Practical pain scales

Posted by on . 3 comments.

Sick enough to want help; well enough to not need it.

Comments

  1. sasha_feather says:
    July 20, 2016 at 1:55 pm

    I would argue that say “I don’t really *need* help” is internalized ableism, along the lines of “it wasn’t *really* harassment”…. minimizing statements to make our needs and desires smaller.

    Reply
    • sarcozona says:
      July 20, 2016 at 4:38 pm

      Yeah, in my better moments I try for “It’s hard to get up and get an ice pack and it would be really comforting and a relief if someone else did it for me, but I can do this myself and it will help me.”

      Reply
    • sarcozona says:
      July 20, 2016 at 4:39 pm

      Also learning, slowly, to separate need for physical help from desire for emotional support. There are multiple components of comfort to having someone do something like bring me an ice pack – acknowledgement, relief from isolation, comfort, feeling loved and cared for, not exacerbating my symptoms with motion, etc. Maybe there’s no one around to bring me an ice pack, or it’s really inconvenient for someone to bring me an ice pack. I may have to get it myself and that involves crawling and feels physically and emotionally awful, but I can get a lot of the other things with a text (or a blog post :))

      Reply

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