Be grateful.
Be grateful. Be grateful you have a job. Be grateful you’re white. Be grateful for your healthy children. Be grateful you’re not a kid anymore. Be grateful you’re not (that) old. Be grateful you grew as tall as you did. Be grateful they didn’t hire you for that job. Be grateful for your voice. Be grateful for the opportunity. Be grateful you can manage that debt. Be grateful for your citizenship. Be grateful for the right to vote. Be grateful you survived. Be grateful you can feel that pain. Be grateful you can still love. Be grateful it was just a joke. I hear you telling me to find gratitude, but I wonder. Is this how you share the bitterness of your pain and disappointment in a world that didn’t see your value? Because you don’t have a job. Because you’re not white. Because your children are not healthy. Because you didn’t get to be a kid. Because you are (that) old. Because you didn’t grow tall either. Because they did hire you for that job, and it cost you something important. Because you don’t have a voice. Because you didn’t get the opportunity. Because you can’t manage that debt. Because you don’t have citizenship. Because you don’t have the right to vote. Because you survived, too. Because that pain hurts like hell. Because you missed out on love. Because it wasn’t just a joke. And gratitude hasn’t saved either one of us. Neither has silence. Tell me your story instead of asking me to find gratitude in mine. Tell me your story so that I can be grateful for you.
Your trans friend,
Robin
This reminds me so much of when people use "at least." It always feels like that (or your example of "be grateful") is stopping the conversation, shaming me for feeling whatever I'm feeling, and allowing the other person to not feel compassion or empathy for what I'm going through. Thank you for writing this <3 And for not using "be grateful" or "at least" with people <3
I cried when I shared your writing with my wife. In and world of what seems to be receding empathy, you captured a genre of keeping-hurting-people-at -arms-length perfectly. People who cannot or just won’t be vulnerable enough to pull up a chair and get to know someone and share their pain, turn to latest prescriptive fad psychology, allowing them to walk away uninvested and intact. Thank you for exposing this as ineffective at best and damaging at its worst. And thank you for sharing your story.