All too
often, when people confide in others for support or advice or even just tell
others about a situation they're in or a problem they have, people often respond
with phrases like “you should” “you shouldn’t” “you’ll regret it” “that’s a
mistake” “you’ll change your mind”… And while we may think that this is the
kind of advice people are looking for and may have the right intentions when giving
this kind of advice (and maybe sometimes it is in certain cases); often when
people are expressing their feelings about something to you, they’re often not
looking for advice or for you to tell them what they should or shouldn’t do;
they’re telling you a side of a story, their side, their feelings and while you
think you may be helping, these phrases can actually come across as judgmental
leading the person confiding in you to feel insecure among other things. Chances are they came to you for a reason, they shared this information with
you for a reason, most likely because they trusted you; not because they
were looking for advice but because they were looking for support; there’s
a difference. I say it in
every single speech I give and almost every single blog post and I will always
say it: Everybody Has a Story. Everybody has a story you most likely know
nothing about. Everyone is battling something you know nothing about and
feeling judged can add even more salt to the wound on top of whatever they are
already dealing with.
To shed some
light on what I’m talking about, let me provide a few examples. I first
encountered this when I transferred from public school to cyber school after
being severely bullied on a daily basis. I can’t tell you how many times I
heard “that’s the wrong decision”, “you shouldn’t do that” “you’ll never thrive”,
“you’ll never go to college”, “you won’t be successful” etc. etc. because
they did not know the nature and severity of the situation. They didn’t know
what I or my mother, who was going through it with me were dealing with on a daily
basis. They didn’t know that if I were to stay in that situation, the toll it
would have taken on my mental health in addition to the toll it had already
taken at that time. Most importantly though, they didn’t know me. They didn’t
know my ambition, my drive, my determination. They didn’t know what I was
capable of but what they didn’t know the most was my story and my reasons. But, let me tell you; there was/is no greater feeling than walking down that asile
of my high school graduation knowing that my hard work, ambition, and most of
all, my resilience proved all of them wrong.
Another
example that is all too real is my decision to cut ties with my toxic, and narcissistic
abusive father and my family. If you’ve read my previous blog posts, you know
just a bit of this story but it goes far beyond what any blog post or even
conversation can shed light on thus, my point of everybody has a story you know
nothing about and there are two sides to every story. I bring this up as my mom
and I have been in the process of cleaning out our house and are currently
going through old pictures. I made the decision to not keep pictures of my
father or family with the exception of one or two because as I said it stems
from a toxic relationship situation and this decision supports my process of
healing the trauma that my father and other members of my family have caused. Don’t get me wrong, I have overcome and healed from this trauma a long time ago
but as someone with strong autonomy who knows myself well and what I need to
maintain my mental health and keep moving forward from my past, I know that
keeping those pictures is not only not in my best interest but also, that
getting rid of the pictures is my personal coping mechanism and something that
is healing to me because it is part of my way of removing toxicity from my life. I’m not going to get into specific details for the sake of the length of this
post but what I will say is that even people who know snippets of this story,
even the smallest parts, don’t even know even close to half of the story; some,
not even my side of the story, my feelings, or what I have
personally been through and how much I put into the decision, how much it took
to cut those ties but choose to tell me that I “shouldn’t do that” that I’ll “regret
it”, “it’s wrong”, “people change” and while some of them may have good intentions,
I’m sorry; but you are wrong. Again, you don’t know half of it and you can’t
possibly know the half of it. I realize some of these people may have “similar”
experiences but they are not my experiences, they are not my story, they are
not my feelings. Just because this wouldn’t be your decision or
because you have had a different experience, doesn’t mean it’s the
same for me or for others.
Every single
story is different. Every
single person is different. What is considered healing to one may be considered
selfish to others but it is not your place to make that determination. The only thing that you can determine is how you feel and what is right for you
personally. It can be easy to judge based on our own experiences and our
natural instinct to think that because we experience it this way, that is the
way but that’s the farthest thing from the truth. You can place two identical
people in the same exact situation and they could have completely, drastically
different feelings, experiences, decisions, and outcomes. That does not mean
one person is right and one person is wrong; that means everyone is different
and we need to respect that and strive to offer more support than advice that
we “think” is right.
