What you said: He seems fine to me! Or, All kids do that!
What we heard: You are a very dramatic person and you should get over yourself. Also, you are very likely a huge liar.
If you said this to me now, I would raise my left eyebrow to you and make a mental note never to discuss anything related to Carter again. Back when I was in agony pretty much all the time, it was like being punched in the guts. It didn’t help that I heard it often. Carter was occasionally distracted from his incessant wailing by new surroundings, new faces, and especially fluorescent lighting. Plus, I rarely left the house unless he was at his best, so people heard my descriptions of a baby who cried hours and hours on end while said baby looked around from his perch in the sling in which I wore him.
Here is a good rule for all of us when we are talking to a person in pain: do not contradict. Even if the person you’re talking to seems to be completely full of crap, acknowledge the pain. See the person in front of you, because the person matters infinitely more than the facts, and this isn’t a courtroom. Even if I had been radically exaggerating the extent of Carter’s crying, I was in pain. Even if, as he got older, I was wildly overstating the rages, the migraines, the constipation, the sleep disorder, and the despondency of his depressions, my pain was real.
What you said: You must be a very special parent for God to give you such a special child.
What we heard: We are fundamentally different. I’m not even going to try to understand you.
When I first heard this, I would imagine God sitting at a school desk with a paper in front of him, just like the worksheets we used to get when we were in elementary school. There would be a list of babies on the left and a list of parents on the right. God would draw a line from the most difficult baby to the strongest parent, then second most difficult to second strongest, etc. In my imagination, a dog (God loves dogs) comes bounding into the misty, ephemeral scene, distracts God, and oops! God sent the wrong baby to those wacky Joneses!
There was an accident, and the accident broke Carter’s brain. I don’t know why, but I know I’m not special, and I need you to see and hear me and my struggle.
