I think this is an important point to consider, but the emphasis is being shifted when it really shouldn’t - yes, pain is hell, and it makes life hard, even unbearable, but you know what radicalises pain patients? The brick walls we hit and slaps in the face we get at every turn when desperately seeking help and support from a system and institutions based on so many levels of bias and discrimination and exclusion (capitalism, ableism, sexism, racism, classism, queerphobia, fatphobia and on and on), designed to keep us out of sight and out of mind. Being dismissed as “hysterical”, a liar, a drug seeker, a lazy burden, a scrounger, fat, “uncooperative” (like when autistic people struggle to make eye contact, or in too much pain and trauma to communicate calmly). Being locked up, institutionalised, or just completely ignored. Being told it’s “too expensive” to provide us with quality of life, but rather encouraged to be “assisted” in disposing of ourselves instead, or doing it for us with lack of funding and support.

Yeah, being marginalised radicalises you, but not because of who you are, but because of the systems of oppression designed to marginalise you, which others simply have the privilege of not being directly impacted by (which in far too many cases results in not even believing they exist, which of course serves to maintain them).