Had an experience with my son today. He's 19. He has a bad shoulder. It got separated when he and his friends were jumped outside of a club in Paris while on October break from college in Scotland. That's another story. He's on winter break now and went to Colorado with friends yesterday. Today while taking a skiing lesson the shoulder popped out again (his mother told me). I texted him, "Sorry to hear about shoulder. Call me if you want to. Just know I care and probably understand." He replies, "you dont understand what its like to get attacked for absolutely no reason and get injured significantly greater than everyone else involved and have it derail months of your life with no end in sight." 🤦

I replied, "The facts may be different but I can certainly identify with the feelings. How long could I barely walk with no end in sight? and my condition existed for absolutely no reason--nothing I did caused it. When you take a step back, they are very similar situations, thankfully yours won't take years to resolve. Anyway, I feel for you."

(Months of his life derailed. 🤦I guess that's the perspective of a college freshman who did next to nothing for two months to get treatment other than blame the UK National Health Service for only X-raying and not ordering an MRI)
No reply to my texts, which is just as well. What is it with kids and their I'm so different, life isn't fair, pity parties, and they think we can't understand and have nothing to offer. Granted, the skill of learning not to distinguish facts and realize that different facts still lead to the same emotional situations is a lesson I learned much later in life. Anyway...yeah, I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

Part of why I wrote this response is to feel out whether I have something to say in a parenting pub. I use the comment pane as an outline and a feeler sometimes, and it didn't fit as a response directly on Marcia's great story (I had plenty of other things to say there)