Comments on: Oh, Yeah?

By: bek

bek — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:00:28 +0000

Justine,

Somehow I missed the news about your accident (so sorry either way). I loved the way you described the groups. I too have been in all three groups, but thankfully have enough life experience behind me to try really hard just to be in the first one.

It sounds like you have the “health” version of our experiences with our adopted children (who are a different race than us). You would not believe the horror stories I hear about adoption–(HELLO!! My kids are right here!!) or the detailed and often insulting questions and assumptions about their other moms/families. Then again, maybe you would. I guess there will always be people who shock us.

Hope you are doing better and thanks for this timely reminder…

By: Justine

Justine — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:42:55 +0000

I have loved hearing stories from so many people, and I can’t exactly pinpoint the moment a heartfelt story becomes a competition of pain. That’ probably part of the problem. And I do recognize that alot of this comes from isolation and loneliness. We all want to feel comforted and loved. I just wish it didn’t feel so competitive and vindictive.

Too often, we vault our own pain and loneliness by minimizing or demeaning the suffering of others. That’s the part I don’t like. But I love talking to you, m&m, so fear not, dear.

By: m&m

m&m — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:31:52 +0000

Justine, thanks for this. It’s so interesting how our struggles can bring all sorts out of the woodwork. I love how trials can bond people, but it’s hard when they create rifts and competition.

I tend to agree with JKS about the toppers, though. I suspect much of that competition thing is often rooted in pain and loneliness and a need for sympathy/empathy. Sometimes it’s probably something else, like insecurity or other things, too.

This post has caused me some self-reflection. I’m even going back to our interactions at the park, and ask, ‘Is it I?’ Sometimes in sharing personal experiences, we might just say it wrong…I sure hope I didn’t!

By: Virtual Oases, August 3 « The Exponent

Virtual Oases, August 3 « The Exponent — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:34:32 +0000

[...] I’ll take your surgery and raise you a chronic illness . . . . competition run amok (and hugs to Justine — she’s had a heckuva [...]

By: Anna

Anna — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:14:43 +0000

I think the ones who avoid you just don’t know what to say. They don’t want to hurt you in any way. They don’t want to top you. They are afraid that anything they say will be wrong. They can’t even say they understand because they don’t, they haven’t been through it.

And they’re afraid if they don’t talk about it, it will be like the elephant in the room.

So it’s easier to avoid you.

It’s not lack of compassion that keeps them away. It’s that they have compassion that they don’t know how to express properly.

By: mormonhermitmom

mormonhermitmom — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 05:02:19 +0000

I don’t know what to say when I meet someone who does not get around the same way I do, other than I polite “hello”. It’s hard for me to talk to anybody I don’t know in the first place. I was always taught, “don’t stare, don’t point, don’t make fun of someone different from yourself” so that’s what I try to follow. I’ve heard you shouldn’t offer help unless it is asked for, so unless someone if obviously struggling, I just go on as if there was nothing different about the person. I probably come off as one of those who look past those who are in wheelchairs or who use other devices to get along. I guess I just don’t know how to show genuine interest and compassion without making someone feel pitied. I don’t want to demean anyone, especially with unwanted pity.

By: JKS

JKS — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:28:31 +0000

About the toppers. Recently, I watched a home video of my son at age two and a half. It made me cry to see him unable to talk. I cried for him and for myself, and the hard road of trying to help him and worrying about him. The whole “experience” is behind me, but it is still a part of me.
It is an invisible part of me. People who know me now weren’t there then. They don’t know.
Perhaps your toppers still carry the weight of their lifechanging struggles. They still need to share them, talk about them, process them, accept them, learn from them. But there is no one who wants to listen. We all need someone to listen.

By: jendoop

jendoop — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:49:17 +0000

Thank you for the reminder that people with scars are still people. Just because someone has been through something difficult doesn’t make them a saint. On the flip side there are those who haven’t been through horrors and are saints.
I will say it only takes one mean person in a wheelchair to make you wary. I offered help to someone at the library, only to be met with, “I can do it myself!” I think twice before offering help now. You never know what experiences people have been through to create their reactions.
Another take on the “toppers” – perhaps they are looking for comradarie also, they’re just not very good at communicating it. We all have trials, medical and otherwise – maybe we wonder if you have a secret to getting through it that we could really use. I do anyway.

By: Justine

Justine — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 04:29:25 +0000

I quite know for certain that I have at some point in my life engaged in the race for the bottom of the barrel. I always berate myself afterwards, and now after this experience, I think it’s been beaten out of me.

By: Mommom

Mommom — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 03:23:29 +0000

PS – Can I add that when I post on the internet I have another luxury – taking time to choose my words. Sometimes I don’t even post if it never comes together, but in person I know I’ve said some things I wish I hadn’t. (It made perfect sense at the time).