It was written long ago yet it echoes thoughts I have TODAY!
I understand people mean well, but the one who is an expert on disease or condition or situation is the one suffering from it, or one who has cured or treated MANY with it.
Helping/curing one person with AS or ADHD or whatever doesn’t make even that person an authority. After all, there’s mild ADHD and there’s severe. There are different triggers. And what if they actually don’t have ADHD but just a very busy brain?
And so, I pray for my friend who doesn’t have a job, I don’t tell her what to do. I don’t know her area, I can’t tell her to go look for something else to do. I can’t tell her to sign up with an employment agency. Where are they? What opportunities would there be in her vicinity? Would I drive her to interviews? So, I sit and pray. And tell her that if another opportunity comes up for something different, that God open our eyes to it.
When my friend’s child is sick and the doctors get rid of one possible cause, I will WONDER to her if it’s not perhaps a different cause. But I won’t tell her how to treat him. What if it’s NOT the cause I think it is? Does she have the time to administer the treatment? Would he handle it? Or would it cause him discomfort? I pray with her that the doctors find the correct cause. No advice given.
But oh, the people who give advice without being asked…
I lament that we aren’t close to figuring out a cause for my daughter’s high heart rate problem. The answer, “ Well, at least” (Ooohhh. My friend and I hate it when someone comes up with an at least for a situation someone else is going through) “the tests are in hospital so gap cover and med aid will pay for them.”
Me, “We already did the tests out of hospital when we saw the urologist last month. And we don’t have gap cover.”
Now note. If I have medical aid, I obviously know about gap cover. There’s a REASON I don’t have it, a reason I’m not paying for it.
Response isn’t a, “Oh, she has other issues? Why was she seeing a urologist??” The response is, “We pay R200 a month for me and whoever and whoever.”
“Well, good for you!!” I think sarcastically.”
But, I just respond that we’ve done our maths and we are FINE as we are.
Would this person pay the “only” amount she is so sure is nothing for me because it’s nothing for her? Is she thinking I think gap cover costs much more than that? Is she thinking I’m careless for not having gap cover? I don’t know. But it definitely implies that I’m less than in some way. It’s the insistence when we gently decline that makes it clear that somehow the person thinks they know better. Like the people who keep insisting on an AS treatment or book I have to buy, or consultation I have to pay for ( One woman even wanted me to pay before the actual consultation even took place. WHAT!??) when they’ve never heard that the treatment actually helped maybe even 10 people.
Please don’t.
Nothing is “only.” Money is precious. I have six lovely children to clothe and feed. I have hectic health issues. I have co-payments for treatments. I have loved ones who need FOOD and about whom I feel terrible that I can’t do MORE. My R200 per month is for the destitute and desperate, not to perhaps cover some payment the medical aid I have might not cover.
God will provide. I’ve never not gone to hospital just because I don’t have gap cover. We had our twins at a hospital and via a doctor not in our network. Yet somehow we paid the hospital fee and two surgeons’ fees and the paediatrician’s. Without gap cover. And my poverty stricken people ate an extra serving of food with my R200.
Let’s not plan for others’ money. Let’s not assume they know less and that’s why they aren’t doing as we would.
Perhaps they even know more.
Like that their chronic fatigue and pain won’t allow them to travel there, or stand to make those meals, or find the ingredients for that amazing autoimmune recipe found using ingredients not local to us.
I just know that it’s well meaning but misguided. If we don’t ask, don’t tell.
Pray.
Help in practical ways.
How about you find the book, buy the ingredients, cook the meals and bring them over?
How about you offer to pay for the gap cover?
THAT is help. Unsolicited advice that implies superiority is not.
On a positive note. I am LOVED!
I am thankful for sisterhood that cares and asks how things are and randomly tells me, “I love you.”
I can do with many of THAT type of message. I won’t tire of THAT. 😊
They said I should write a book 