....and please, if you fit the bill in what I will be beginning to describe, please do not take offense as I am in no way trying to minimize your experience....
Now.....I have a number of friends on my list that have gone through trials, some are currently going through them. I think of the ones that have faced and are facing cancer. I think of those that have lost children. I have read their stories and for some I know their stories. I have witnessed and heard the heart wrenching pain that they are in and have lived and many times, as I read or hear their stories, their pain, I shed tears of empathy for them....
and yet....
My story is different and yet the same. But my story is "seen" by the outside world differently. My story is one where I am the purported to be the cause and therefore, my story does not elicit empathetic looks or words of encouragement or support.
As I write this I think of my children, two of which have been diagnosed as dual exceptional children. And this is where the kicker comes in. People (not all mind you,) tend to focus on the exceptional part and think that because my children have intelligence then my life must be easy. "Your kids are smart, what do you have to worry about?", "well at least you know your kids will succeed!", "Quit whining, you have it made! Your kids will succeed in life!" and yet that is only half the story...
Yes my kids are smart. In fact my kids are gifted. But there is what I call the dark side of giftedness, the dual part of exceptionality. The two identified kids have also been diagnosed with a disability. But people choose not to see that part. Unlike my friends I referred to earlier, learning disabilities are not something you wear....its not seen......they are invisible for the most part.....unlike an illness...and therefore is not understood and not "excused." In fact, if my kids "act up" as a result of said disability, it is seen as poor parenting and I get tagged as a poor excuse for a parent. And any normal (or decent) parent, would be able to control her children so what kind of white trash are you? Trust me, I have heard all of this, and I have heard it from people in positions of authority as well.
This is the dark side, the side that no one sees, and no one chooses to understand. Rather they focus on what they think they know, or what they choose to interpret based on a label without delving further to really understand what it is that is going on. If my children had an illness, I would be seen differently and subsequently they would be seen differently. I would be seen as a mother, whose children got struck with something difficult and people would choose to rally around me. But instead I get seen as white trash parenting because people make judgments on what they think they see, what they choose to see or what they choose to understand or not understand.
When in fact the case is such that my children's brains, paired with their experiences has caused biological alterations which cause them to act and react in ways that most people cannot comprehend. It has caused deficits in certain areas that make learning what some might consider simple skills to be tantamount to a baby learning trigonometry.
However, because they don't wear something that people can connect with, because they aren't sick with something that people can relate to, we all get put under a different microscope. One whose light is incredibly harsh and unforgiving. It seems that because my children do not wear their disability on their person's and because people choose to focus on the giftedness people hold them to entirely different standards....most of which are unfair....
So perhaps, next time, when you see a mother or father, wrestling with a child's behaviour, stop and think that just maybe they have an invisible illness, for I am certain that if it were a child with a readily seen physical illness, you just might think about the whole scenario differently.....
