I’m wondering how some people lack the ability to understand that people have very different experiences/lives

[Barsh]

Musing really. Couple of threads prompted this and a comment from a friend.

Friend was asking what special talent my autistic nephew has....none really unless you count the ability to make his feelings about wanting chips known...but he isn’t a maths genius or RAinman

Posters piling in on poster who didn’t want her Father with frontal lobe dementia to stay at Christmas. Their experience of dementia was obviously limited to watching a bit of telly...with gentle old grannies being a bit forgetful.

The poster who is trying to clear debt and wants a bit of cheering up being told to go and get a £150 hair cut.

Before I get asked what my point is, I’m not really sure.

Sometimes we can shudder and get worked up about people’s lack of empathy or social skills and maybe that is true in many cases but people can also be a bit thick and don’t think deeply at all.

I hear you OP.

Other people think that somebody else feeling differently about an issue means either that they themselves are being disbelieved, challenged or corrected.

My mum is like that. If we see something differently, she bristles.

“ Before I get asked what my point is, I’m not really sure.”

I think it’s, why are people eating a big plate of crazy at each meal?

One of the reasons I split up with my XP was that he literally could NOT imagine anyone having any kind of different life experience to his. I write books and he couldn't read fiction as 'it's all made up'. He would laugh at awful, sad scenes in films, for the same reason.

He kept telling me how shit MacDonalds food is, how awful the shops are, how they are full of 'chavs'. When we had to go into one in London (I needed the loo and we bought a coffee), and it was full of working people with briefcases, his cognitive dissonance almost exploded his head.

But he couldn't learn from it. Still won't go into one, one account of the 'chavs'. He's an ex for lots of reasons, but his complete inability to empathise is a major one.

Zaphod you dated Jacob Rees Mogg? 😂

Big plate of crazy....yep that’s it.

Close, AutumnRose1, very close...

My mother’s favourite saying was

“If i were you” it would grate as what she expected me to do didn’t take any account of my abilities or personality

I never understand why people insist on surrounding themselves only with others than think and do exactly as they would.

I think that is why someone can't understand other people can have different ideas and thoughts because their own life is very narrow.

Yup. Lots of people in lots of bubbles.

Though I think a lot of diseases/disabilities/situations are romanticised by media so people don’t see the reality.

My MIL had Alzheimer’s and dementia-related psychosis. She was hugely aggressive and we all struggled to try and keep her at home for as long as we could. It nearly broke us. It got to the stage where my manager in work once took me aside and asked if I was being abused because I was constantly coming in with bruises from where MIL had thrown things at me during one of her psychotic episodes.
I nearly swung for a woman one day who told me she thought she might have Alzheimer’s herself as she was constantly forgetting her glasses were on her head if she knew exactly what I was going through

Another area I see this is around foster caring. My sister fosters. She gets a lot of comments around “oh, the parents must live for contact visits, it’s probably the highlight of their week and they’d do anything to spend an hour with their kids”.
Nope. Many are so off their head on drink or drugs that they never turn up to visits. Others are quick to tell everyone who’ll listen that they’re great parents and would do anything for their children but will literally not get out of bed before noon so miss contact visits constantly.

My Dad must have peaked at school. He had the best time of his life there, so everyone must have loved school as equally as him. My sister and I were talking about how shit our secondary school time was. He pipes up, 'No it was the best time of your lives'.

My eldest sister’s favourite saying is ‘if I were you’. Then some random shite. She has no idea how I live my life as she’s not remotely interested but she has an opinion on it all the same.

why are people eating a big plate of crazy at each meal?

Oh I love this!

Totally agree with this. It's both a lack of empathy /self awareness and total lack of critical thinking.
It's not confined to class or education either. What is also DEEPLY infuriating and weird is how people like this seem to rise to the top?! I know a woman who is highly educated, well travelled and at pretty much the top of her profession who is easily the most narrow and unthinking person person I've ever met. Her experience of the world is hugely privileged but she seems to have learnt FUCK ALL.
Perhaps that's the key. Be so intractable that others are basically forced into submission.

I agree with you. The dementia thread made me want to scream.

Can you link to the dementia thread please.

I agree OP.

I quite often wonder if people have a complete lack of understanding when they read the OP. They seem so incapable of understanding anything outside their personnel life and experience.

Great post OP.

The dementia thread was awful and brought back memories of the Christmas from hell that nearly tore our family apart forever.

The absolute lack of awareness is breathtaking.

Some suggestions for solutuions to dreadful situations are insulting.

Just get a taxi
Just put it on the credit card
Just get your relative to help
Just learn to drive and buy/tax/insure/fuel a car
Just get your shopping delivered
Leave and book yourself into a hotel.

I count myself very, very lucky that I am at a relatively stress-free time in my life but I am more than aware that this is not the case for many posters here who don't know where the next meal/rent payment/bus fare is coming from. Whilst we might all despair that people's live can be so hard, many posters seem to be in denial that this is actually the real world in 2019.

I have a relative who just can't seem to get that other people are not like her.
Why are they ill/blind/menopausal when she isn't? Why don't they do the same things as she does?
If anyone doesn't join in to something she has arranged for any reason...they are lying/exaggerating/making excuses when in reality they have had genuine reasons to reluctantly not attend.
It really is astounding.
I no longer see her. But of course I am strange/belligerent/awkward. She isn't.

Many, many people are very, very stupid.

The dementia thread was awful.

None of my relatives have had dementia but I can still imagine how awful and conflicted it must be and wouldn't dream of making anyone feel guilty for looking after their own and their own DCs welfare first. Some of the responses were horrible to the OP.

The menopause ones where posters are quite clearly having debilitating symptoms and a poster breezes in to say exercise more, take a supplement and g"ive up caffeine...I sailed through without having to take drugs!!: I'm off to yoga now!'

Yeah great, thanks.

It's fine not to ha e experience of stuff but to make someone feel bad who is clearly in need of support...just close the thread instead.

I cant find t the dementia thread...@Oblomov19

The older I get the more I notice that most people don’t really do thinking. At least not beyond what’s for dinner, which evening dc has swimming or what they’re wearing on their upcoming night out.

So many people don’t want to understand anything beyond their own experience, despite the fact that information has never been more easily accessible. They want simple solutions to complex issues and for every problem to be someone else’s fault or responsibility to fix.
They’re quite content to live their insular lives, not bothering to educate themselves about much of anything while at the same time holding forth with their often embarrassingly uninformed opinions on any and all subjects. No knowledge required - the more thick and ignorant they are the louder they shout .

Oh and I’m 43 so hardly ancient but I’m noticing this more and more, among family, friends, colleagues and most definitely on MN where the knee jerk reactionaries appear to rule! I’m sure it’s the same on other forums but I only really use this one.

The dementia thread was full of judgemental people. Really felt for the OP. Hope she’s ok.