Life lesson: How a parent can still destroy you in one sentence.

[darksideofstorm]

Father: [looking over with a you-are-in-my-personal-space frown] Have you brushed your teeth today?

Yes, actually, but I shall go drown myself in mouthwash for your personal comfort anyway. Thanks ever so.

It is amazing how no matter how old and self-confident I get (I wear actual shirts now, instead of twenty-four hour hoodies), I still feel

Comments

[nezumiko]

Left side of the body is supposed to map to the feminine, in most alternative health practices. Issues with femininity, much? For the record, the majority of my injuries have been on the left, too. I've broken my left knee, wrist, & 2 fingers on my left hand. My left wrist has worse RSI than right. Left knee has worse arthritis/cartilage damage (breaking it probably didn't help). Left side of my urinary tract had congenital malformation (corrected with surgery when I was 21) and I'm still prone to left-sided kidney infections. Yeah. Um, issues with femininity much, Nezu?

I repeat the assertion that yeah, you never, ever outgrow that. You learn to recognize it's happening and take care of the wounds before they fester, but parents have some kind of auto-targeting that guarantees them a hit for just about every shot they take.

Wrist: there are some exercises you can do to help with RSI. Which side of your wrist is hurting? I get RSI in my wrists on the sides closest to my thumbs due to my bastardised, self-taught not-quite-touchtyping method. It came from holding my thumbs up in the air away from the keyboard. I've learned not to do that so much, and it's really helped.

[darksideofstorm]

Of course it is. I should have guessed. *facepalm* My left side is certainly my weaker side. I'm right-handed, always step off with my right foot, have stronger vision in my right eye, etc etc

but parents have some kind of auto-targeting that guarantees them a hit for just about every shot they take.

Best explanation for that ever.

Wrist: Pretty much any way I twist it makes it hurt to some degree, but it's strongest when I twist it from side to side. I know I bend my hand inwards when I type. I don't seem to be raising my thumb though. *watches hands for a moment and makes a monstrous amount of typos*

[kilerkki]

My roommate had issues with her wrist (she types a LOT at her job) and so started wearing a brace. After a few weeks, she had no problems at all.

Also, not to be persnickety, but... How on earth do alternative health practitioners figure out that left = feminine? We have good studies to correlate the left side of the brain with logical thinking and so on, but saying that you get injured more on your left side because you've got issues with femininity makes about as much sense as saying you get injured on your left side because left = sinister and therefore you're evil. For the record, I burned my left hand yesterday with boiling water. I put some burn ointment on it immediately, and this morning I didn't even have a blister. If you're prone to burns, I highly recommend getting some of that stuff.

[darksideofstorm]

Hmm, thanks! If it continues, I'll look into that.

*so amused at your version of not-persnickety* I have no idea. It's not my theory. But I also think it's perfectly logical for the human psyche to develop correlations that involve large numbers of people, and are passed on generationally -- religion, for example, which makes almost no sense to me, but many people experience direct healing by.

So, yes, I guess you could decide via cultural osmosis that the left side of your body is attuned to more female rhythms, because people are inclined to think in a male/female binary, and if you have a problem with the femaleness in you and react to such in a typically self-destructive way, you could snap a wrist.

Or whatever.

Prone to burns: not so much. I'm more prone to doing myself bizzare injury when I try to rush through tasks. But I'm glad your hand is unblistered!

[nezumiko]

I'm pretty sure it's a cultural belief that goes way back. And whether or not there's empirical evidence correlating the left side with femininity, or psychological issues with physical manifestations, it's not a completely illogical deduction. The majority of the human population is right-side dominant, meaning the right side is the stronger, more coordinated side, usually with the right hand and foot being slightly larger in right-handed individuals. Given that females are, on average, smaller and less physically strong than males, ascribing "femaleness" to the smaller, weaker side of the body is not that far a stretch.