Responding to Useless Advice

Psoriatic arthritis has not only changed me physically and emotionally, it also turned many friends and family members into physicians. Apparently PsA has the magical ability to bestow knowledge of how to heal one’s self to everyone except to me and my doctors.

Try this

I’ve lost count of the times a well-meaning friend or family member has said something along these lines.

Just walk it off.

Push through the pain; show your body who is boss.

Just don’t think about it.

You just need to get out more.

You’ll be healed if you go to the Dead Sea

None of those suggestions are going to take away my pain. In fact, most of them will cause my pain to spike. As for the Dead Sea, I don’t want to hear stories of the people they heard of being healed, I want to hear from the people themselves before I book my flight. I used to try explaining why and how advice like this won’t work. Some took the hint and dropped the subject, while others took it as a challenge to come up with even more useless ideas.

Tit for tat

Tired of wasting precious time that should have been spent having fun, I found a way to stop the conversation in its tracks. When someone decides that they are on a mission to heal me without any knowledge of my conditions I return the favor with equally useless advice on how to improve their lives. For example: When someone suggests that I walk off the bone pain in my feet, I come back with “Did you know that you could add volume to your hair by doing handstands every hour?” Those who understand and love my sarcastic nature laugh it off and take the hint that it’s time to stop trying to fix me. Others may not find it funny, but I am okay with that since it still stops the conversation.

Precious moments

My time is too precious to waste talking in circles about things that aren’t going to help.  I have no problem listening to someone who has taken the time to learn about my illnesses or would like to make me aware of something that I may not have heard of.

What’s the most useless piece of advice you have heard since your diagnosis?