"SUCK IT UP!"

Sometimes people say things without stopping to think how it will make the other person feel. They might mean well, but it doesn’t always come out the way they intended.

            Friends of mine have a daughter named Anna who has Infantile Autism. This means she has very limited communication skills, developmental delays, and ritualistic behaviors associated with Autism. As if this wasn’t enough to deal with, she also has uncontrolled seizures! REALLY???? Autism wasn’t enough? This lead them to consult their neurologist on how to deal with her seizures. He told them about a study that was being done through Johns Hopkins in Baltimore Md., using a diet as a way to control seizures. He suggested they go down there for a consultation.

  The doctor at John’s Hopkins started off by asking how many seizures Anna was having. They told him she was having 800-900 seizures a month. His reaction was far from professional to say the least. “800-900 a month??  I have patients who have that many in a day!” My friends took his response as an insult as if he was saying, “Oh please, that’s nothing!”  In other words….

 

“SUCK IT UP!”

           

I am sure the doctor didn’t intend for his words to be so upsetting.  However, to people who have never experienced seizures or any other type of sudden onset illness, words like that can cut like a knife. They left the doctor’s office feeling like their concerns weren’t even heard, let alone acknowledged!

On the way home, they replayed the doctor’s words over and over in their minds. They started believing that what they were feeling was unjustified and that they should just,

 

“SUCK IT UP!”

 

Then it hit them. People are not supposed to have even ONE seizure let alone 800-900 in a month!  They had gone to this doctor for healing for their daughter and he left them feeling very upset and discouraged. This experience taught them they were going to have to learn to stand up for themselves and for their daughter. She was going to need a lifetime of care and in order for that to happen, they were not going to be able to just

“SUCK IT UP!”

 

We all go through difficult times in our lives and we all react in ways that are unique to us. It helps when someone is there to say “I might not know exactly what you are going through but I am here for you.”

 

But that’s not always easy, is it? We even have to tell ourselves to “SUCK IT UP” sometimes, don’t we? I know I have!

 

If we are able to feel true compassion for what other are going through, we’ll not only be able to respond without making others feel like they have to “SUCK IT UP!” but we can even help ourselves from feeling this way.

Has anyone else felt like they were being told to SUCK IT UP? What happened? How did you deal with it?