As a child, because I was never taught to have an opinion, I never expressed one. I sometimes wonder why people have opinions about everyone and everything and why those opinions then become part of their everyday lives. It makes what we deal with so much harder, as if what we deal with isn't hard enough.

How many of us have come across someone who thinks they know what we deal with, without really knowing what it really feels like? Until anyone steps into another person's life, they can never really know, as we can't know about theirs.

Ilana Estelle is a mental health and wellbeing advocate who combines educational insight with her personal experience of living with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. She holds diplomas in Counselling, Diet and Nutrition, Nutritional Therapy, Psychotherapy and Counselling, and Stress Management. Through her writing, Ilana supports others in navigating their emotional, mental, and physical health challenges. In addition to writing for The CP Diary, her work has appeared in healthy lifestyle magazines. Ilana is also the author of three books: Cerebral Palsy: A Story – Finding the Calm After the Storm, Spirituality, Healing and Me, and Survival: The Covid Years – Time for Change.

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4 comments on “Opinions, but the wrong ones”

  1. I agree totally with you. There's so much information about all different things out there and people read about certain things and think they are an expert on the subject, but our lives are different from an article.

    Articles just generalize the situation and that's it. They don't go into each individual persons reality. So until people actually walk in my shoes they don't need to generalize me.

    1. You're absolutely right Lisa.

      I believe that's probably why so many families fall out because of comments that could have been totally avoided in the first place.

  2. I SO much agree with this! This is one of my pet peeves, when others think they know how one feels, or truly know their abilities and inabilities.

    My sister once suggested I should try waitressing, because 'you can make good money with it,' that blew me away because it's as if she never took notice of my physical issues, to know there's no way I could do that type of work, physically.

    1. It's a shame when comments like that come from family, but not sure your sister's comment is entirely unique to families.

      I am sure unconsciously your sister knew you couldn't do waitressing, given your physical limitations, but unless our unconcious thoughts talk to our conscious thoughts, we tend to come out with the things we should know better with.

      It's not easy to hear what we hear, particularly with those kind of comments. I think if more people engaged their thinking before speaking, we'd all be much better off.

      There would be more understanding and less opinions being forced on us for sure.

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