I know people tend to want to tell you everything you are doing wrong when it comes to your chronic illnesses. Like you should do this, or do that or maybe if you do this you will get better. But it seems like they forget to commend you for doing some kind of great accomplishment when it comes to overcoming a hurdle of your health.
I have faced this so many times. I always get the comment "well you don't look sick"... do they not realize that all chronic illnesses are not noticeable on the outside (of course if they saw me without makeup they would realize my illnesses then). But now that I carry around a bag with the feeding tube connected to me, I seem to get a lot of stares but no one comes up to me to ask me if I need this or if I need that. But then I am a head strong person who is going to keep doing what I need to do to keep myself going. I am not willing to succumb to my illnesses until they just finally take me. Although I know I am progressively getting worse. What saddens me is each time I read about a loss of one of our GP warriors. It really hits home to each of us, and the not knowing.
But why do people tend to thing they know it all and seem to want to tell each of us just what we should or shouldn't do but they never ever acknowledge our accomplishments (no matter how small)?
I guess it is human nature to judge before we acknowledge. And maybe that comes somewhat from our growing up. It used to be in my day that you either won or lost, therefore you either got praise or a talking to about how you did wrong? But that is how we learned to deal with the real world. The real world isn't always about everyone gets a medal for just showing up, or good sportsmanship.
My kids learned the hard way from the hard knocks in life. Just as early young adults they keep learning from choices they make. Like I tell them so many times, it doesn't matter what age you are. You have to make choices as an adult and sometimes they may be good choices or they may be bad but you learn from them and move on. But that's just it, moving on can be hard. I know I have made many bad choices and the 2 biggest ones was what made my health bad. But you can't go back to fix it. (But I at least keep asking God for some help, but his ways of showing me help is not what I am always looking for).
So each and every day we all face trials and tribulations. And yep, people will always critic you for something you didn't do correct but they forget to let you know if you did a good job on something.
But these hard knocks of life is what has shaped me into the person I am today. I am a tough, strong, outgoing, fighter with a lot of gumption and willpower. I do waiver on some days, as we all do, we are not always perfect. But on those days I have to stop and think it could be worse. Yep, maybe I am carrying around a feeding tube bag and can't eat. And maybe my mind is in a brain fog because of my Bipolar (& menopause) and my body hurts from my fibro and the idiots always want to burn their leaves to make my COPD worse. But you know what, I got up today by the grace of God. So what if people tell me what I am doing wrong, for they don't know, they have never walked in my shoes to really know what my story and day to day life is like. And when I get compliments I accept them graciously because the other person really doesn't want to hear how bad your life is.
This is just life...
Keep Smiling
Carla
No comments:
Post a Comment