![[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
I now believe that coping with chronic illness - *any* kind of chronic illness - tends to reduce one's tolerance for absolute statements.
The "special snowflake" also translates to "I haven't had this kind of issue myself, so I am indirectly suggesting that it's not a problem for you."
First example that comes to mind is a date who once told me that all of my cat allergies were psychosomatic, because he'd never had a cat allergy in his life. It's one of the few times in my life I've actually walked out in the middle of a date.
no subject
That could be. Particularly if the absolute statements are about a topic deeply affected by that illness.
The "special snowflake" also translates to "I haven't had this kind of issue myself, so I am indirectly suggesting that it's not a problem for you."
And here I wonder to what extent I myself am doing exactly that. Up in paragraph two I derided someone who "couldn't" swallow pills -- and yeah, I'm pretty sure that in her case she hadn't much made an effort -- but lo, one of my early commenters is someone who has great difficulty swallowing pills whole. (Granted, he does what he has to do to get the job done, which I think puts him in a different category than that lady.) Do I blithely wave off people's difficulties because I myself haven't had them? Probably, sometimes. It's probably human nature. (But I also think my main point is valid. "Can't" is NOT always "can't", and sometimes "can't" is just a way of advertising how damned lucky you are that you haven't had to.)
no subject
The pill-man appears to be simply be using an absolute/literal statment when something along the lines of an opinion/personal experience is called for.
The diet-lady, however, appears to be actively denying your special eating needs by making an absolute statement that SHE wouldn't do it herself. (And as you correctly pointed out, what if her life depended upon it?)
Maybe it's just a maturity thing. As I get older, I find I don't have the stomach for absolute statements that I found highly attractive when I was younger. Call it an acquired taste for anti-drama. :)
[Whoops-hit send too quickly. Appended text follows.]
I would perceive pill-man as making a poor syntactical choice, but I'd perceive diet-lady as being actively (if faintly) malicious.
no subject
Language trickiness works both ways.
You're right that CAN'T isn't necessarily CAN'T.
On the other hand "haven't had to" isn't necessarily HAD TO either. You may see your situation as having no choice but to do [whatever]. You HAD TO learn to deal with needles. Someone else would not see it as HAVING TO, but as a choice to deal. Some people choose death over (some) medical interventions. Maybe you can't live with the consequences of some non-action, and someone else can.
Please note I'm not disagreeing, just expanding on the "what is choice and what isn't" issue.
Perhaps CAN'T is (sometimes) a way of advertising that you haven't faced difficult choices about it-- it has not been a matter with grave consequences for you to consider.
Personally, I've thought way too much about medical intervention choices recently, and I'm taking a break from it all. Deciding what SOMEONE ELSE (a cat) has to have done is about a thousand percent harder for me than deciding what to do myself (or have done to me).
no subject
Exactly! We all have tradeoffs, some of them quite difficult to face. I get curmudgeonly when I see someone who, by intonation or eyeroll or repeated behavior, gives me some indication that they haven't been presented with a difficult choice that was quite painful for me when I faced it.
...ah, took me a minute to put my finger on the rest of it: and if I feel like they're dismissing my pain thereby. Yeah, that gets my dander up.
no subject
the SPECIAL implication is what's offensive -- like, um, the implication that YOU are more sensitive so YOU wouldn't do [whatever] -- which kinda implies that I just don't MIND needles and restricted food choices etc.
Although it can be hard to know what someone really means -- I know I sometimes say things that *could* sound like "special snowflake" when I mean I WOULD NOT CHOOSE THAT, because I think it is wretched, and I've thought about the options. On good days I'll add that I haven't faced the choice and would look into it further, and might surprise myself. But the point is that I think it is wretched GIVEN THE OPTIONS AVAILABLE. Given my (special) view of the choices, not given my (special) sensitivity. So, it is specialness, but a different sort.... or something like that.
And, let me add, the fact that other people have NOT faced the hardships and difficulties that I have (or you have, etc) is in itself plenty of reason to feel curmudgeonly, IMO. Like when I worked with a department full of very young engineers who had never faced, say, being laid off, not having skills that are in demand, doing work that is demeaning, etc. There is some kind of respect that you should earn by the hardship of years of dealing with your situation. Not sure how I'd define it, but this is a good project to work on! We can make up some rules and certifications and things....
no subject
You've hit on one of the things about special snowflake behavior that brings me to honest to goodness rage - of course it's o.k. for YOU to do icky thing z. But I can't do it because I'm more sensitive, you just don't MIND doing it, right?
Argh. No, I do mind. I really mind. But it's the choice in front of me.
I get really tired of that particular special snowflake behavior, especially since the way I got less "sensitive" was by Dealing With It. I have little tolerance left for these people, because my being less sensitive magically means I do more work, take more responsibility, get tireder, and have less time and energy for what I want to do. And they... are sensitive, so in addition to doing the shitwork for them, I should also be all sympathetic and understanding about how "sensitive" they are. And I can't expect much back up and understanding for doing this work, because I'm "strong," and therefore don't need any.
I'm still very upset about it, and it comes from several years of being in some very messed up and co dependent relationships. I might mellow over time, I hope I do. But right now, I'm still furious at this nonsense. I'm also sad because this special snowflake refusal to do things... ties people even more deeply into co depenedance. Ugh.
no subject
I had an ex (keyword here is EX.) Who told me, when I returned from the allergist with prick tests all over my arms, and several of them huge and swollen, that my allergies weren't real. I was told my reactions to several of the test antigens were off the scale, but according to Mister Genius Ex, that meant they didn't count.
Hello?
He wanted them to not be real for two reasons. First, he wanted to get a pet I'm allergic to and wanted to be able to force the decision. Second, he "didn't like doctors" and wanted to be able to discredit whatever they said.
I left. I'm sorry his needs to be right and his needs to be able to have whatever he wanted matter more than my need to... breathe. But I'm not sticking around for that garbage.