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

[just-cyd.livejournal.com]

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 think you nailed that one.

*hugs*

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to use a shorthand for that, too. Here it is: "Young." :-P

[airporter.livejournal.com]

I don't have nearly as much patience with that as I once had.

And you should because? Seriously, it's not your job to coddle people through whatever psychoses they've managed to develop around swallowing pills, eating, or exercising their flabby bodies. Indeed, given what you've undergone to keep your energy and spirit up at times, you should be getting a baseball bat (nerf anyway) out to smack them with. The inevitability of decay is there and they'll see it eventually.

I'm not sure whether the gent you were conversing with gets points for readily rephrasing (depends on the content and tone) but I suspect you gave him the credit and kudos for that.

[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?

[mapache]

Well, I've yet to figure out how the hell other people manage to swallow pills. My throat seems very adamant about not admitting anything that has been not chewed. I keep trying every few years, with the result always being either swallowing a glass or two of water and still having an increasingly-soggy pill in my mouth, or the occasional pill hacked out at high velocity. Thus, I find out if there is some kind of magical time delay thing going on, have yet to see the answer be yes, and just chew the damn things.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh yuck! Some of those things taste NASTY when chewed. Diphenhydramine, for example. *shudder*

I find that if I get a pill far enough back in my throat with -- this is key -- a big enough gulp of liquid, it works best. But then, I'm totally happy scarfing down big swallows of stuff. I think my throat just (metaphorically) throws up its hands and says "we'll let the stomach try to deal with THIS mess." And now my efforts to visualize this image are making my brain segfault. :-)

[greendalek.livejournal.com]

*whistles in quiet awe, applauds softly*

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Aw shucks. *digs big toe into the floor, studiously looking at 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?

[brooksmoses]

Argh, indeed. Perhaps we need to average out; I mostly just swallow them dry -- well, okay, with a little bit of saliva for lubricant. (This rather disturbs suzimoses if she sees me doing it.)

Actually, I wonder if that might help, if you haven't tried that. I have problems when I have too much water, as the pills seem to never be in the part of the gulp of water that gets swallowed.

(Oh, and right; I forgot my vitamins this morning. Should take those. They seem to help a little against depression, though not nearly so much as they do lilairen. [Extreme sensitivity to lack of B vitamins, she has.])

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

ps: And now I feel really bad for being so insulting up there in paragraph two. I apologize! :-( That gal gave me the impression she hadn't much bothered to try, but that was an impression; I admit I totally judged without knowing.

[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.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

I myself have problems with some pills going down. Even with a big gulp of water they tend to stick in my throat, dissolving slowly. However, I found a simple solution to that problem: have a bite of food to eat, and the pill will be carried down.

[ame-chan.livejournal.com]

Y'know... it's funny. I was just talking to Sorcha (my daughter) about that. I'm considering going back to school and entering a nursing program and you know, I am kind of squicky about blood and guts and needles and "squishy stuff" in general. And she asked about that. My answer to her was, "Well, I think probably everyone is to start - and you learn to deal with it. I don't think anyone really starts out well equipped to deal with needles or poop or bleeding or vomit or squishiness. I think you either deal because it's what you have to deal with to do what you want to do, or you don't, and you don't do that thing."

Sometimes you have to sit down and actually *decide* you aren't going to be a special snowflake about something, even if you really don't like it.

Restrictive diets are really easy to say you won't eat, until you need to eat a restrictive diet. It's easy to be casual about things until eating the WRONG thing will kill you/make you sick/cause you pain, etc. And then? You just have to suck it up. Sure I miss peanut butter toast. Sure I miss sugared pecans in my salad. Guess what? I'd miss breathing more!!

I am with you on the little patience.

[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.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes.

[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 @#$!".

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

People can adapt to a lot, with sufficient motivation. For instance, I was so clumsy, I was sure that putting contact lenses in would damage my eye, but I learned to do it properly. Likewise, I managed with practice to transition from barely controlled hysteria at taking shots, to being able to calmly deal even with palette shots...years of needed work on my teeth helped with that one.

There can be physical/emotional barriers to dealing with things, but people can often find ways around them. The trick is knowing when it's an actual limitation, and not a psychological crutch.

[mapache]

Yeah, the solution to the vile taste is to have a mouth full of water and to only lightly crunch the pill into smaller bits (as opposed to chewing into paste). The water isolates the crud from your taste buds and dilutes it, and avoiding excessive pressure keeps bits of it from getting stuck in the pits of your molars (which will then be in your mouth generating nasty, instead of in your stomach generating medication). If pills were like a quarter the size of a typical Advil or Tylenol, I'd have it down no problem.

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you have to sit down and actually *decide* you aren't going to be a special snowflake about something, even if you really don't like it.

Yes.

This.

I know someone who carries on about having a weak stomach and being easily sickened by smells. I used to be that way. And then I wanted to pass college biology. And I got over it.

It's a matter of sucking it up and dealing, which is for me one of the first measures of whether someone is a Grown Up or not.

[brooksmoses]

That's rather interesting, how much "restrictive diets" have gotten associated with losing weight, such that it was your coworker's implied assumption (by which I mean not what he assumed you meant, but what a listener would be expected to assume) even in a context where you were clearly talking about an entirely different sort of basis for the diet.

[ame-chan.livejournal.com]

Em takes a gulp of liquid, then inserts the pill and swallows both down, then gulps more liquid.

We have had LOTS of practice taking pills lately. *sigh*

[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".

[ame-chan.livejournal.com]

Sometimes part of that decision not to be a Special Snowflake is really in accepting that, "Yes. This makes me nauseated and gaggy. And I'm going to get past that and deal with it anyway." and not sugarcoat that you don't like it. But not make it a huge drama either. There's a sort of zen mind to it. You say hi to it, acknowledge that it's there, and STFU and deal. I don't much like strong "body" smells. But after 2 kids and several dogs and 4 cats, I just hold my nose and deal. Doesn't mean I don't get gaggy? But I deal.

One thing I discovered about noxious messes - latex gloves help when there is a mess I'm particularly squicky about cleaning up. For some reason, that provides this weird sense of security that really lessens my squick factor, even if there is stench. It won't get "on" me, if that makes sense.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, motivation is key. It took me nearly a month to be able to put contact lenses in in under ten minutes per eye. I know some people learn it more easily and more quickly, but by golly, I wanted to be able to wear those things.

My problem with needles didn't go away fast, either. It's not completely gone. But it's way better, after I've had a lot of motivation.