to feel so angry not know what to do

[dancingwithmyselfandthecat]

I have just discovered that a family member has cancer and has refused all treatment - to the point of refusing to even go to a doctor for a formal diagnosis. All pain relief, etc. This is supposedly due to religious principles.
This person has been ill for months, and has only just informed her children. She is now in unspeakable pain and her children and her partners have had to drop everything to care for her. The care itself is deeply unpleasant.

It should be a joyful time for the family. One of her daughters has just had a baby. Instead, they are in limbo and agony. The ill person refuses to discuss or acknowledge the illness but is screaming in agony. The family members have begged her to seek treatment and she absolutely refuses.

I know that having cancer is an awful awful thing and I can't imagine what the woman is going through. I do have sympathy for her, lots of it. But I also just feel so angry - the waste of a youngish life (if she had sought treatment) - or at least the waste of her last few precious months. What she is putting her family through. The fact that her young grandchildren can't see granny because it will be too distressing for them.

And I feel unspeakably angry with the religion which propagates this and promotes - at the heart of its theology - the total rejection of medical treatment. I'm am religious myself, so not anti all religion - but surely the Lord helps those who helps themselves? Interestingly, this religion allows people to do things like wear glasses and use walking sticks and (presumably, because the only people I've met who follow it have perfectly spaced children) use contraception. So how is medical treatment different and wrong? It's just so fucking cruel.

Completely in agreement with Darcey and Gingerbread here.

Are the family members also part of this religion/cult/whatever it is? I am struggling to understand how a religion which discourages even the most basic medical treatment has any followers left - surely if any adherents get appendicitis, pneumonia etc they must die due to lack of surgery or medicine?

No the family members aren't part of it. By the time she joined they were old enough to make their own minds up.

Darcey there is no hope or value in being a straight talking friend. Goodness knows people have tried about things in the past. One of her daughters tried this time and there was a total refusal to engage.

Unexpected, yes adherents do die and there are lots of reports of adherents dieing because of treatment refusal. I suppose it is possible that many do get medical treatment - I am not part of it so I don't know whether my relative is one of the more strict adherents. I do know that refusal of medical treatment is one of the things it is most well known for.

Its un speakably selfish yes and will leave a horrid legacy for her poor family who will have a life time of trying to come to terms with this long after she has gone.

People need a diagnosis for cancer. Even doctors don't diagnose this without formal tests. (as far as I know) It is an awful time. Your family should seek help from your own GP as to how to deal with this.

People need a diagnosis for cancer

TBH I know that from the remove of the internet this part of the problem is interesting, but up close it is kind of irrelevant whether a doctor would call it cancer or something else. Yes, in terms of treatment of any sort we'd need to know what it is, but that's the point. Nothing is happening, and it is horrible, and distressing and very upsetting. The family are calling it cancer because that's what the symptoms look like. I won't go into how or why, because the details are distressing. They have done all the research into this they can without getting the individual in front of a doctor. But if you want to replace "cancer" with "undiagnosed illness presenting tumours, a great deal of pain and a body shutting down" then yes, that is more accurate.

Without wishing to cast doubt on the person in question I would just like to point out that some people are VERY good at faking illness and getting others to believe they have cancer when in fact there is nothing wrong with them. They are also amazingly good at displaying 'symptoms' and having people running around after them like headless chickens.

I am not suggesting this to be the case at all but refusing to be formally diagnosed/refusing medical interventions etc etc is pretty suspicious. Though as you say, she may just adhere strongly to her religious beliefs. I also wonder what religion this is and can only assume its Scientology.

You have my sympathy and yes, feel free to rage!

If it is Chritian Science ( which is not the same as Scientology AT ALL) they have their own "faith" practitioners, who might be able to help. If so, contact them. If not, then you are in a difficult position, and you have my sympathies.
My grandmother was a Christian Scientist, and it created certain family difficulties.

I am sorry to hear this. I hope she doesn't suffer too much more and her family get some comfort from the fact that she is acting through faith (hollow as that may be!).

Is it Christian Science? I've witnessed a few refusals of medical intervention by members of that faith, including a lovely lady who died from cancer, and wouldn't seek treatment because of her beliefs, and a father whose young son fell from the top of a climbing frame, and was unconsious, but his father wouldn't call an ambulance and prayed over him instead (fortunately in that case the boy was eventually ok).