One of my favourite videos is by Brené Brown about empathy. She’s says that “rarely, if ever, does an empathic response begin with ‘at least’.”
We are reminded that showing empathy involves staying away from judgement and taking on the perspective of the other person. However, people often try to “silver line” our painful truth instead of feeling the emotions with us.
When living with an invisible illness, many like to pretend that it isn’t “as bad” as it really is.
“At least it’s not *insert disease with very similar set of symptoms and effect on quality of life*” or “At least you’re able to do activities A & B” which cause you a great deal of pain. Or even, “At least you’re not as sick as *someone else*”
I think one of the greatest parts of the chronic illness community is that we choose to share empathic responses with one another - that which can be so difficult to receive from those around us. You don’t always have to be grateful that it isn’t worse, and you shouldn’t have to listen to ignorant comments on that which others haven’t even tried to understand.
Empathy is one of the most beautiful emotions we can show another human being. It’s powerful, it’s heart-lifting and it’s so so needed. Let’s replace ‘at least’ with ‘I’m here.’
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