chronic pain and I used to mentally flog myself because I thought that I caused both the chronic pain and the ‘lack of discipline’ for writing *with my thoughts*. I now have a better understanding, due to my own extensive research, of the link between my physical symptoms and their effect on my motivation and emotions. It is important to remember that doubt, fear, anxiety, fatigue, defiance and other emotions are chemical and physical too. And that the body’s response to pain can arouse these responses. I really benefit from hearing other people’s stories because it helps to reinforce that it’s not just my own inadequacies. There’s a lot more at play, and much of it is physiological.
Writing about the personal as political is very important to people scattered all over who have relatable experiences. So, thank you for blogging about it.
On the political/research-writing front, there are many ways to start from personal stories. A Master’s student I know has written an autoethnography (kind of like a biography but with academic writing interspersed) about her experience negotiating the barriers to disability resources. She starts from her embodied experience and then her interactions with others to discuss how some policies and practices meant to help her can actually be disabling. Many magazine and journal articles start with a narrative about a particular experience and then use it to ground a discussion of the larger social relevance and implications. Novels, art and film about these topics are also useful for conveying experiences of pain and the disabling social structures that we often experience. You can start from your experiences, write about the pain when you can, and I bet that you’ll find just the right way to make it the kind of activism you want it to be.
Thanks so much for this comment, Sheryl. I really appreciate it – so much to think about here. Thanks for the feedback!