In this autoethnography, I provide a firsthand account of living with severe chronic pain in an effort to begin to fill an absence in the scholarly literature. I intend to demonstrate how the performative nature of pain and the way in which people in pain are treated can contribute to the slow and steady erasure of their credibility and sense of effectiveness in the wider world. In this way, I underscore the “public issues” inherent in the chronic pain experience, something that is traditionally seen as the most private of “personal troubles.” I conclude that qualitative health research would benefit if more “insiders” were to give expression to some of the devastating social effects of living with chronic pain. Pain sufferers need a common language through which they can begin to resist shame, reclaim a sense of agency, and raise their voices as part of an empowered collective.
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