this scale is from TSR's old Marvel Super Heroes tabletop roleplaying game. see how the adjectives from the classic comic titles made their way into the chart?
for the young 'uns, TSR was the company that owned Dungeons and Dragons, before it got bought by Wizards of the Coast which got bought by Hasbro. they had some other games too, and this was one of them.
what motivated us to dig the chart up was the observation that there are really very few words to describe pain. it's a topic humans don't like talking about.
and any pain scale that goes from 1-10 just feels absurd, for a zillion reasons that other people have written about at length. it doesn't matter what the labels are, humans have expectations about those numbers which do not correspond to the reality.
our intestines tonight are in Incredible (40) pain, which is not really that bad as these things go, so we feel vaguely guilty for being utterly incapacitated by it
our tummy today is doing really well, it's down to Excellent (20) pain after many hours of careful treatment
this is still bad enough that we can't really focus on anything, but it's ignorable. it's a shame we have to eat at some point today; when we do it'll start getting bad again.
bodily wastewe have not yet managed to excrete any solid waste today, which is annoying, there's a lot of gunk that feels like it will come out once we get the "plug" at the end, but until we do...
on the plus side we've removed what feels like it must surely be several liters of water. it's probably less, it just feels like a lot.
we should reiterate because apparently many of our followers do not realize, this pain is fully expected and "normal" as a Crohn's thing.
we try not to be prickly about this stuff, but it is not going to go away so please do not ask us to lie and say it is. we've had to point that out a few times and we're starting to have actual hurt feelings about it, and it's probably easier on everyone if we mention it proactively
asking how to discuss chronic pain/disability@ireneista I've heard similar thoughts/feelings from other people about get well wishes, and it does make sense that it would get old for anything that doesn't have an end, and similarly feelings of abandonment when people "give up" on them when it does not get better :(
But I still want to try to say something positive or at least acknowledge it if they're discussing it, so I'm wondering if y'all have any ideas for different levels of familiarity with the other person/persons. Or even just limited to what you would like :3
Especially with things that may ebb and flow in severity. Is a "I hope tomorrow's better", with the understanding it won't "go away" inappropriate?
asking how to discuss chronic pain/disability@walnut so we can only speak for ourselves and this is not necessarily how anyone else would feel
but we'd usually prefer acknowledgement that stays in the moment, rather than looking ahead to an imagined future
"wow, that sucks" is pretty much right on-target. we're not hoping someone will make it better for us, we know that's impossible, it just feels nice to be seen, you know? to not be alone with it
asking how to discuss chronic pain/disability@walnut there's other concerns beyond staying in the moment but the general rubric is don't make it about yourself. like pay close attention to what emotional needs of your own are driving your word choice, and think consciously about whether that's fair to put on the other party. that's honestly a useful skill to develop for a wide variety of situations, anyhow
