Sometimes "witnesses to [your] pain refuse to hear."

A University of London history professor, Joanna Bourke, has published a history of pain, The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers.

The author described the book in the New York Times on July 13, 2014, in an article entitled, “How to Talk About Pain.”   

Bourke noted historic explanations of pain as a spiritual force, the introduction of anesthetics and changes in clinical attitudes.  The resulting “valorization of detachment,” she said, “has gone too far, however.” 

Disabled people know only too well as Bourke stated:  “People in chronic pain experience their suffering not as contained and isolated in their bodies, but in interaction with other people in their environments.”