I have a serious question and I want you to answer honestly…… You see this young girl lying on a park bench, what are your first assumptions?
Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear or what you know would be most acceptable to be said, but tell me what your true first thought was………
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Assumptions
It is easy to see why someone would assume she was lazy.
She is young. It doesn’t look like she is in pain. And she appears to be enjoying herself.
I won’t lie, the last thing I would assume if I walked up to that bench is that she had a painful chronic illness. Even though I have been living with chronic pain from my illnesses since 1999, I still catch myself making snap judgments.
But……. isn’t assuming there is something wrong with her also making a snap judgment?
There is only one way to know
Either way, we are making assumptions about the girl.
The only way to really know is to get to know her.
I didn’t write this post to argue about which assumption is right or wrong, I wrote it to remind all of us that the only way to know what someone is going through is to talk to them.
This also means that we need to be open and honest when our friends and family ask us how we are doing.
We can’t expect people to understand or to offer help if all we tell them is “I am fine”.
Tweet
If you are not fine, SPEAK UP!
With that said, how are you doing today?
HOW TO SPOT SOMEONE WITH A CHRONIC ILLNESS
