What is a brutal truth about life that needs to be said?
Brutal Truth of Experience
That quite often NO ONE CARES and ALL RELATIONSHIPS ARE TRANSACTIONAL. How’s that for “brutal truth”?
There are some harsh realities that we try to run away from but sooner or later we get caught and it becomes difficult for us to accept them. Here are some brutal truths about life that you need to accept now so they won’t hurt you in the future.
A very hard to accept but brutal truth is that no one knows when it all might come to an end. Live each day as you might not be able to see tomorrow. Remind yourself every day that each day is a gift and you should make the most of the blessing given to you.
Despite all the feel-good, new-agey platitudes spouted to people who are feeling very down about how “you’re never alone” and advising others to “reach out to others,” blah, blah, blah, there are MANY circumstances (like when you’re older and have been sick for a long time and home-bound and lost your social contacts) where one is alone and there’s no one to “reach out” to for help.
I realized those platitudes are meant more for young people with family, physical health, friends, a potentially brightish future, and bad moods that will either pass, or can be helped to pass with drugs and/or some counseling.
I realized that we have relationships with others because at the very least, we want some emotional pleasure from them. Often parents want caretakers, or for their children to boost the family’s collective ego by doing bragworthy things.
Before my elderly mother drank herself to death because she couldn’t cope with retirement, she staggered around the house like a toddler from hell, 24/7 drunk, napping sporadically, trying to drive, leaving the doors to the outside open all night, doing unsafe potentially fire causing things with the stove and candles, leaving the fridge and freezer open ruining the food, ordering tons of expensive, unneeded things from TV shopping shows, clicking on malware links, and falling constantly hurting herself, often breaking her glasses damaging things in the house, and getting blood everywhere.
There was no one to call for help. She required round-the-clock babysitting from us. She didn’t have dementia. It was her car and house to use as she pleased, so there wasn’t anything we could do. My father and I were hostages there, got little sleep, were in constant terror of what she was going to do next. The advice from Al-Anon groups didn’t help and didn’t really apply to our situation since I’m disabled and had nowhere else to live, and we couldn’t, in good conscience, let her die on the floor. Years of this stressful caregiving ruined our health, and eventually killed him.
I also learned that when you get sick permanently and can’t do anything and have nothing going on in your life anymore and you sleep most if the time, people move on without you. I learned how hard it is to get any help with transportation when you’re too sick to drive and don’t have the money to pay for drivers. I learned how little help there is to navigate all the red tape and search for help when you’re sick and confused and groggy from brain fog.
I realized how hard it is to survive when you’re middle aged and not sick or disabled enough for a nursing home and don’t have the money for assisted living. And how lonely being chronically ill can be if you have no family and how hard it is to find people who like to read to have a deep, intelligent conversations with.
About the Creator
Faraz
I am psychology writer and researcher.
Reader insights
Nice work
Very well written. Keep up the good work!
Top insights
Heartfelt and relatable
The story invoked strong personal emotions
Easy to read and follow
Well-structured & engaging content
On-point and relevant
Writing reflected the title & theme
Compelling and original writing
Creative use of language & vocab
Expert insights and opinions
Arguments were carefully researched and presented
Excellent storytelling
Original narrative & well developed characters
Eye opening
Niche topic & fresh perspectives
Masterful proofreading
Zero grammar & spelling mistakes
The steps to losing a child
Step One: Lose a child. Not what anyone wants to happen and nothing you can do to change it, but you can go through steps to becoming happy again. You can go through steps to loving again. You can go through steps to become a new you because after losing a child you will never be the same person you once were.
By Tabitha Hinkley3 days ago in Fiction
Comments (3)
This is so true in my experience. I've faced the loss of support of all friends and family due to being middle-aged and having my life and health collapse. In my case, I have suffered so much medical malpractice that I've been clinically "dead" three times! My experiences were so extreme that nobody even believes me. Because we all need to feel that our doctors and hospitals would never hurt us. I have had all sense of public safety wrenched away from me so many times, I now am certain I will be abused. What happened with me is that the 1st bad experience (being poisoned on Lithium for 4 years without anyone diagnosing it!) caused so many false speculations in my medical records that it began spiraling into even more abuse! A doctor misdiagnosed me as Bi-Polar when I had depression due to 3 deaths of loved ones. Then, when the Lithium made me even more depressed, instead of realizing I wasn't Bi Polar, this idiot increased my dose! He also "forgot" about the AMA regulations to test a patient's serum levels of Lithium. He denied this regulation and denied me Informed Consent (he had put me on 5 medications so I had no idea what caused my symptoms. And, isn't that the doctor's responsibility to know this? Despite 20 ER visits, and seeing numerous neurologists, etc, no one ever tested my Lithium levels! What Inova hospitals did do was claim I was psychotic, had 7 different personality disorders at age 50 (these start in one's 20's). My records became an absolute nightmare that Inova has refused to either support their claims with medical evidence or remove them. Our HIPAA rights state the medical facility has the Burden of Proof, but no one follows this law. They routinely turn my requests into a "He said, she said" situation in which you can guess who wins! I have only ever gotten something removed if I spend months "disproving it"! One of the biggest problems is that all these hospitals never enforce any penalties to their employees who decide to write their derogatory, personal, non-medical opinions in my legal records. I have seen everything! I had to have a multi-level complex spinal surgery in May. when I awoke, I reported a common complication found after cervical fusion: My throat was too swollen to swallow my own saliva. I also demonstrated this by spitting into a trash bin my entire post-op stay. Only about 6 hours after I left the operating room, "someone" removed my IV fluids and pain medication! I don't know details because they didn't record this even in my records! They preferred to not mention it, then blame me for having an extreme pain reaction! I was literally forced to suffer the most unbearable pain you can imagine (to include a fresh 3 inch cut across my neck!). I thought I would die of pain! Yet, for 24 straight hours while I cried and moaned and begged for pain relief, not a single staff member did anything to end my suffering. The IV was still set up in my arm. All they had to do is turn it ON. They poisoned my records by claiming how disruptive, difficult and uncooperative I was. .They even claimed I was "Aggressive" which means to cause harm. Gee, who do you think was causing harm to who? When I was discharged without a mandatory test for my swallowing problem (blamed on me in falsified records), they sent me home in horrific pain, dehydrated (blood loss during surgery, plus no ability to swallow water = dehydration), and without an ability to eat or drink once I was sent home alone (since they ruined my pre-arranged rehab stay). A week after I got home, my body had lost 12% of its weight in 7 days and I was in late stage Starvation! I could force this in the hospital and tried to communicate it with every bit of energy I had left. However, my vocal cords had been paralyzed by the surgery so NO ONE PAID ATTENTION to me. Why was I the only one at the hospital who knew I would starve to death if sent home??? If I tell anyone this story, which is 100% true, they suddenly label me an insane! Now, I have lost all credibility not only in every medical facility, but also with my friends and family! Until you experience this type of torture, you cannot believe it is possible. It has destroyed my life in every way possible. I've now been poisoned to near death twice, then starved to death. Even I can not believe this happened but I experienced it! I can't lie to myself. I have far too many medical problems from it to deny it. Lithium caused my teeth to rot, gave me Kidney Disease and caused all my friends to think I was a drug addict. Even after my records show me at their ER as a Jane Doe with no heart beat! When I was revived ed, they figured out who I was, then recorded in my records something accurate for a change. They diagnosed me with Chronic on Acute Lithium Toxicity. And, since my murderous doctor was the only one prescribing Lithium, you will probably assume I am damaged, but rich. Not the case because I live in Virginia: The land of no accountability of doctors! My state's laws make it impossible to successfully sue a doctor even with concrete proof! It was absolutely unbelievable how rudely every lawyer treated me! I wasn't even suing for revenge. This doctor denied me my ability to work for years and I lost my entire life savings. And was being foreclosed. Because he "forgot" to test my blood, forgot the signs of Lithium Toxicity and the state forgot to protect the residents against dangerous doctors! So, I decided to instead register a complaint to keep him from doing this to someone else. Even that was denied! After I submitted a very well written provable complaint, it was "fast-tracked" due to the severity and a professional investator did a 6 month review of the facts. Before she submitted it to the VA Board of Medicine, she called me to say she "fully expected the Board to take his medical license away". I needed to make sense of this somehow and helping other potential victims would be a way of healing. Then came the letter. The worst letter I have ever recveived. It was a letter from the VA Board of Medicine stating they would take NO action due to insufficient proof of wrongdoing! My life, in other words, was not serious enough for even a slap on the wrist. I will never ever forget the moment I read this letter. That was 10 ALL THE TIME. AT EVERY HOSPITAL. I cannot begin to explain how many medical traumas I have now suffered. It would take me months to write. Oddly, I keep surviving their best efforts at killing me. I survived Starvation without any medical assistance when my body was eating itself alive. Why? How? I went into Hypovolemic Shock three times in July which ia usually fatal! It was caused by lack of enough blood volume to support my organs! Each time, my blood pressure would suddenly drop by 30 points and I would go unconscious! All three times, not one hospital even mentioned being unconscious! They claimed I was Mentally Altered. My question is: How can a person who is NOT conscious have a "Conscious State" diagnosed? Never got an answer to this, or the answer to why I was denied an IV immediately after one of the most painful surgeries possible. At least I still have my integrity. They don't. and, I have far more courage and strength than all of their staff put together. I would never walk past a suffering patient without trying to help them even though I am not a nurse. They would. And did. At the end of the day, I may be handicapped, but I still have my dignity and know the truth. Do they? I do not wish my experiences on anyone. But, it is very lonely at this level. Only another malpractice sufferer (hate the word 'victim") would understand. If you are out there, I'd love to share your experience. There are surprising benefits each time I recover from these episodes. I get much wiser, more courageous and see the life's truths as if in neon lights. Mentally, I am still highly acute and perceptive. Hospital workers sense this power unconsciously and become threatened by it immediately. They can tell I am hyper-alert to danger and watching them like hawks. This all happens unconsciously so it took me awhile to figure out. When a doctor or nurse feels my energy and sees my records, a red flag goes up. They feel their sense of control is threatened. So they must "level the playing field" by attacking me where my greatest strength is: My mind. EVERY SINGLE visit note starts with a denial of my mental faculties. Then, also is every single record, these comments are always followed by someone else's "Physical exam" in which I am now described as "Alert, Oriented, Normal thought and Normal judgement". Isn't that funny? I always arrive at a hospital out of my mind, then suddenly become of sound mind every single time I enter a hospital. Am I a magician? They never even notice this, which is the whole point. They do not even notice me. I am the invisible patient they all fear. People tell me all the time I should write a book. Maybe I will.
I often say that there are few truths in life, but you mentioned 2 of the few... thank you. 1)we are born alone and we die alone. And we are the only ones who experience the world the way we do. This doesn't mean we are lonely, but yes, definitely alone. 2) yes, all relationships are transactional. I usually say that we all use each other, but most are immediately defensive so they don't hear anything else . thank you for speaking the truth. There is no bad or good to it, it just is. That there are any absolutes at all is amazing...
Wonderful and deep reflections of a beautiful mind. Thank you!