Performing normal but becoming crip: Living with chronic pain

Abstract

This article explores the tensions of crip time when it comes to the ways in which chronically pained people (or: people living with chronic pain) move in/through time in both normative and non-normative ways. In exploring how chronic pain develops slowly, and is often accompanied by disbelief and silencing, the paper considers whether crip time can include liminal spaces of becoming chronically pained, including medicalised spaces/times of testing and diagnosis. The paper then considers how pacing, which can be both a rehabilitative normalizing practice and a practice of self-care, is a part of moving through time in ways which can be read as both normative and non-normative. The paper concludes that there are multiple ways of moving through crip time, and multiple ways of living crip lives—which include liminal spaces, and spaces with conflicting understandings.