It takes a village to raise a child

It never ceases to amaze me, the different ways people respond to my situation. People you thought would have no trouble with it can get incredibly embarrassed and just absent themselves, whilst some you expected to be completely hopeless, really come through.

Age and experience has a lot to do with it. Friends who've never had to deal with dependence or disability can really struggle; they want to help, but just don't know what to say.

Then you've got your Fixer, whose approach is to blind the situation with science, often very successfully;
the Sympathiser, who holds you up emotionally and makes sure you know you're not alone;
the Back Office, who concentrates on the mundane practicalities of life;
the Comic, who tries to take your mind off it, and usually does;
and the Joker, who comes at it with an irony that might strike others as insensitive, but is actually just irreverent enough.

Each of them feels they're not doing enough, that they're not really helping, but actually they are. And of course, in reality, most people offer a mix of the above. But they all have their own particular bent, their own way of dealing with the problem that reflects core elements of their personality.

What you really need is the combination of all of those different people and approaches, to make up one truly effective support system. Thank God, despite all the crap, I do have that, and I'm grateful to every one of them.

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