My latest woo woo notion has been around certain phrases and lessons that keep coming up…if you pay attention to them.

A couple months ago, I kept saying the phrase “is the juice worth the squeeze?”

After enough times of saying this, Xander started saying it around the house too. And then, we would be watching TV and hear that phrase come up in the show we were watching. Or see it on a billboard. Or read it on a sign while out to dinner. And when I was venting to him about a problem at the end of the month he asked me “do you think…the juice is worth the squeeze with it?”

It was funny, but also a bit profound (my favorite category of things - very Calvin and Hobbes coded).

And the next month, it was a different phrase that kept popping up everywhere, which led to another lesson.

And recently, within the past few months, I’ve been grappling with the feeling of being talked down to. People being condescending, or patronizing to me. I’ve never realized before just how much I hate it.

For weeks I was pissed off. “This always seems to happen to me,” I would think. It happens to all of us - it’s frequently something that people write in to Fluently Fixed about. No one likes being talked down to by their peers.

It hurts me especially because I feel like I’m already an extremely open and vulnerable person. The idea of concealing thoughts or feelings has simply never occurred to me. I tell people about my hopes, fears, bowel movements, and everything in between. So when someone takes a shot at me - either consciously or unconsciously - it always hits me in an open wound because I’ve never even considered moving through life with any sort of armour.

Two of Xander’s guy friends had been doing it to me, and I wrote it off as them being annoying and “mansplaining”. But when two of my female friends started doing it, I paid a bit more attention. (When a man talks down to me I get annoyed, but when a woman talks down to me I immediately assume I must have done something wrong. I don’t know why that is.)

Why was their unsolicited advice bothering me so much? And why did it make me feel so misunderstood?

I was telling one friend about how I feel so moody sometimes…she suggested that I could benefit from mood stabilizers. It left me in a rage later that night (ironically, probably proving her point). Mood stabilizers?! First of all, that’s simply impolite to ever suggest to someone. I thought by being open about my moods we would bond as girls about how it’s hard being moody sometimes! Now I feel like a freak who can’t control her emotions.

When I bought my house, one of Xander’s guy friends (who lives with two roommates) started pointing out how the back patio area needs work, and how the kitchen tiles are “so 2005” and it sent me into another spiral. This big accomplishment just happened to me and he’s shitting all over it! What a complete asshole. He’s throwing out renovation ideas without even knowing how much it took to buy this place and…I mean…are the counters really that bad? Should I be embarrassed about them?

And sometimes it happens in smaller moments. When I say something and a friend admonishes me with a “Shannon!!” response like a parent would say to a child. I can’t quite convey it over text but…it’s like how someone speaks to a dog. The same tone of “why on earth are you digging that hole in the ground, Fido! Come on, let’s get moving back home” and over the past few months I’ve had more than just a few people in my life seem to treat me…like Fido. Like I need direction from them. Like I’m headed down the wrong path if I don’t heed their advice. Like they know better than me. They know best.

I think another reason why it’s specifically upset me so much is because of how much of this I get online from strangers. People telling me that my takes are bad, or that I “got” something wrong, or the parasocial way people reach out to me to suggest everything from how I should change my appearance, to the episodes I should put out (because they specifically want them), and everything in between. People are “disappointed” with me often, or phrase even nice comments in ways that feel patronizing “you really should…..(watch this tv show they like)” or “I love you but, you should really…(cover this topic they want me to cover)”. It’s the language. It’s the tone. It makes me feel like a dog who’s doing something wrong and is now getting scolded for it.

My friend Zoe told me about a funny phrase her and her husband had started saying to each other (I forget where the lore of it came from) but when one of them says something like “we have to take the trash out” responding by saying “I don’t have to do anything!”. I think maybe a kid around them had said it once or something?

But god, it felt good to hear that. “I don’t have to do anything!”

I naturally operate under a background chorus in my head of a constant “should, should, should”. I should be doing chores. I shouldn’t be on TikTok right now. I should exercise more. I shouldn’t be so moody.

And when friends tell me what I SHOULD do. When strangers tell me what I SHOULDN’T do. It’s like the knife I already stuck in myself gets pushed in an extra inch further.

And I know I can do the CBT exercise work to try and not internalize all of this so much. It’s not that my friends think I’m a total fucking helpless idiot who doesn’t know how to do anything and that’s why they say these things to me. Perhaps they’re trying to be helpful. Perhaps there’s projection going on. Perhaps they think I want to be managed in some way. I’m positive that all of these people have not wanted to hurt me on purpose (even if in my unregulated mind it feels that way at times).

But I go back to my woo woo lessons that come around. What’s to be learned from this? I can tell it’s a theme for me in my life right now…there’s a lesson to be learned here about how I feel this way.

What I’m circling on lately is that the lesson might be to not accept everything people say. I keep forgetting that that’s an option. I always veer towards being polite, accepting what people say, and assuming that I must be in the wrong.

I remember meeting with my career coach a few months and lamenting on how hard my job is because people get to just say the nastiest things about me online - sometimes directly to me - and I never get to say anything back.

“That’s not true,” he said. “Why do you think that? That you can’t say anything back.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess because of…power play stuff? I’m at a higher position than they are, follower wise, so I can’t say anything back to them because…I don’t know, people say it’s doxxing to post their comments, or if I say something back it would get posted on Reddit and cause a whole thing. They get to shit in my mouth, and as a content creator it’s my job to swallow it.”

“You’re able to defend yourself, Shannon,” he said. “In fact, I insist that you do. I’m not saying that you should bully anyone or incite a mob, but you’re absolutely able to stand up for yourself.”

Huh.

Stand up for myself. The thought feels foreign. When a threat appears, aren’t you supposed to bend over backwards and appease the threat? Sometimes I have nightmares about threats, and in the dreams I always end up trying to befriend the threat. Be really nice to it, I think, and then when it goes to sleep you can try to run away.

I’ve thought before about how annoying it is that so many people have sent me “kill yourself” messages over the years and I’m never ‘allowed’ to send a “kill yourself” message back. How some of my friends seem to talk down to me and play devil's advocate in annoying ways, but I’m never ‘allowed’ to do it back. Where did these thoughts come from?

And sure, I don’t want to be the person who sends out “kill yourself” messages or plays devil’s advocate when a friend is talking about a tough moment they’re in. But I am allowed to say “no thanks” to that behavior. I am allowed to say “I don’t like that”. Or, even simply a “I don’t know why I don’t like what you’re saying…but I know that I don’t like it”.

I think for people like me who are conflict-averse, standing up for ourselves feels like conflict. And we don’t even have the tools to do it. So I’m putting together a little list of things to say in the moment - micro-dosing defense, if you will.

When someone talks down to you or says something that feels rude and you don’t know how to respond:

Hmmm, I don’t know, something about that isn’t landing for me
I know you mean well, but that feels a little condescending
That’s an interesting opinion. I’m actually really happy with it!
What do you mean by that? (Note: This is a great phrase, it can be used for many different scenarios)
No need to supervise me lol, I’ve got it under control
Noted! And I’m going to do something different!
Why do you think I need that? (God I wish I had said this after being suggested mood stabilizers after venting about how I get hangry sometimes)
No thanks

I like ending with “no thanks” because in even typing it out…I felt mean! “No, thanks”.

So I guess that’s the lesson. I think saying “no, thanks” is mean. (My god, could you imagine if I purely said “no”?!)

So my lesson for the next few months is to micro-dose “no, thanks” haha. Return to sender energy. Do no harm, but take no shit energy. You can send it to me, I can read it, but I’m not going to accept it in.

And you know what? Perhaps if I do this, I’ll be less moody as a net result (haha) because instead of smiling and making people feel comfortable when they insult me directly (and then going home to stew over it), I’ll address it in the moment with a “no, thanks!” and reflect the uncomfortable feelings back to them instead of taking it on myself.

Winter 2025 - 2026: Micro-dosing “no, thanks!”

I’m excited to see how it goes.

Micro-dosing "no, thanks!"