Understanding is a good word and a good concept, but it's hard for people who have never had a MI to HAVE understanding. So sympathy works for me. And oh, it makes me mad to hear "You're just being dramatic." What's wrong with dramatic? I grew up in a part of the United States where a lot of people are dramatic in the way they speak most of the time! Now I live where bland speech is the REQUIREMENT. Any voice inflection at all -- that's being dramatic around here. And that's not okay around here. There are other cultures, too, where expressive voices are the norm. Ever go to "meetings"? Or maybe public hearings or such things? The officials must have gone to years of training to be able to present themselves as so boring, when they (sometimes) talk about very important issues that affect a lot of people.