I write a fair bit about my use of art, in particular, doodling and drawing, to distract my thoughts from the pain I feel. In the past, I’ve also attempted to draw representations of how I think my pain could look. I haven’t done that in a while because the concentration it takes is not always available to me and the meditative value of unplanned, spontaneous line drawing has become a large factor behind why I do so much of it. No measuring, no choosing of a complementary colour palette, just grabbing a pen or pencil and allowing my hand to move it across the page.

About a week ago, as I was scrolling through the feed of one of my creative connections on Instagram, Dana “Jonesy” Jones, I saw an illustration she created to symbolize her back pain. I commented that I could probably fill an entire sketchbook with only illustrations of my pain. I’m actually positive that I could fill multiple volumes. However, to start with, I decided to create just one page.

For about a month, I’ve been riding the wave of an intense and lengthy pain flare up – I define a flare up as pain I measure, on the very subjective pain scale, that stays above 7 or 8 consistently – so this idea came at an ideal time. Thanks to Dana’s inspiration, I sat down and focussed on what I felt in my body: The sharp edges of glaringly bright colours trying to cut through the deepest layers of my flesh to burst free of their confines, which might, unintentionally, free me. The overlapping of sensations that are indistinguishable as they land simultaneously and pound the life out of every nerve they touch. Even on a “good” day, this pain keeps wrapping around itself and within me.

Here’s a glimpse of how I imagine my pain looking during this flare up…