Masakit (It Hurts): Pain as a Cultural and Collective Community Experience—Using Digital Storytelling to Dig Deeper

I am no stranger to storytelling. And neither is anyone here at the Chronic Pain Network (CPN)—all our patient partners, trainees, clinicians, coordinators, and researchers are storytellers. Stories of pain are written and told on or expressed through our bodies and psyches, in our relationships and interactions, and in our environments and the world.

The digital storytelling (DST) project was a partnership between the CPN and Alberta Strategy for Patient Oriented Research Unit (AbSPORU) Digital Story Telling – Alberta Strategy for Patient Oriented Research SUPPORT Unit (AbSPORU)

Yet when I approached how to tell my own story of “Pain and Identity”—the DST theme collectively chosen by our small transnational group—I found it to be one of the hardest and most challenging excavations I’ve undertaken.

My story of pain and identity, I discovered, is not contained solely within my body; it tells the story of my family and the communities I belong to. It tells the story of diaspora and migration, of assimilation vs. integration, and of bridging worlds: my home country of Canada and my homeland of the Philippines; of being a nurse and a patient, and of individual and collective identities.

Storytelling isn’t just about recalling events; it’s about providing context. Within that context, timing is crucial. If the DST project had taken place at a different time or moment, you’d see a completely different story.

Our work on the DST began just after the events of the Lapu-Lapu Day Festival. On April 26, 2025, in my hometown of Vancouver, BC, an individual drove their car through a crowd of people gathered for a Filipino cultural celebration, killing eleven, injuring dozens, and ultimately impacting thousands.

For pain and “spoons” reasons, I could not go to that event, but I knew many who did—in fact, everyone I knew also knew someone impacted by that day. I pain-fully remember the aftermath of that event, experiencing a galactic-grade flare of symptoms fueled by the destabilization of grief, fear, rage, confusion, and uncertainty.

This was where I was at when we started the DST, and everyone in that group met me there with grace.

There is a word in Tagalog, “Kapwa”, that speaks to the individual vs. collective identity of the Philippines. It has many layered and nuanced meanings, but essentially it means “I am because you are. We are one.”

I discovered that for me, pain is not merely an individual or family issue. It is deeply rooted in cultural, community, and collective contexts. In my previous work in palliative care, we were taught that “total pain” goes beyond the biopsychosocial or sociopsychobiological model. It includes relational aspects (self and others), spiritual, mental, emotional, existential, financial, bureaucratic, environmental dimensions, and more.

For many, including myself, pain is a systemic experience.

In Masakit I excavate how my personal experience of pain and my FilipinX-Canadian identity are intrinsically intertwined. “Masakit” in Tagalog means “painful” or “causing pain”. In my own very limited “baby Tagalog” it means “It hurts”.

Masakit explores themes beyond navigating my pain body; it explores the pain of rejection, loneliness, and isolation. Of the persistent lack of representation. Of the pain of not fitting in, not belonging, and of masking in order to belong. Of the loss of social roles, work roles, and of one’s shifting sense of identity. Of acute grief, complicated grief, anticipatory grief, and sorrow. Gaslighting and invalidation. The inherited pain of migration: of leaving home, and setting down roots in an unfamiliar and sometimes hostile land. The violent but protracted death by a thousand cuts of racial pain—both systemic and lateral.

And the pain and discomfort of growth and hope.

Creating my DST was a process of what I call “exquisite pain”—the pain that takes you to the edge, pain you can lean into, not push away from. All my friends and colleagues in this DST project leaned into their experiences of pain and identity to excavate and weave these exquisite stories. I am grateful to these friends, and to the CPN, AbSPORU, and Pain BC for the invitation–and safety– to dig deeper.

Tabi tabi po and maraming salamat to the lands and stewards of the unceded territories of Coast Salish First Nations. Land Back. Kapwa Strong.

Watch “Masakit” on YouTube as part of our Painful Truths: Common Threads in a Tapestry of Chronic Pain and Identity playlist.