Intake

In Canadian medical speak, "intake" is the process of accessing medical services from a new provider. 

Intake for me has involved sitting in a lot of waiting rooms with a survey on a clipboard and the feelings that survey questions provoke. 

On paper, I have been repeatedly confronted with the question “are you permanently disabled?” however the people who have collected my intake information do not discuss or explain what this means.

This is  not a script of actual  intake survey questions, but a reflection of what it feels like to be “surveyed” and the felt implications of officially answering yes or no to high stake questions that don’t have binary answers.