I Believe You

While it's always nice to hear, "I love you," for me, it might be a toss up whether that's as nice as hearing, "I believe you." I have some baggage around not being believed. Not in general, in general I believe I'm quite believable, but there have been a few key pivotal times when I've been questioned. I know part of that is the phenomenon on being a child of an alcoholic - we struggle to know what normal is, and our powers of observation have so often been negated by those wanting desperately to keep the status quo.

I think many of us mothers of special needs children have had the experience where we just knew something was going on with our children, long before it was confirmed. We may even have told nothing was going on, it was all in our heads. My pediatrician told me on more than one occasion, that what I was observing was "just the difference between a boy and a girl." Had he just looked at me and said, "I am not worried, he is still within the 'normal' range of development, but if you think something is wrong, then I believe you."

I don't know how different our story would actually be had he believed me. I don't know how different any of the stories would have turned out at any of the various times I turned to a trusted person and was not believed,  but I know I would be different.



* Photo of Sanskrit "believe" from http://ny-image3.etsy.com