"Count Your Blessings"

[SucreK]

My twins have been in the hospital in their short 2 years of life for a combined total of approx. 100 days. Most recently, one was in the ICU for 4 days two weeks ago. I was texting with a friend, lamenting how frustrated I get with all the hurdles my girls have had to face and how stressed out I am trying to juggle all of this with a very demanding job. Her response? "Not to be an A**H**E, but you should count your blessings. My friend's husband just passed away."

Ok. A friend's husband passing away is HORRIBLE. But I completely resent the implication that I'm not allowed to be upset/frustrated/down because of the issues my girls face. I'm especially offended, because she has two very healthy sons and really doesn't know this type of heartache.

I have to see her in a few weeks for a gathering of friends and kids, and I almost hope she'll ask me why I haven't been in touch, so I can tell her how upset she made me. But of course, that won't be the right venue.

What would you do? I'm pretty much at the point of writing her off...

 

[bananaz]

Yeah that was not an appropriate response on her part at all. Sounds like you need to find someone else to vent to.

 

[Larkspur]

Lol, I love it when someone starts with a disclaimer like "Not to be an a-hole but..." and then proceeds to be a complete a-hole.

I would send her a message pre-party to say "Look, it's taken me a while to respond to your message because it really upset me. Your friend's loss is horrible, but I find your attitude towards what my family has been through to be very dismissive. Perhaps it is hard for you to understand as you are lucky enough to have two healthy kids. Next time I am trying to share my feelings, I will choose someone else. If you find me standoffish at the party coming up, I hope you will understand why and respect my distance."

Edited to add: Or you could take the low road, and just text "I have given your message a lot of thought. At first it really upset me, but now I think you are right. You can always find something to be grateful for. So I am grateful that I have a living husband, and also that I am not an a**hole."

 

[AngelUK]

^ good one!

I have a friend who has a most terrible illness and has been increasingly ill all her life. And yet when ever I ventured to say something like: "I should not complain of having the flu/headache/whatever to you", she always responded, "Just cause I am so ill does not make your head hurt any less. Vent away!"
I've always tried to take this on board as the wisdom of kindness I would wish to emulate.

 

[SarahBear]

Some people are pathologically positive. While you SHOULD count your blessings, you should also be allowed to feel other feelings. Sadness, grief, and frustration are real and important feelings too and sometimes they don't go well with counting your blessings. First you grieve, you complain, you grumble. You let those real feelings exist. And then in another phase, perhaps you feel grateful for what you have. If you skip straight to counting your blessings, you're just bottling up your feelings which isn't healthy for anyone and it doesn't allow you to be fully human. Friends should allow each other to to be real. If I was going through something and my friend dismissed my feelings and wanted me to be pathologically positive, I'd keep my distance too.

 

[Meezerowner]

Counting blessings is always important particularly in getting you through tough times. But what she said was really weird. Sounds like she was fed up with talking about your problems and was just ending the conversation in a really rude way.

Not a very supportive friend imo.
And she knew she was being rude too or she wouldn't have said "Not to be an a*h*". Saying that totally doesn't absolve you of being an a*h* it just means that you are consciously being mean whilst pretending not to be. Totally different to just being careless with words and accidentally offending someone.

Anyways you can't put values on peoples pain/complaints. What you are going through is important to you and that's all that matters it's not a competition. It's like saying you are not allowed to be happy cos somewhere in the world there is someone with an amazing life who is happier than you.

 

[alibaba24]

It seems like she has wanted to say something like this to you for a long time then just used this as an excuse to say it. I think her response was quite extreme and You should feel upset. Why would you not? no mother wants to see their child in hospital. and yes while it could be worse it could also be better and your entitled to express your hurt over your children. Id bring it up at a different time perhaps and try not to let it eat away at you

 

[Quartz]

We live in a world where it would be naive to think that there are not at any times 1000s of people who are in a far worse situation that we our. That does not mean though that we are not allowed to feel negative emotions about situations we find ourselves in. For example at the moment DS has fractured his leg. Its not terrible and he will recover but I have a right to be upset and find it hard.

Two friends once fell out over this exact thing. He was having some personal issues and she basically told him he should be glad he was not an orphan in Ethopia. He was not best pleased.

 

[Natasha2605]

She clearly knew she was being an arsehole if she thought ahead to preface the sentence the way she did.

Not a very supportive friend at all!

 

[Bevziibubble]

Grr how annoying and what an inappropriate response. I can't stand it when people make out that you can't complain because other people have it worse. No one says it the other way round that you can't be happy because other people have it better. You can't put a value on it

 

[jd83]

Wow. No way she thought that prefacing it with "not to be an a**hole" would make that comment okay. That little comment on the beginning pretty much guarantees its going to be something rude and uncalled for. I have a feeling she has wanted to say that for a while, or she wouldn't have said it at all. If it were me, I would distancing myself from her for a while. You don't need someone like that not allowing you to get the friendly support you need during hard times. You are allowed to feel angry, frustrated, stressed, etc with things you are going through in your life. Just because they aren't as bad as what someone else is currently going through, doesn't make the issues nonexistent.

 

[_Meep_]

Urgh, I have a friend who recently called me selfish after I ranted about what a dick my MIL is - she even INVITED me to rant ... then came out with all this holier-than-thou shit, because her MIL had recently died.

Stupid thing is, before her MIL died, she couldn't stand the woman and moaned about her constantly.

Some people seem to just love having the excuse to get on their high horse or take some sort of moral stance wherever they can. My friend did apologise a couple of weeks later as I basically ignored her for a while, and I pretended it was ok, but really I'm still pissed off about it.

If I were in your situation, I'd be feeling seriously narked. I don't think you were in the wrong. I do, however, think your friend is possibly a bit of a tit.

 

[SucreK]

Thank you all so much. I think it cut me especially deep because these past few years have been the very hardest of my life, but outside of my husband and parents, I really don't vent to anyone. In fact, most people have no idea that my girls have ever been in the hospital because I don't mention it on Facebook or anything. I thought I was bearing my soul to a close friend, and it was basically thrown in my face. It's very hard for me to admit how scared I am sometimes with all we're dealing with, and her response was honestly shocking in its callousness.

You all are wonderful--thank you for giving me a safe place to vent.

 

[LoraLoo]

She was really rude. Sounds like she really lacks empathy for other people!
Ive had people apologise to me in the past ('sorry here's me moaning and it's nothing compared to what youve been through' type thing) - I tell them to moan away! We all have our own problems in life, and just because somebody's been through worse, doesn't mean that the 'lesser' problem isn't bothering that person, or that should be immediately grateful that they're not suffering worse. We all have our own problems, and we should never be made to feel guilty or apologise for them. Hope you're ok, sorry to hear your los have spent so much time in hospital x