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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.
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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.