My Talking Doctor

  So when i was about 10 i started going to, as my family called it, my talking doctor. My "talking doctor" was a therapist that i needed to start going to due to my fear of someone entering my room in the middle of the night and putting a tree-nut into my mouth and killing me. I would leave school in the middle of the day every Friday to go to my therapist and my therapist and i would sit in a room and just talk. Looking back on it now, i recently realized that i didn't even notice that i was in therapy and i only recognized the fact that i got to get out of school early to sit in a room and play with jax and the etch-a-sketch. I know now that my life was completely changed by that doctor, i am much more outgoing person and was given much more confidence by my therapist. She taught me that i didn't need to be afraid of something that was so unlikely to actually occur. She also gave me the courage to be able to talk to adults about my allergies and to be able to stand up for myself and say no, even to an adult, if i couldn't eat something.

  When i was younger, before i went to my therapist, i believed that all adults knew better than i did. What i didn't understand was that not all adults actually understood how severe my allergies are. Many adults didn't take me as seriously as they should've because i was so young. When going over some friend's houses when i was younger, some parents would just skim over ingredients and say that it was safe and although i felt uncomfortable and unsafe, i would eat everything anyway in order to avoid being rude. What i understand now is that it is perfectly okay to be rude if it results in me keeping my life and being safe.

  What advice i have to give is that it is okay to be rude if it means being safe. Some adults that have had no experience with allergies just do not grasp the real threat of them. Although they try their best to understand and want to keep me alive, they just do not take it as seriously as they should. Many people do not understand that cross-contamination is a very dangerous threat that is just as deadly as having a food containing the allergen, and many also do not understand that foods being processed in the same factory as allergens are deadly too.

  All in all, what i'm basically getting at is, if it means saving your life, be rude and stand up for yourself. No matter what.