The problem is, you don't

"My friends struggled with infertility. I know how hard it is. That's why I decided to donate my eggs."

That's one of the tag lines for a commercial urging women to donate their eggs. And it totally made my blood boil.

Now let me clarify, I don't normally get irate over sympathy. In fact, I'd like to think that on the spectrum of those with IF, I fall more on the "she doesn't make me feel like shit for trying to support her." What made me angry was how the statement was used. Not only is it completely untrue, but it just felt so exploitative. It was belittling the fact that one of the biggest hurdles women with infertility face, is knowing their family and friends typically don't understand. It was using a healthy, fertile woman's point of view as a means of empowering egg donors. That's awesome. Egg donors help tons of women conceive healthy babies. But did you need to pretend like the reason she decided to donate was because she really gets it?

Because she doesn't.

This sort of led me to an internal dialogue about sympathy versus empathy, and how I really struggle when I think people aren't carefully distinguishing between the two.

I believe very firmly that, in order to stay on a healing path, you need to allow people to love you how they see fit. I've had this same discussion with so many friends struggling with their own losses and sorrows, even unrelated to IF. It's a pretty hard thing to do when the last thing you need is yet another "I'm so sorry" but part of opening your heart to change - good, healthy change - is understanding you can't control how people support you. You can't dictate the way someone feels comfortable loving you. You can only choose to embrace it knowing their intent, or ignore it if you feel it's disingenuous.

That all being said, I do put some onus on my friends to remember when they should offer sympathy and when they are capable of displaying empathy. It's a small but really important distinction and if you are sitting here wondering exactly what the difference is, I suggest you do a little research. It could really mean a world of difference to someone experiencing something painful, and it doesn't take much on your part.

The commercial made my skin crawl because you don't get the right to relate to IF just because you know someone who has been through it. And you certainly don't get to use that as a sales pitch without making some people think your marketing department is full of assholes.

I guess I am more susceptible to insensitivity than I previously thought. In this instance, I'm totally OK with that.