Category: Pain Blogging

(This is cross-posted from my Instagram where I have been most active lately. It’s not a poetically written post but it contains happy news about my thoracic outlet syndrome and I think this blog needs a bit of that.) Succinctness will never be my talent but my health stuff is going amazingly well and so […]

(Trigger warning for discussion of suicide and disability, this is actually a positive post but it’s still very intensely emotional stuff.) Earlier this year, I stood on the edge of a train platform in New York City and nearly jumped. I had been struggling with suicidal ideation for the last two years, my chronic pain […]

Recently I was talking with some women who have chronic health issues and though our health problems manifest differently, we all spoke of having similar insecurities around talking too often or too openly about our troubles. These insecurities come in many different flavours; we the chronically unhealthy are afraid of being perceived of as whingy, […]

Deciding to live is not the same as wanting to live. This depression is thick and heavy, I feel immobilised. I understand that there are still good things and that there is still hope but that only sits in the part of my brain that deals with concepts, nothing feels good and I guess feelings […]

The rules state that pain must be internal. Like blood, milk, shit, piss, cum, tears, farts, ugly laughs, dirty sex, pubic hair… We are horrified by anything that highlights the truth of us as vulnerable, organic, meaty, stinking flesh. We love fruit when it is ripe and are revolted when it rots. We are tormented […]

Though I had been sexually active since I was 16, I didn’t learn how to orgasm until I was 22. So my first orgasm via masturbation wasn’t accidental, it was the result of a concerted effort, a campaign to cum that involved hours and months of exploration, wise advice from a sex worker friend and […]

Holding itself together is Life’s main job. We create ourselves out of the bits and pieces of stuff lying around and then spend the rest of our time desperately grabbing at the detritus of ourselves as time rapidly and indifferently happens and our bits and pieces crumble into dust and atoms that we can no […]

There have been a couple of times in my life where I have felt suicidal and though I’ve briefly mentioned it before, I don’t want to talk about it in detail so I am going to. When I was a teenager, I observed that my favourite artists were so often brutal, awkward and unattractive in […]

“Slow the fuck down you raging dickhead!” a red-faced, bald man screeches angrily at his bull terrier as it drags him towards the water. The water in question is Edwardes Lake, a brown, soupy, polluted puddle in a pretty little park in Reservoir. I’m here by accident. Today has been one of the days that […]

Last week I got an official diagnosis of thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) from a physiotherapist specialising in shoulder therapy. I liked her, she came across as being that rare sort of fiercely intelligent person who is dedicated to truly understanding what they do. Her questions were thoughtful and relevant, and her explanations were frank and […]