The Words We Choose
When I was fifteen, I was meeting with a Diabetic specialist. A new doctor who would supposedly help me control the disease that for most of my life had been uncontrollable and is still all over the place. He had a terrible bedside manner and unintentionally broke me.
I knew that my life was going to be different from a young age. Eventually, my body would fail me, on average a lot sooner than it would most people. Wounds don’t heal right, shooting pains in my feet, a paralyzed stomach, neuropathy of the heart. The fear and danger of losing limbs, vision loss, kidney damage. The list is extensive and terrifying when you think of it. This doctor was supposed to help me fight back against all these things. Instead he told me if I did not do what he wanted I would never make it to 25. He wanted me to go on an insulin pump and at the time people were dying from them, they were malfunctioning, the technology was not quite there yet. My family and I said no, and I was therefore convinced my life would be shorter than everyone else’s.
In times when kids feel like they’re immortal, all I could think was what this doctor said. I knew my body would break down and I hated whoever I could for it. I was angry, sad, wondering why me? People that know me today would not recognize the young man I was. I would never hurt another person, but myself sure.
Many years passed with this hanging over my head. Shortly, after my 30th birthday my wife and I got in a terrible fight, because I was being an asshole. I’ve always tried to protect the people I care about, even from me. If my health and watching it deteriorate would harm them, I pushed them away. So they would not have to see it. During the argument, I realized that I was angry, because I was “living on borrowed time” according to that doctor. I was five years past my predicted demise and it was hurting me. I did not realize any of this consciously.
Looking back, I never planned too far in the future because I was convinced I did not have one. I focused on being a decent person, a caring person. My career, investments, college and all those things that adults do for their futures were not important to me. What became important is making people laugh, helping them through life, letting them know things would get better.
When dealing with people at young ages, we have a tendency to use the threat method. For the diabetic, “you don’t want to lose your foot do you?” or “you’ll be dead at 25.” We need to be careful how we phrase things for those we love. We can cause irreparable damage and never know it. I locked all of mine inside. It was not the world’s burden, it was mine. No one knew my fears, my hurt. I needed to protect them from it and so I suffered it alone. No matter what we’re dealing with our children, we try to help them, guide them, but often it’s the threat method. Illness or no, people suffer and what we say matters. I try to be careful not to do the same thing that was done to me, but I’ve made mistakes. Think before you use the fear method. I don’t think that doctor intended his words to hurt me as much as they did, he was just trying to get me to do what he thought was right. Being sick sucks, getting people especially teenagers to do what they are supposed to is hard, but consider your method. They will live with what we say. It should be good things that we inspire them with.
I still live with the ghost of those words as I look at all the people I care about and want to protect.