CJ the Curmudgeon

[cjsmith]

I'm beginning to lose patience with a certain category of people. Oh, I'm not proactively rude, but I no longer accept some pronouncements unquestioned.

"I can't swallow pills," someone said to me once. Well, I carefully didn't say, you better not live to be much older. (NB: This person had no dramatic anatomical weirdness. She could swallow food and drink.) Seriously, who lives to middle age without learning to cope with swallowing pills? Heck, who gets to COLLEGE age and hasn't learned to cope with that one? I felt like she was bragging that she was still five years old inside, and a spoiled five at that.

I remember a recent comment in a friend's journal about not dealing well with needles. I can relate. I used to faint -- no kidding here, FAINT -- at the sight of needles in use. I now inject myself daily. I don't LIKE it, don't get me wrong, but I DO it. There are certain special-snowflake attributes that I simply no longer have the luxury of keeping.

"Restrictive diets don't work for me," said a coworker of mine at lunch today, referring to what I don't eat on the Lyme/antibiotic/yeast-control diet. And this time, I spoke up.

"They don't?" I said. Like you're so special, I didn't say, that if you got this disease you would somehow be above managing it. "What if you knew that eating ice cream would make you pretty sick?" I asked instead. "What if you knew it would land you in the hospital, what then? Where's the line?"

He readily rephrased, saying he has no strong motivation to lose weight; I agreed that I could totally understand that, and we rambled off on side topics.

I think I'm beginning to see that in some cases, "special snowflake" translates to "I've been very lucky in certain ways and I take it for granted." I don't have nearly as much patience with that as I once had.

Bad me, for having little patience? Maybe, but y'know, I'm not at all sure of that.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how different it seems to me when the person phrases it as an individual choice. "I have no strong motivation to lose weight" is his choice and honestly none of my business. "I would rather die of a heart attack at age fifty than swim every day" is my own phrasing, and while it's a bit melodramatic, again it's a choice I'm taking responsibility for. But "I can't" when there's no limiting factor... what possesses a person to limit his choices and his life that way? And then what benefit is gleaned from being PROUD of it?

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Right there with you.

For bonus fun points, let me observe. Some of these people who "can't" get out of bed on time for work, stay on task through a workday, deliver work product, or whatever... will turn to me and say, but that's different for YOU. You're Strong. You've got Emotional Resources. You've got Education. You can do things.

And I have to resist the urge to call bullshit. Yes, I am strong. I got that way by working and working for years. I'm still working. I will be working till I die, that's just how life is. But the special princes and princesses... don't understand that just because I don't talk about it ad nauseum doesn't mean there aren't days I come home and cry I'm so tired and wrung out. It's part of doing the work, and until I get another gig, I gotta do the work I've got.

Some people use my strength as a way to validate their weakness. It's a tricky game, and I refuse to play anymore. You want to be all oh and ah about how strong I am? That's fine. And I will tell you how to Get Strong yourself. And that's it. I'm not going to let people use the oooh, it's different for you because you're Strong to con me into doing more than my share of the work. Not any more.

It's tangential to your post, but I am starting to relate this to people and self care. Perhaps we can discuss further if you have time and bandwith?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I'm short-triggered on "..."can't" get out of bed on time for work" myself. I did note that the person who said that the most to me had never missed an airline flight. You can't wheedle with an airplane, you see. There was a big benefit to that particular "can't": no need to take responsibility for basically being quite rude to social contacts and to coworkers.

Now I know there are people who really struggle with sleep issues. This guy was even one of them. But when you can every time if it benefits YOU, and you can't if it involves keeping your word to SOMEONE ELSE, perhaps it's time to admit the word isn't quite "can't".

[airporter.livejournal.com]

How about "can't get out of bed on the Tuesday after a long weekend?"

That one's got me by the short hairs (my payroll clerk) a couple of times recently.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

I *can* get up on time for an airplane flight at 7am. I then feel like shit all day. I also *can* get up on time for a once in a while early work meeting. I *can't* sustain that schedule on an ongoing every-day basis - I need at least a couple of days a week to recover from it. Fortunately I have myself a job that has flexible hours so I'm not inconveniencing anyone. But I don't think comparing a once-in-a-while thing like a plane flight to an ongoing-everyday thing like a job is really a fair comparison. Now if that person were able to get up on time for a morning aerobics class (or something else they enjoyed) THEN there would be a fair comparison!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh, believe me, this guy was a piece of work. He'd be the one to set the time for (say) a group hike, and then he would be massively late for it. If the hike was at 2pm he'd claim he couldn't wake up in time. He could go without sleep for *anything* fun... as long as he hadn't told someone else he would be there. If he had, folks were lucky to see him two to three hours late. I interpreted it as one big power trip, and he got away with it for a surprisingly long time.

[brooksmoses]

Occasionally, the reaction to a realizion of "I'm not actually a lazy worthless stupid person like I've been believing for the past lifetime; I'm just depressed / dealing with thyroid problems / have a specific learning disability / etc." can come off as pride, when a person is just starting to detach their sense of self-worth from their ability to do what they believe (and what most of society believes, often enough) is part of normal functioning.

Not to say that everyone who says "can't" is in that situation. But some are, even though they may just look lazy or whatever from the outside. And, while I know you know they exist, and aren't saying they don't, it sort of seemed to want explicit mentioning.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree that limiting factors exist and are worth mentioning. Good point. Heck, I'll say "can't" about walking long distances, when a more explicit phrasing might be "choose not to because it will HURT LIKE @#$!".

[brooksmoses]

Yeah.

I guess part of why I felt like I needed to say that is that "just suck it up and deal" is being kind of triggery for me. I've been through mild depression; I've had loved ones go through deep depression. And a large part of how they got there was believing that their experience of inability to do "what needed doing" (for whatever example was relevant) was merely a failure at being a Grownup and that they needed to work harder at sucking it up and dealing, and so they tried harder to the point where they emotionally broke and were barely capable of keeping themselves fed without having panic attacks.

And, you know, "If I actually push myself hard enough to start typing on my dissertation right this minute, I'll get to a panic attack first" is ... eh. I don't feel like ranting and getting defensive about this. (And, you know, yeah, I dealt with it -- but the first step to dealing with it was going through admitting that I flat couldn't do that, and recognizing that believing that I ought to be able to didn't change the facts, and then figuring out what I could do.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Depression is a particularly insidious one, precisely because it can look so much like laziness or some kind of character flaw from the outside... and people get massive loads of those "grow up, stop whining" messages from the folks around them. Which does NOT help. Even if those folks are well-meaning, and some, um, aren't.

Depression is just as much a limiting factor in various things as, oh, my 5'3" height is when I try to reach up and touch the basketball hoop. It simply ain't going to happen. That's... it's reality, it's what is, and I can accept it or not, but it's what is.

[brooksmoses]

That, yes. And even worse, it can look so much like laziness or some kind of character flaw from the inside, too.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

If nothing else, we humans are very good at internalizing the messages we get from others. :-( It is often painfully suboptimal. :-(

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Oh, here's the benefit for you.

People who "can't" do thing x, y, or z... reap the benefit of not doing the best they can in self care. What's that benefit? Well... since they are sick and Need Help, they get out of doing the work the rest of us have to do as part of being functional adults.

I'm pretty short trigger on this one, because I've got two psych diagnoses, and I am on meds. Many people with my condition spend their life on disability. And I go to work every darn day, because that's what I do as an adult. I'm not going to be a Special Snowflake if there's -anything- I can do to help myself. I've had to fight damn hard to get functional, and I want to stay functional and keep improving where I can.

It fills me with fury to watch how some Special Snowflakes refuse to do self care because they "can't," when "won't" would be a better descriptor. They don't need to fight for as much function as they can get... someone else will do the dirty work for them, whether it's earning a living, housework, or whatever chores there are that they don't care for.

Yes, I'm pretty angry about this. Because I've been on the butt end of it my entire life, starting with my birth family. It seems crazy but some people would rather skip their self care to get out of the work of being an adult. I try to avoid these creatures as much as possible. They are deeply toxic.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Y'know what, fuck it. Other people said it better, and you already know anyway.

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Huh? I'm confused. Is this disagreement with my comment, agreement, or something entirely different?

My experience with Special Snowflakes is shaped and colored by years of being their free help. Whether I wanted to or not. And years of the mind games that went along with it. And yes, I'm angry and bitter about it. I understand that is going to be upsetting to some.

But I'm curious what your comment means.

[airporter.livejournal.com]

We all limit our choices, and the strongest motivator to do so is fear. It doesn't matter whether it's "I can't lose weight," "I could never do that," or "I'd never be in that kind of shape," each declarative allows the speaker to forego accepting responsibility for dealing with the condition. Or of trying and failing to deal.

[Edited for rambling nonsense. Sorry 'bout that.]

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

the strongest motivator to do so is fear. [...] each declarative allows the speaker to forego accepting responsibility for dealing with the condition. Or of trying and failing to deal.

I think you're absolutely right about this. It's often more comfortable to "know" you "can't" do something than to face the fact that it's hard and maybe you'd fail.

"I could never" change my career... it's tempting, awfully tempting. I am afraid of failing at it. The consequences are even huge financially. "I could never" would give me permission to avoid taking the risk.