This week, I released a video on YouTube documenting a recent hospitalization I had. In the video, I tried to be very mindful of what I said and what topics I included in the video. (I did this because I had a previous hospitalization video last year which received A LOT of criticism for me doing/saying certain things in the video.) I wanted to prevent as much negativity as possible from people who may disagree with something I say or do in the video.
With that said, I knew once I released the video, I would receive critical or even vile comments. And that has been true. Surprisingly, the comments were quite positive in the beginning. But, a day and a half after the video was published, the rude and condescending comments began trickling in. Ah, at last, the comments are here.
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Angry meerkat. This meerkat does not represent anyone in this blog post. The image was used to express an emotion. If you believe this meerkat resembles anyone you know, it is "merely" a coincidence. |
I will pull out two comments which struck my fancy. First, someone told me I need to think about helping others. I will not elaborate why the person said this. The comment had a negative tone to it. I was thunderstruck someone would suggest I need to THINK about helping others. In case people are not aware, I believe both my YouTube channels are ways I help others. In many videos, I provide educational training about various medical equipment, health conditions and medical devices. Moreover, the amount of time I spend corresponding with people from YouTube is truly mind-boggling. I often neglect my own personal care and well-being to sacrifice having time to communicate with others about topics ranging from trach tubes to ventilators to insurance issues to Mitochondrial Disease to hospice to...well, the list is endless.
There are also things I do offline. Although I may seem like a public person by sharing my life with the world on YouTube, there are many things I do not discuss. And many things I do in my life which are very personal and private. In short, I help people every day as much as I can. I do not need to think about helping others. Helping others is who I am and what I do.
The next YouTube comment which struck me as bizarre was one from a person who claimed to be a respiratory therapist. The person said I was faking everything. The person said my breathing and speaking did not match someone who was using a speaking valve. The person went on and on about this topic.
I found it odd the person would make such a comment because being a respiratory therapist, he/she should know people who have a trach and vent do not always use a speaking valve. Furthermore, the issue the person had was actually not a discrepancy. The person did not understand how speaking valves worked. The basis for the person's comment was entirely inaccurate.
Both these comments emphasized to me, people like to judge others before they know even a superficial amount of information about the other individual. Furthermore, the respiratory therapist's comment made me realize he did not have a good understanding of his/her medical field. Instead of saying I am faking my breathing/need for a ventilator, the proper thing to do would be to ask why I speak and breathe the way I do. But, I suppose, it is much easier to hurl negative comments at someone than to find out a little bit more information about the person.
Of late, I have not used a lot Scripture in my blog posts. So, I will leave you with one of my favorite verses which seems apropos for this situation: "Even fools who keep silent are considered wise; when they close their lips, they are deemed intelligent" (Proverbs 17:28).