Don’t we all like our feelings to be acknowledged? What if you were going through something painful, either emotionally or physically, would it help to hear someone acknowledge your pain?
I imagine this is what people with conditions like fibromyalgia experience. Their pain may not be seen as “real” by others but for those who are suffering, it is more than real.
Well this is what my 12-year-old son has been going through for several months. On and off he has been experiencing stomach pains that can last a day or several. He has missed a good deal of school and we have taken him to the doctor a number of times.
Our last visit to the doctor, when my son’s pain had been going on for nearly a week, our family doctor made it clear he didn’t think my son’s complaints were valid. At the very least he thought my son was exaggerating. I felt terrible for him because there is nothing worse than to be told that what you are feeling isn’t really happening.
Long story short, we were finally sent to a specialist at Children’s Hospital here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He saw a gastrointestinal specialist who specializes in abdominal pain. Several tests later, he has finally been diagnosed. But perhaps the most comforting thing to my son was to hear the doctor say, “His pain is real.”
Those words have been reverberating inside of me all week. How often do we dismiss pain in our teen’s life? It may be physical pain but I’m thinking more about the emotional pain. What seems like no big deal to us, what seems like something not worth getting worked up about…can be huge to a teenager.
When we dismiss their emotional pain, we are in essence saying that it’s not real. But to them it is. Perhaps the next time your teen is struggling and going through a difficult time you could say the words they long to hear, “Your pain is real.”
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