![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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.
"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.
no subject
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.
no subject
no subject
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.