WishfulThinker,

What this statement is really saying is that you have not invested any of your time in learning about mental illness and what it's like to suffer from abuse and different kinds of Mental Illnesses. Instead you have decided that it should be ok for you to enter someone elses effort to share what to them can be a genuine challenge and judge them based on how YOU see things. It means that you are not interested in looking at another person's personal challenge in how they see and feel things looking to find someone else that might be able to relate and offer supportive advice. Instead what you prefer to do is say to that person that you don't consider their challenge as being believable or important therefore, it's not important.

Do you realize that is how ABUSERS behave?

Do you understand that often victims of abuse have experienced how their abuser often "What I think matters" and then stomps off or slams a door or clearly states to their victim how it doesn't matter what the victim feels or how things are affecting them, instead ALL that matters is what the abuser thinks and they typically don't spend any time what so ever listening or even caring about what their victim needs, thinks, and feels?

People tend to respond with "you need help, go see a therapist" and for a long time I just could not respond that way because in all honesty even when it came to that what I experienced myself was sitting in a very traumatized state of mind trying to wrap my mind around experiencing a major loss to something I spent a great deal of time creating and the therapist determined without any actual first hand knowledge about what I worked so hard for, that what I had been traumatized about simply did not deserve to be valued. Why? Because it was NEVER anything that psychiatrist or therapist considered important or valueable.

You know what? It's not easy to be supportive to another person who is struggling. It requires the ability to sit and LISTEN to something that is important to someone else and they are trying to explain it and are genuinely struggling. You have to be willing and develope the skills to put your own values and personal opinions about things aside and LISTEN to that other person explain their personal challenge. Unfortunately a lot of people can't do that and they need to only interact with people who share their same views on things. However, the ones who are the greatest of all can actually sit and listen and take a genuine interest in how that other person is struggling and come up with ways to help that person instead of punish and criticize them.

"I don't believe you" was said to my child when a teacher insisted she read the morning message he had written out on a chalk board for all his little first grade students to do. My daughter looked at it and said "I can't do that" and went and sat down in her seat. This teacher decided she was misbehaving and the next day he told her once again, "Katie, you HAVE TO READ MY MORNING MESSAGE", "I don't believe you can't do it". And my daughter replied again, "I can't do that" and again went and sat down in her seat. Now this teacher "did not believe her" and once again got angry with her and decided to call me about how my daughter insisted she not read HIS message. Oh, I could have not believed her either and PUNISHED her. BUT, I didn't and instead I decided to believe her because she is not or never was a BAD CHILD.

Luckily for me and Katie there were people that felt just like I did and believed children like my Katie. These people decided to LISTEN and STUDY what children like my Katie experience that is different. They devised tests to give my Katie so they could see just where my Katie struggled. Because of that I learned that my Katie actually had a very high IQ, actually off the charts for her age too. Then I learned how my Katie's brain was a little different and that for her to read and understand words was much more of a challenge than for others because that area of her brain is weak and different and my Katie had what was labelled Dyslexia. While he teacher responded with "I don't believe you", my Katie was lucky that not only her mommy did listen and believe but SO DID OTHERS. Because of that my Katie was able to get special help so she could learn how to read that morning message working around her personal challenge to do so. My Katie also became one of the many children this study group kept track of and they did that right up through her college years.

Then one day when my Katie was finished with college and had her first job, she saw a documentary about this very study she had been a part of. She got to see the other children that were followed and studied too, and as she sat there listening to these different individuals share how hard it was for them "emotionally and psychologically" to be different, to have to work so much harder, to accept that even when you do, you are never going to be at the top or Valdictorian or the other labels given to those who are praised for doing oh so well. One of Katies wishes from when she was very young was to someday go to Harvard. I don't know where that came from or how she knew that name either, but it was something she would often say was something she wanted.

Well, when I saw her watching that documentary and listening to how much the others like her struggled, how it embarrassed them and how they were often treated badly by their piers too, I watched my Katie cry, because someone else KNEW her private and very personal pain. Yet, one thing my Katie also got to see is how all these others kept trying and worked so very hard at learning and achieving and became successful. They became prominent lawyers and surgeons and CEO's and very successful entrepeneurs. I learned from my Katie that she wanted to go to Harvard but she had to learn to accept that she would not be the creme of the crop that gets to go to Harvard. However, she did work at learning extremely hard and managed to stay on the honor role. What made me sad is that her self esteem did suffer from somehow "not being good enough". I would see my child get angry and have meltdowns but her anger was often directed at herself. Truth is part of this is how we all decide how to calculate "intelligence" and our need to praise those and put them on pedestals when they get better grades in school.

I ask you this, who is more intelligent the one who's brain is set up where they can achieve and be that star pupil, or the one who's brain is different and finds a way to work around that challenge and does well? If you got seriously ill and needed life saving surgery, and a man performed that surgery and saved your life, would it matter to you if that man could read and spell like some valadictorian, or would you respect that man who saved your life for struggling to spell and read and yet had a brain that was intelligent in other ways where he could save YOUR LIFE? You could say to me "I don't believe that' to any of what I have just shared. Yet, all that shows me is you may very well only be one of the ones that can't see a genuine challenge and can only see things the way you see them. Well, I shall forever be grateful to those who "listened" and looked for ways to help my Katie and all those like her.

There are a lot of times this simple "I don't believe you" can hurt.