What to Say (Or Not Say)

Life update: Well, if you haven’t seen in my social media, I’m sick again. My autoimmune disease has once again—after four years—reared its ugly head and decided to chew up my lungs. So I’m back on a medicine (for three weeks, which is mercifully short) that I call “demon pills.” Those filthy demons are the one bit of trauma in my life that I still can’t really talk about, so please don’t ask what medicine it is and what it does. But it’s horrible.

Anyway, I thought I would write, this month, about how to deal with people who are suffering or going through trauma. Any kind of trauma. Because since I have about three decades of experience in that department (15.5 years of being sick, plus daily bullying from K–12), I thought I should put that to some good use and help others understand, if only just a little bit more.

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