It Only Hurts
While taking a disabilities studies class in college, I was introduced to the McGill Pain Questionnaire (or index or scale, it goes by many names). Rather than trying to measure one’s pain on a scale from 1 to 10, or perhaps even worse, the smiley faces, this questionnaire gives 78 words to capture one’s pain.
How do we make the invisible visible? How do we take our pain - this thing that plays fast and loose with words and time - and hold it down long enough to show someone else? These questions began this series - which is an effort to make visible each word in the questionnaire.
