Reaching out to people I'm close to has always been a
personal struggle. My beliefs have so often been invalidated by phrases such as
this. It’s difficult for people to know what to say, especially when blame
cannot be assigned to an individual. I'm fully aware that my life has not been
fair. But somehow I always conclude that it’s my own fault. Growing up in a
Catholic home and school environment taught me that I would be rewarded for being
good, and punished for being bad. Films taught me that good people always had a
happy ending, and bad people met a cruel end. And then I was punished in the cruellest
way. My body was attacking me. So my thought process began to establish that I had
acted in a bad way, and that I was not a good person. But that just was not
true. I was a child. It’s so hard to remember that. Eight years old. And I expected
myself to be able to deal with this diagnosis. The NHS expected me to be able
to deal with this diagnosis. My ten year old sister was expected to deal with
this. And people are wondering why there is such a mental health crisis
arising. Patients have to willingly ask for psychiatric help when they are
diagnosed. And when life is not fair, people keep to themselves because they ‘don’t
want to bother anyone with their own problems’.
So yes, my life has not been fair. I have not been given the
same opportunities as ‘normal’ people, and this is what I find so frustrating.
I am the only person who can help me get better. I was the one who went through
the entire physical and emotional trauma. It was me lying in that hospital bed,
struggling just to stay alive. And you’re responding to my experiences with the
phrase ‘life isn’t fair’? I think I'm aware of this. Bringing a generalisation
of your attitude towards life does not validate my statement, whatever it may
have been. Responding with ‘that must have been hard for you’ or even ‘shit,
that sucks’ is more helpful than trying to compare my experience with your own,
or anyone else’s. Also, apologising has quite a detrimental effect. When I explain
my past to a new person, 90% of the time I receive an apology. They’re either
an acquaintance, apologising for bringing it up, or a family member,
apologising for the fact that it happened. This again links back to the natural
human want to assign blame. And it makes the individual explaining their past
feel guilty for making the other person sad/apologetic.
Overall, I feel like what I'm trying to explain is that you
must carefully consider your response so as to validate people’s feelings. Avoiding
stereotypical phrases like ‘life isn’t fair’ and ‘there’re people much worse
off than you’ will help with this, and lessen the impact over time on the person
suffering. After all, when your emotions are invalidated again and again, you
stop trying to explain. You stop trying to reach out because it feels useless,
and this is even more unfair.
Sophie Hartley xo
