Whenever I read the phrases “you do you” and “it’s not all about you” I hear them said sneeringly.
There is something so dismissive about those phrases. So belittling. The speaker (or writer) matters, you don’t.
Their choices/preferences matter, yours don’t.
When either of those phrases are directed at me personally (instead of in a general way as I read in someone’s blog this morning) I get – well, to be honest, nasty.
After overhearing a conversation I was involved in, a person said “You verbally chopped them up and flushed them down the toilet!”
When anyone says (or writes) those phrases to me, they get chopped up and flushed down the toilet.
But calmly. I don’t shout. Not when I’m truly angry.
That’s the funny thing. I don’t handle raised voices very well; having grown up with raised voices. Raised voices = people shouting in anger, me feeling threatened.
I do raise my voice but, how should I put this, in a benign way? In annoyance rather than anger; to warn someone of danger most certainly, when taken by surprise. Or when listening to the news…I shout at the television a lot. The television doesn’t care.
When I am truly angry I get quiet. Very quiet. I speak quietly and deliberately.
When I get truly angry, to the point of losing control, I don’t see red, I see white.
On those occasions when I have been pushed to the point of white anger someone usually got hurt, it’s never been me.
I’ll put up with a lot of shit from people; keep my mouth shut, not overtly react, tell myself they are not worth the breath it would take to put them in their place, chopped up and flushed.
But then – those times, those times when I go all quiet, those times when someone crosses the line from mere stupidity to unconscionable, when they push my alarm button – Be afraid, be very afraid.
“You do you” and “It’s not all about you” aren’t quiet anger producers but they are “verbally chopped up and flushed down the toilet” provokers.
There are things up with which I will not put.
Subject to Change Without Notice 