My Least Popular Post

You know how it’s totally annoying when someone without kids thinks they know how your kids should be parented? 

So many of us have that sister, or friend, or neighbor or whoever and their mother, who has not raised any children, yet acts as though they are a parenting expert.  (I suppose whoever’s mother would have at least one kid, but you know what I mean.)  I don’t know how anyone can think they know what to do before having kids.  It definitely seemed simpler before, but still.  How can you think you’re knowledgeable on a subject you have no experience in?

Brene Brown PhD says she laughs when people call her a “parenting expert” because according to her, the term parenting expert is an oxymoron.  There is no such thing.

I couldn’t agree more.  I have three kids and I had a foster son.  And I. AM. CLUELESS.  The biggest thing these kids have taught me is that I seriously need Jesus to take the freaking wheel.

Many of you can relate to having your parenting abilities scrutinized, questioned or judged by someone with no life experience.  You know what it’s like to have someone say, “Well, if you just did this ….”  So, try to wrap you mind around what it’s like when someone without chronic illness scrutinizes, questions and judges the way we handle and live our lives with illness?  Imagine what it’s like when people think or actually say, “If she’d only do X, Y or Z then this wouldn’t be such a problem.”

Don’t get a thread going in the chronic illness community about the things people have said to them—all the simple things that would fix their problems if they’d only stop being lazy and do it.  It’s never ending. 

If you’d just try yoga. 

It’s all the medicines you take, just go with natural supplements. 

You need to try more medicines.

You just need to get outside more and breath some fresh air. 

Well, of course you don’t feel well, you spend so much time at the doctor—that makes anyone think they’re sick.

You work too hard.

You need to work more.

It’s all the chemicals in your makeup.  If you’d just buy natural makeup.

And our personal POTSie favorite; You eat too much salt.  Cut that out and you’ll feel a lot better.

Why do so many people think they are the experts on our illness?  We like to talk about all the “experts” out there.  I understand why because some of these people can be very hurtful in the way they treat us.  It helps to share it with others who understand how hurtful these things are.  It helps to laugh at the multitude of memes that speak to our experience.

Yet, I’d like to give a word of caution to myself and my fellow chronic illness feisty friends.  We don’t like to be judged and we don’t like people to assume we feel this way because we are doing something wrong.  So, I have something to say that may not be very popular.  Let’s stop a minute and think about the way we talk about the health care industry. 

Trust me, I know firsthand how upsetting it is to be treated badly by doctors.  I know the stress of having to fight for what you need when your provider doesn’t have a clue what is wrong with you.  I understand speaking about individual providers being ignorant or prideful or whatever.  It is painful to hope against hope that a doctor will be able to help and then have that doctor treat you like a second-class citizen.  I know the pain, and I’ve even written about some of my experiences in detail.  It can be terrifying to be in what may potentially be a life-threatening situation and have the person you go to for help blow you off.  But let’s be careful not to speak about the health care industry as a whole.  Yes, it’s got a lot of problems.  Yes, it’s got a lot of bad doctors.  But speaking about all of them in degrading terms is exactly what we are fighting against for ourselves.  That is exactly how we are trying NOT to be treated.  Just because someone happened to know someone with an illness who faked something or who was lazy, doesn’t mean that’s who we all are.

It’s the same with the medical community, and when we bash them—the same people we need to help us, we perpetuate a culture of judgement, a culture who thinks it’s okay to badmouth anyone we feel like.  A culture of constant complaint.  A culture that assumes we are the experts on how everyone else should act, do their jobs and live their lives.  We can’t go to them with an attitude that they are stupid and helpless without us there to educate them.  Isn’t that the last way we want to be treated?  And yes, this applies even if they know nothing about your condition.  We can’t expect respect if we aren’t willing to give it.  (And no, I’m not saying everyone in the chronic illness community does this. It is just a few, but it’s becoming more common.)

Doctors are people too.  They have stresses and worries and families and long hours.  They often have their own health issues.  They don’t know everything.  It’s unreasonable to expect them to.  It’s unreasonable to think you know how they should handle each situation.  You don’t know the paperwork nightmares, the insurance requirements and restrictions, the contraindications, the risk to their hard-earned license (that they may still be paying through the nose for) for running tests that aren’t indicated.  The list goes on and on.  Yes, we often know more about our condition, but we don’t know the entire picture.  In an ideal world, they would all play Dr. House and come search your apartment for mold and look into your childhood and research every trip you ever took outside the country until they discovered the root of the issue.  All would be well and wrapped up within a couple episode visit.  But the reality is; doctors don’t have that kind of time for each patient.  New conditions and treatments emerge and are discovered faster than they can keep up with.  Most truly care, but their burden is too high, and the fact that they can’t help you makes them feel like crap, too. 

Yeah, there are the jerks who think you’re faking.  There are the ones who think they know everything and will never admit they have no clue.  But just like you don’t want them to be jaded by the fakers and believe the same of you, don’t be jaded by the know-it-all doctors and throw them all under the bus.  To do so only says that stereotyping groups is okay, and therefore it’s okay to do the same to us. It perpetuates a much larger issue for more minorities than just those with chronic illness.

God offers the same amount of grace to the doc who called you lazy and said you were faking as He does to you.  He offers the same amount of grace to the patient who truly is faking and trying to game the system as He does to the doctor who diagnosed your illness and is helping you function again.  He offers the same amount of grace to the crunchy mom who makes her own deodorant as He does to your sister-in-law when she hands your kid a screen and candy to keep him quiet, while telling you he needs to get more exercise and eat healthier.

This parenting gig is tough.  This chronic illness gig is tough.  Being a doctor is tough in ways I don’t understand.  We all need Jesus to take our messed up, stinking wheels.  We all need loads of His grace.  Fortunately, He gives us plenty so there is no need to hoard it by withholding it from others.  Let’s help stop this culture and cycle which allows us to be misjudged by refusing to do the same to others … no matter how big of a pain in the back side they may be.  Let’s begin a new culture that assumes the best about others until proven otherwise.  And even then, let’s try to find the good in them.  Sometimes you have to look really hard, but I promise, you’ll find something.  And that something will remind you that they are just a fellow struggling human.  And that knowledge will allow grace to flow freely from you without you even having to try.