"Go away."

There was a time in the distant past when my mother could not handle the advice/threats/ultimatums that seemed to have ingrained themselves in our family over her mental illness. So she disappeared. None of us knew where she lived for over a year. After the siege was done I asked her why. She could not tell me in a way that cleaned it up.

"Oh, I get it." Not happening. 

One of the benefits of caring for babies and animals and people with disabilities is it sharpens our efforts to try to understand them without them having to explain themselves. If a new mother waited for her newborn to ask nicely, or a farmer expected her chickens to justify a preference for tomatoes over avocado, everyone would perish. Hence the need to guess, and read body language, and pore over books, and ask questions of other members of the verbal population. 

Maybe words are a crutch anyway. If I make up a sensible case for you to give me sympathy, you get to stay within your comfort zone. But if I find someone in need of compassion, who looks like they absolutely do not deserve it, I get a chance to step into a place where words are not the only way to protect ourselves.