I hate getting books for Christmas in general because I’m such a mood reader, and I’ve plastered a fake smile on my face many a time and repeated internally ‘Its the thought that counts.’ as I unwrap a book I will not read.
But the worst one by far, given to me by my own Mother , who I know loves me, when I was fourteen years old! was >!Men are from Mars Women are from Venus.!< I am sitting there horrified thinking what is she trying to tell me? As my sisters are flat on the floor laughing to the point of puking. We eventually came to the conclusion she just saw an attractive cover on a bestseller table and grabbed it. Love to know your terrible gift stories.
I had a stint in eating disorder treatment right before Christmas one year as a teenager. A couple in my extended family, who I have little in common with and don’t know very well, got me an ENORMOUS book of “positive thinking” platitudes. Genuinely it was ~500 pages of the kind of corny quotes you see MLM types post on Instagram ripped from their original context. I tried to comb through it to find something of value but not a single quote meant anything to me. A lot of them were religious too, and I am not religious- the atheism of my immediate family is actually a huge source of drama in the extended family so that was awkward.
I ended up giving it away to a book donation drive shortly after. They really did mean well and I appreciated the thought, but it also showcased the ignorance that my family had around the situation in an uncomfortable way…
God I hate that shit. I’ve had my own mental health issues and getting angry on my own behalf has dragged me out of more depressive holes that positivity ever did. I might do a self help book of my own. How to get angry and set boundaries by I Jackdaw.
Very glad you survived your dangerous illness.
I’d read that!
I’d read that one, too. Positivity has its place, but that’s not the be all/end all.
Side story: one friend’s father was recovering from Big C surgery and being grumpy. Someone gifted him “Deep Thoughts” by Jack Handly. He laughed so hard he almost hurt himself.
“It’s a shame how a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of wild dogs.”
My favourite Jack Handy was ‘People think clowns are funny but I don’t. In fact, I think they’re kind of scary. I think it’s because when I was a child, a clown killed my dad.’
Probably not remembering it exactly right but I laughed so much.
He’s still got an active website that was updated last time I checked. His stuff never fails to make me laugh.
Jack Handy’s Deep Thoughts books were the best. He recently released a couple of novels, which are basically just deep thought jokes strung together in a loose narrative.
“ If you drop your keys in molten lava, let them go, cause man, they’re gone.”
That’s my favorite one of his deep thoughts!!! I joke to my children that it’s a metaphor (I think a metaphor is what I mean) for letting go of things that aren’t meant to be anymore
I had a similar experience when I was in hospital as a teenager. A teacher gave me one of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. I read it because I was beyond bored, and there was one story in there that particularly incensed me - a teacher gets her students to write down all the things they’re unable to do, makes them bury the lists in the playground, and holds a funeral for ‘I Can’t’. They create a tombstone for I Can’t and hang it on the classroom wall. After that, whenever a child said they couldn’t do something, the teacher would point at the wall and remind them that I Can’t was dead.
One of the biggest lessons I had to learn as a disabled kid (and just a human generally) was that everyone has limits and it’s more than OK to respect those. If I insist that my car is really a convertible submarine and insist on driving it into the Irish Sea, the car will not be inspired to develop these new capabilities. People are no different. Of course there will be times when self-doubt and low self-confidence keep you from things you could do, and of course it’s a good thing to overcome the feelings that hold you back, but there will be plenty of other times when saying ‘no’ is liberating rather than restricting.
In my old job I used to deliver teacher training from time to time, and I’d always tell participants to make sure they never tried to encourage any child with, “There’s no such word as can’t”…unless they could tell me, hand on heart, that they believed themselves capable of landing a principal role in the Bolshoi Ballet by next Wednesday. There was always laughter at that, but you could almost see the realisation dawning for some attendees.
i read that one. it was shit.
r/wowthanksimcured
At 13 I received The Ultimate Weight Solution for Teens by Jay McGraw (son of Dr. Phil) from a family friend. When I opened it they said “because you’re a teen now.” Apparently it was the best way to celebrate that. This was 2003ish so a toxic time for body talk but I remember thinking why tf should I have to thank them for this obviously rude gift? No one in my family acknowledged how weird it was and it sat on a shelf for years.
I would’ve thrown hands. I’m so sorry!!!