The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

SingleSue

I have traits, more so than normal and I have always felt different to everyone else, the outsider, the one who didn't quite fit. These traits have become worse since my breakdown as I repaired/rebuilt myself in a way so that the inner me could be protected from further hurt.

PN - Totally understand the "I do that, it's nothing" thing, it's been a feature along the way with the boys from others.

Doozergirl

You’d be surprised at how many people feel that they don’t fit in.

Not to take anything from any saught diagnosis for anyone but I think pretty much everyone has a voice in our head that will tell us we’re different to everyone else, in a bad way. It might tell us that we’re boring, or too loud, or simply not good enough.

It’s all Testicles. Not true. If more people actually said “me too” then a lot of people would be a lot happier knowing that in fact, they are perfectly normal.

As it is, that voice in the head will do its very best to isolate you from the rest of the world.
With some people it succeeds and anxiety takes over and the present moment is lost to fear of things that might happen. And tiny adaptations take place gradually, gradually to help cope (read avoid). One day you turn around and look at what your life was and where it is now and wonder how your world got so small.

It’s because people think that their thoughts are them. And that if they think something, it must be true. But if our thoughts are genuinely ‘us’ then who is listening to those thoughts, exactly?

michaels

Pyxis wrote: »

I still flinch at a day several years ago, when I managed to put my foot in it, big time, with a family who I knew a bit as I was friends with their friends.

Last week I was driving DD1 and her friend and DD2 and her friend home from an activity. They were in high spirits and DD1 ended up saying to DD2's friend 'Like your mum!' which is a 'trendy' joke insult - bit unfortunate as all in the car apart from DD1s friend knew that DD2's friend's mum had died 2 years ago. Even I wanted to hole to disappear into, DD1 was distraught when we got home....

GDB2222

michaels wrote: »

Last week I was driving DD1 and her friend and DD2 and her friend home from an activity. They were in high spirits and DD1 ended up saying to DD2's friend 'Like your mum!' which is a 'trendy' joke insult - bit unfortunate as all in the car apart from DD1s friend knew that DD2's friend's mum had died 2 years ago. Even I wanted to hole to disappear into, DD1 was distraught when we got home....

You were just fulfilling your role as a parent, ie being in the wrong.

DD keeps a list, and she can reel off grievances from twenty years ago.

Pyxis

michaels wrote: »

Last week I was driving DD1 and her friend and DD2 and her friend home from an activity. They were in high spirits and DD1 ended up saying to DD2's friend 'Like your mum!' which is a 'trendy' joke insult - bit unfortunate as all in the car apart from DD1s friend knew that DD2's friend's mum had died 2 years ago. Even I wanted to hole to disappear into, DD1 was distraught when we got home....

i had to google that, as I'd never heard it, or of it, and it's quite obscure.

Obviously started as an 'in' joke somewhere, and spread.

A bit of a weird one, that!




Edit....for the uninitiated, like me, here's some googled explanations...........

Ps, this is all a quote, so don't blame me for any bad grammar or spelling!

QUOTE
1. A phrase used often in English youth culture as a generic comeback to an insult of any kind.

2. A response to a question of any sort, often not being in any way related to the person whom is asking's mother or even making any sort of sense, although it can sometimes be fitting and even insulting.

3. Used as part of a larger insult usually following the formula; "Your Mum's so 'x' she is 'y'." This form oftens plays to the target's mother's alledged promiscuity, weight, intellect, age, looks, wealth or background. This is the form of 'Your Mum' used by people with higher (if any) intellect.

Be aware that many people, even if meant as a joke, find the 'Your Mum' insult just that; insulting, even to the point of violence.

The 'Your Mum' insult may appear to be a recent phenomenon, but it has been used by even Shakespeare in his plays, as in Act I Scene 1 of 'Timon of Athens';

Painter: Y'are a dog.
Apemantus: Thy mother's of my generation. What's she, if I be a dog?

The 'Your Mum' insult was also uses in Act IV, Scene II of Titus Andronicus;

Demetrius: Villain, what hast thou done?
Aaron: That which thou canst not undo.
Chiron: Thou hast undone our mother.
Aaron: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Examples:
1. Person 1: You're gay.
Person 2: So's your mum.

2. Person 1: What did you do last night?
Person 2: Your mum.
or;
Person 1: What colour is your car?
Person 2: Your mum.
UNQUOTE

LydiaJ

LydiaJ wrote: »

I am going to start next Thursday...

vivatifosi wrote: »

How's the cycling going Lydia?

Thanks viva. So far I haven't deviated at all from my plan of starting next Thursday.

Whether I will still be sticking to the plan when we actually get to next Thursday remains to be seen.

GDB2222 wrote: »

Lydia, I found the worst part of cycling at this time of year was how cold my hands became. I expect you are organised and have warm mitts, though. And cycling in the rain is not much fun.

I own some gloves. I need to find them before next Thursday.

PasturesNew

I used to cycle, it was bitterly cold/wet in the winter. My first job was ~4 miles away, from the village, into town, across town, to the far side. I had one of those "typical 1960s ladies bikes with the wicker basket on the front" and after I'd been in the job 6 months I took out a bank loan to get a moped for £140.

LydiaJ

Doozergirl wrote: »

You’d be surprised at how many people feel that they don’t fit in.

Most people, I think.

But there's a difference between "normal" feelings of "I'm different and don't fit in" and PN's "speshul-ness".

Socially it's tricky. If someone admits struggling with something, then if they are, in fact, just a normal fallible human being, struggling with stuff that loads of other people struggle with, then hearing "me too" is comforting, encouraging, and helpful. If, OTOH, their struggles are the sort of thing qualifying for a diagnosis of some sort, then telling them their struggles are the same as everybody else's just makes them feel unheard, misunderstood and undermined.

It's very tricky to know which is which. Since we are all, in fact, fallible human beings, we all get it wrong sometimes. When we do, we need to apologise, cut ourselves some slack, see if there's anything we can learn from our mistake, and move on.

PasturesNew wrote: »

I do dislike teachers...

Some of us try quite hard not to do things like that, but we are all, as mentioned above, fallible humans, just as members of other professions are. We have more opportunity, much much more opportunity, to inflict damage to people whose psyches are at a vulnerable stage of development. Surgeons have more opportunity to make mistakes that kill people. Doesn't mean fallible people shouldn't ever have those jobs.

silvercar

We are very unco-ordinated in my family.

I never learnt to cycle, DS1 was seriously hopeless. DS2 never got very far (that is a parent fail mark, he could have learnt had we persevered, whereas DS1 and me have no chance).

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

We are very unco-ordinated in my family.

I never learnt to cycle, DS1 was seriously hopeless. DS2 never got very far (that is a parent fail mark, he could have learnt had we persevered, whereas DS1 and me have no chance).

Cycling is a funny thing.... where I grew up it was expected, everybody did it.

But for those where it's not convenient, or generally done - if you've no interest in riding a bike when you can just walk somewhere, or drive - then there's not the focus on achieving it.

Because everybody did it where I grew up .... everybody did it. Because you saw everybody doing it and all kids trying to do it ... it was "normal" to just keep trying until you could ride.

If I'd lived anywhere with hills, or where it wasn't "the norm", I'd have probably never bothered/not been interested to learn once I'd tried a few times and found it awkward and annoying and hard (along with falling off and scrapes).

But, as it was "just normal/what people did" I didn't even think about it when I learnt, which was from the age of when I got my first little trike.

It was: tiny trike, bigger trike, pushed around the garden on a bike you can't reach the pedals of, taking that bike out and riding it on the pedals without reaching the seat, one day you can reach the seat. With a lot of falling off and crying .... and, once perfected, hitting a few lamp posts when scooting down the slope at the end of the road that ended in a lamp post (because I was always looking down watching my feet go round as it fascinated me, rather than looking where I was going).

If I'd started older/as an adult it'll have held no interest for me whatsoever... especially the bits where you fall off and hurt yourself.