"You will be just fine" has long been a problem for me. No matter what horrendous circumstance one is facing, what one needs is support and validation, not cheer-leading. Discounting a person's feelings and implying that everything can be solved by being positive does a great disservice to the ill or injured or depressed or bereaved.
But at one time or another, I suspect we have all said it. I know I have. Do we say it to reassure others? To reassure ourselves? To deny what's going on?
And beyond that, there is "Just stay positive." Another soul shrinker that:
- implies you caused your own cancer with your negativity
- burdens you with being in charge of getting well
- causes infinite pain if cancer eats at you until you die
I have a poem to share with you:
You Will Be Just Fine
Please do not trivialize
my suffering.
You who are healthy
You whose mortaility is as yet
Only dimly preceived–
Please do not say
"You will be just fine."
I may well be–someday–
But I do not know…
You do not know…
(Excerpted from Fine Black Lines: Reflections on Facing Cancer, Fear and Loneliness, (c) 1993, 2003 Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad. All rights reserved.)
And tell me why you think we keep saying, "You will be just fine."
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