Empathy

Empathy is an interesting word.  “Put yourself in someone else’s shoes”.  I try to do that all the time.  I wonder if anyone is ever empathetic to me.  Put themselves in my shoes.  I don’t have a disease.  I am healthy as far as I know.  I don’t have pain other than an occasional migraine or the tendonitis in my shoulder acting up.  So because they see me as perfectly fine, I don’t need empathy?  I am not talking pity.  No one wants to be pitied.  I am talking about an understanding of what I might be going through.  To stop and think that maybe there is more going on than meets the eye.  So if someone doesn’t complain and moan about their lives, no one will ever show them empathy?  If they aren’t sick, they don’t need empathy?  Do I even deserve empathy because I don’t suffer?  I try to be a strong person.  I don’t like to complain.  I don’t like people knowing all my business.  So because of that, when I am overwhelmed and overloaded, I feel all alone.  I sit at work crying in my office and no one really knows what is going on.  It is work, trying to be professional.  I don’t want to bother my friends with all my shit, because I don’t want to be a downer or a burden,  Not mention I don’t want to dwell on the bad and negative either.  I don’t let my husband know all that races through my mind either, because how can what I am going through compare to what he is with his RSD.

So today when I am dealing with my mom being put into a nursing home, I am getting hit with phone calls from Kevin and his mom, both telling me that each other should show compassion for what they are going through.  And I sit here thinking what about me.  So I listen and try to understand and try to be the mediator and all it does is upset them more.  “Caught in the middle” so to speak.  I am left to just worry.  Worry about my son who is also caught in the middle of it all.  And stuck at work helpless.

Well I did get empathy, but not from whom I was expecting, but from someone who just happened to have the misfortune to email me when all this shit was going on. LOL This person is no stranger to RSD.  She just so happens to be the founder of the RSD Support group in Illinois.  Having RSD, she knows first hand what family members deal with, struggle with and stress about.  She listened, showed empathy and told me how proud she was of me for how well I am handling all I am dealing with right now.  So thank you Edwina.