What do you do when someone opens their mouth and stupid falls out?

So, yeah, we recently had a doozy of a week. You know the kind where you seem to get hit by stuff on all sorts of fronts—some that seemed to appear out of nowhere just to keep things ‘interesting’ in the ancient Chinese sort of way. I just love ‘interesting times’ don’t you?

After finishing off the week with half a day spent in urgent care hoping that my father had not managed to break his hip we thought  “OK, good, we made it. This week has thrown all it had at us. Next week has to be simpler.”

Definitely spoke too soon. But then again, you probably already figured that out, right?

It wasn’t another disaster, thankfully, but a well-meaning acquaintance who came up and asked how it was going.

I suppose what came next was in a very real way was all my fault. It had been the sort of week that that I told him “Honestly, it was perfectly awful, thanks.”

 Then it happened. He opened his mouth and stupid fell out and landed with an ear shattering crash that everyone else in the room should have been able to hear.

He said, “Well, you know that bad stuff just makes us stronger so its ok.”

Wrong, wrong and so very, very wrong. Worse that being wrong, he managed to jump—not just jump, but stomp on with Texas pointy-toed boots and spurs—my very last nerve.

Some days I can must self-control in these situations, but with my last nerve impaled on those spurs, no it wasn’t happening.  I replied. “Yeah, I know. And I also know that no one in the history of mankind has ever been helped, encouraged or felt understood after hearing that.”

Yeah, I really said that.

He looked at me that special way people do when I’ve said something they didn’t expect and wish I hadn’t said. The fact I can recognize that look so readily probably says something about me. Sigh.

He stammered something conversation ending and wandered off. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so honest. But I’m really not sorry. Not one little bit.

Not only was his remark insensitive and condescending, it’s not true either. Bad things can lead to a process that could result in us getting stronger, I’ll grant that. They can also beat us down and inflict some pretty serious damage, and sometimes the damage can last a lifetime. Acting like ‘Oh, it was good for you, see how much stronger it made you.’ minimizes the real impact of that damage.

Truth is, when people are hurting, they don’t want to be told how it is going to make them better, stronger or what have you. In those moments they just don’t care ‘cause for crying out loud, it really hurts. All he had to say was a simple “I’m so sorry it’s been rough.”  and he’d have been totally off the hook.

I didn’t need or really want advice. There was nothing he could have done to make a difference in any of the situations I was dealing with. Just a simple word of concern would have been enough and far better than shoving aside my feelings with empty words.

To be fair, I’m sure he didn’t know what to say and didn’t want to listen to some sob story that might overwhelm him. I get it, and that part is ok. But really, people, we can do better. We should do better, because, well, we’re all in this together and we’re all going to have those awful sorts of weeks where we just want to hear someone else say, ‘I’m so sorry it’s rough right now.’

What else do you want to hear during those kinds of weeks? Tell me in the comments.