Tuesday, December 1, 2015

A simple question with a not so simple answer

"How are you?" it seems like a simple enough question, innocent and well-meaning enough. Is it a shop attendant? You fake smile and lie "fine thank you". You're there to buy a carton of milk, you're not actually talking to your psychologist who you're paying to have time to listen. But then a friend asks, are they a close friend and already has at least some idea of what's going on in your life right now? Even if they are, do you really want to be the "Debby Downer" bringing down the conversation describing your current struggles yet again like you did yesterday at the paediatrician? Sometimes I exhaust myself listing all our recent battles with our son. Surely it's exhausting to hear. Especially if it is someone you touch base with regularly, surely they're sick of hearing of ongoing struggles.

Even if you're feeling fine that day and not particularly worn down by recent events, the follow up question will kill it for sure. "How is X?" How am I supposed to answer how my chronically ill son is? "Oh much better" pppffftt right! We're lucky if he's well enough to attend a full week of school at the moment. Are you honestly prepared to hear that he's been so tired he could barely lift his head up long enough to eat his dinner or that he was so weak he couldn't climb up to his own bed for 3 nights and slept on a mattress on the floor? Or are you just trying to make normal, light-hearted conversation? There is nothing normal about my sons life, never has been and at the moment, nothing light-hearted either.

On the same hand I don't want you to not ask me about how he's going, to ignore him and what's going on there is ignoring a huge chunk of my life right now. It's not right to ignore our struggles just to make conversation easier.

You can't ask your friends with heathy children and normal lives to really actually 'get it'. You wouldn't wish this path on your worst enemy. You don't want to walk alone, yet you don't want to drag anyone else down with you, but there's very little choice, there's nothing joyful or uplifting about having a chronically ill child.


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