What doesn't kill you makes you stronger and other wanktastic sayings

[GADDay]

Just thinking about my Mum & Dad. In their seventies, been stuck on their own for nearly 9 months. I am in Australia, so no hope of seeing them soon.

My mum's cousin is in hospital - end of life care. He is alone, in horrific pain, scared, running the covid gauntlet. His wife is equally terrifed and alone in Tier 3. They have been married for 52 years and separated now when they need each other most.

Then that bloody awful saying popped into my head and it made me feel uncharacteristically pissed off. It might not kill us but it is NOT going to make us stronger.

I loathe this saying.

God doesn't give you more than you can cope with.

My children frequently tell me that “everything happens for a reason.” They know it’s guaranteed to rile me

That, and people talking about karma. But at least when I hear that word, I find myself singing, “stay karma if you want to harm a llama/call a llama farmer.” For any person who’s going to pedantically point out it’s calmer, yes, I know

These sorts of phrases spike people often have good sentiment and wisdom but are used at the wrong time

When something is really awful and you are slap bang in the midst of trying to deal with it and understand it, phrases like “you’ll get over it in time” are spiky.
You don’t need to know that at that time, you need to know how you are going to deal with it.

A lot of them are true but said at the wrong time.

Except ‘be kind’
I think kindness is over rated in our culture and doesn’t do us all that much good in the long run if we place kindness over honesty for example.

@cushioncovers

God doesn't give you more than you can cope with.

Oh that is a particular favourite NOT

‘This too will pass.’

Yes of course it fucking will, like everything does, doesn’t make it any fucking easier now in the middle of it it all though does it?

‘It is what it is’ gets a lot of gate, but it’s a useful little phrase. I take it to mean ‘just gotta have a bit of acceptance about the situation’, which is no bad thing.

‘Be kind’ l just makes me think of an annoying, head-tilty kind of person. It’s something you say to 3 yr old kids squabbling at nursery, not your fellow adults.

HATE

Be kind is used more often than not to silence people with a legitimate concern. It’s for f all to do with actual kindness.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

What load of crap. The truth is almost the complete opposite of that particular platitude.

This too shall pass boils my piss too. Used as a reason not to sleep train on MN. Fuck that, if I want to sleep train my 6 month old so we can all get a bit of sleep before she turns 4, I sodding well will.

@devildeepbluesea that’s where I heard it lots too, not on here but on Facebook parenting groups I was in at the time. For some reason it didn’t really help when I was verging on PND and sobbing with sleep deprivation when my first DC woke hourly, napped for less than 20 mins at a time (after 40 mins of rocking and white noise), and woke for the day at 4.30am.

The meme that ends in something like 'You are loved more than you know'. Oh fuck off, lots of people have no-one that loves them and this just makes them feel a whole lot worse!

I can’t stand “live every day as if it’s your last”.
Oh ok then, I won’t go to work etc I’ll just piss about doing whatever I like. I get the idea behind it, it’s just not exactly realistic. The world wouldn’t really function if everyone lived like it was their last day

@Berrys245

I can’t stand “live every day as if it’s your last”. Oh ok then, I won’t go to work etc I’ll just piss about doing whatever I like. I get the idea behind it, it’s just not exactly realistic. The world wouldn’t really function if everyone lived like it was their last day

Exactly, the problem is when it turns out to not be your last day you've still got the mortgage/rent to pay and your really regretting telling everyone what you think of them

Exactly, the problem is when it turns out to not be your last day you've still got the mortgage/rent to pay and your really regretting telling everyone what you think of them

When god shuts a door he opens a window
God never gives you more than you can handle

No and no.

@Berrys245

I can’t stand “live every day as if it’s your last”. Oh ok then, I won’t go to work etc I’ll just piss about doing whatever I like. I get the idea behind it, it’s just not exactly realistic. The world wouldn’t really function if everyone lived like it was their last day

My brother always says ‘ok so I will spend the day sitting huddled in a corner, rocking and crying ‘nonononononono’ then’

@TheStarOnTheChristmasTree Definitely, unless it said to someone you know the people who say that are just plain smug about their own lives.

@SmallBalloonAnimals

Exactly, the problem is when it turns out to not be your last day you've still got the mortgage/rent to pay and your really regretting telling everyone what you think of them

Yes! I always think this!

The work version of “it is what it is” is, “we are where we are”.

It is usually deployed after a massive fuck up when the people affected by it are trying to work out what went wrong, how and why.

You will be unsurprised to learn that the people spouting “we are where we are” are the same people who made the mistake and are hoping to shut down the discussion before it gets uncomfortable for them.

Even worse, they say it wearing a lofty, pseudo-wise expression, to show everybody that they are above the grubby business of recriminations. Are you bollocks. They are the sort who are the first to point the finger, in my experience!

I use “it is what it is” to mean it’s shit but I can’t change it. Like this weekend we had tickets to go to a local outdoor Christmas lights thing, but then DD had to self isolate because of a case in her class so we can’t go.

I hate any kind of “reach for stars and make your dreams come true” type rubbish. I’ve always told DD those things ought to say “set realistic goals and work hard to achieve them” but that doesn’t make for a snappy slogan on a T-shirt or notebook does it?

"Sometimes the strongest people need a hug and to be told it's all ok" or similar drivel.
Usually by an attention grabber on FB followed by hundreds of "You ok hun?" and "I'll PM you hun"

And one that always got me was "It's always in the last place you look!"
Well I'm not going to keep looking once I've found it am I so obviously it's going to be in the last place I look. Though I'd like to think that that one is based in irony, though it's definitely not used that way sometimes!

"A son is a son until he takes a wife but a daughter is a daughter all of her life."

My mum thinks she owns me. And she blames her bad relationships with her children on her daughters and sons in law. Awful.

This too will pass. The 'too' in there irritates me more than anything. Sanctimonious twats. You need a comma in there if you're (not your) going to write it, but stop churning out inane crap.

However the best phrase is the one my DH taught my dear old mum when she she was recovering from cancer and Dad had his terminal diagnosis.

She was running around after her own mum (who had dementia) and trying to do everything for everyone and getting stressed out.

So DH said - ‘fuck ‘em’. And that became her mantra...

This too will pass.

Actually, I find that quite helpful in shit situations. Agree about the comma though!