Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Family always talking about illnesses

38 replies

ChristieMalry · 14/10/2021 22:51

Does anyone else's family do this? My mum's always been pretty bad but in the last few years it's incessant. Not just her own ailments but neighbours, friends, people I used to go to school with whose parents she's bumped into on the street ... it's endless. My dad doesn't talk about his own health but again will tell me all about the neighbours. I have said to my mum that I don't really like hearing about all this but she says at her age she doesn't have much else to talk about (!) But my sister does it too! Granted she has a mild but long standing condition, but she just talks about it all the time. What the doctor said, what pills she is on and what dose etc. It honestly does my nut in. I try to talk to them about other things but we always end up talking about illness and medicine. This isn't normal is it? I mean, it's not small talk or enjoyable or edifying. It's just grim. How can I get them to stop?

OP posts:
RobertaFirmino · 14/10/2021 23:00

My own PILs are like this. I think it is quite normal in people of a certain age. When they start, I do one of two things:
Bang on about my rheumatoid arthritis, then say 'Well, there are far worse things to have. If this is my lot, I've not done too badly'
Be blunt and say 'There are people in this world who don't have any legs at all/are completely blind/riddled with cancer. We must count our blessings.'

My thoughts are with you!

ThisIsStartingToBoreMe · 14/10/2021 23:03

It's definately age related, I work with the elderly.

With regard to younger people who do it, I think there's an element of mental health problems there - a desparate need to somehow feel cared for.

thefirstmrsrochester · 14/10/2021 23:04

I came out of family group chats because of this kind of thing. My mum works in Asda and wants to regale me with the medical history of Helen on the next checkout. My brother had to go to day surgery because of an eye infection, and my SIL is awaiting an appointment for gall bladder surgery. You’d think all were teetering on deaths door with the histrionics that are going on.

It’s not just group chats, it’s phone calls and hushed voices and needless drama.

Original poster
ChristieMalry · 14/10/2021 23:07

Thank you!

It's just not very nice. I get frustrated during most conversations because I try to steer the subject away but their heart isn't in it and they're desperate to settle back to talking about illness again.

As for the age thing, i do know lots of other older people who don't do this and with whom I can have normal conversations, plus my sister is only in her 40s. She just likes talking about illness.

OP posts:
XenoBitch · 14/10/2021 23:08

Is she elderly? This sort of stuff is an age thing. Their health ailments, and those of their friends etc is big news.
I remember my ex MIL telling me about my SIL very intimate vaginal health issues.

TheChip · 14/10/2021 23:09

My dad is like this. I dont mind so much the health talk, its when he mentions a cold or something.

"I was on a bus and turns out half of them have a cold. I just hope I don't get it" then he will do this forced cough sound.
Its every single bastard time he mentions a cold, pneumonia or just anything similar. The forced cough sound comes.

"You know, I think I might have had covid before it even was announced as being here. Cough. Cough. Cough"

TheChip · 14/10/2021 23:11

Sorry. I went into my own rant there.

As for getting them to stop, I dont think its possible really. Either entertain them or just be as boring as possible with your responses, or change the conversation every time.

Original poster
ChristieMalry · 14/10/2021 23:11

@XenoBitch yes they're older now but they've always done it. I remember 12 years ago we were sitting waiting for dd's nativity play to start and mum telling me about her neighbour's vaginal ring. I mean ffs.

It has got worse as they've got older though.

OP posts:
HarryPotterFan21 · 14/10/2021 23:13

It does my head in too.
I have a chronic illness that is seriously life changing and I solider on, never bother anyone with it yet my family constantly go on about illnesses.
Last one was my uncles IBS talked about in deep detail. Just why? Confused

Glassofshloer · 14/10/2021 23:13

You’d think all were teetering on deaths door with the histrionics that are going on.

Haha!

Yep my dad is the same. He even (very unkindly) furnished me with completely unnecessary details of my step sister’s miscarriage 😳

He also exaggerates massively. When I was at school a pupil got run over in the car park. My dad told me she was on life support, they were struggling to take her off it, insinuating she was at death’s door. Whereas I knew for a fact she had a broken leg but was on the mend, certainly not on the brink of life, and she was back a few weeks later.

He’s now telling me his good friend is dying of cancer. If it turns out he’s exaggerating I will be really angry & probably finally say something because it’s like he takes glee in the drama of other people’s misfortune.

SylviasMotherSaid · 14/10/2021 23:19

My family /family friends who all live in one specific town can’t seem to pass a day without calling the GP and it’s always over the most random short lived things about 50 per cent of conversations revolve around health . My uncle is always making comments about how he won’t last another 2 years as he has self diagnosed with a very rare and vague illness . I dread going near a GP or hospital I will never understand any of them .

DaisyNGO · 14/10/2021 23:20

Thefirstmrsrochester "You’d think all were teetering on deaths door with the histrionics that are going on. "

This made me laugh! I know what you mean.

It's a personality type I think. Dad and I prefer not to talk about this stuff. Mum used to tell me what was wrong with the checkout lady she chatted with today etc as well as detail about what mg meds relatives are on etc.

Finally I just said "I don't want to hear it" and dad said "neither do I" and actually mum was okay. It's just a habit she formed, not sure how.

I think for some people, it's the drama, or it's an easy target to make a drama? Mum has annual bloods and still tells me in great detail about each reading. I listen but as long as she's fine, I'm not fussed about the detail.

YesIDoLoveCrisps · 14/10/2021 23:28

My grandparents and parents were like this. They would discuss every ailment they had and then everyone they knew.
“Do you know Sarah at number 14, she had a lump in her left boob removed and while she was at the hospital someone next to her had broken their leg in 189 places . . . well could be worse John from Morrison’s had a blood disorder that gradually rotted him from the inside out’
They also pointed out stories in the Daily Mail. VEGETABLES CAUSE CANCER. OBESITY CAUSES CANCER. SEX CAUSES CANCER.
It was very hard work Hmm

Toddlerteaplease · 14/10/2021 23:30

My parents have gone like this. My mum has a very minor complaint. Not nice but easily treatable. It's ruling her entire life.

Toddlerteaplease · 14/10/2021 23:32

I'm a paediatric nurse and children are incredibly stoical and just get on with things. So my tolerance is limited with adult ailments.

KILM · 14/10/2021 23:34

Oh god i know a family like this.
The grandparents are quite traditional, and retired in their 50s (now 80s) but have done nothing to fill their time so its the only thing they have to talk about.
The parents have then got this off the grandparents that its normal to verbalise every single ache and pain. (Everyone in this family has a headache at least once a week without fail. Every day there's a sore arm or tired back or snotty nose)
Then the kids have grown up seeing it as a good way to get attention.
Its bizarre to me, they are all in decent health for their respective ages but if they get a mild headache or cold thats two days centered around it!

mdinbc · 14/10/2021 23:44

Have a 'change the subject' question, and always use the same one.
'Can you believe the price of eggs lately?" or something equally silly, and ask the same question all the time! They will catch on after a while.

It has backfired on me a bit, because now all my older sister talks about is the price of cheese! haha

Original poster
ChristieMalry · 14/10/2021 23:55

Lol I'd much rather talk about cheese!

@ThisIsStartingToBoreMe I think you could be right about it being a desire to be special or cared for. There's a woman at work who is similar - just randomly starts talking about her knees or her husband's hernia while you're unblocking the photocopier or whatever - and tbh she hasn't got a lot around her in her personal life.

OP posts:
shampooing · 14/10/2021 23:57

Oh goodness this is MIL all over!
Whatever anyone has got she's usually had it worse than them too. And has her 'sick voice' which I try to ignore on the phone but she persists with the intermittent weak voice and coughing until you have to comment. Now though I say, oh you don't sound very well, I'll leave you to it. Then she half shreiks in protest.
She is very prone to exaggeration and I don't think she even realises she's doing it.

On those occasions where someone else actually is having a worse time than her, like when DH was undergoing cancer treatment, she still managed to make it all about how worried sick it was making her. Obviously it was worrying her but it's hard to describe how utterly about her she made the whole thing. At times he really wasn't up to talking so I'd update her and she'd say, oh I know what it's like to feel so ill, I remember when I had x, y or z and the pain I was in.

Sorry that turned into a bit of a rant.

It is a personality thing I think, one of my grandmas loved to talk about the ailments of everyone in her street.

simitra · 15/10/2021 00:10

Oh tell me about it!

I am elderly and have my health problems but I try not to impose them on anyone else. There is nothing more boring and depressing than hearing a blow by blow account of other people's illnesses.

My mother was a professional hypochondriac. When she had to go into hospital, or had a fall or a medical appointment she would rit by the phone and call EVERY member of the family and give them a blow by blow account. And if she could not get through to you she would try for days and Days and DAYS until she could!

Fortunately there were no mobiles then and I was lucky enough to have moved to another city. So I used to avoid many of these calls by telling her I was "away on business". Eventually I would steel myself to a call which invariably began:-

I had a fall on ....
I had a little cry today...
Ive got to go into hospital on ...

NalPolishRemover · 15/10/2021 00:19

Oh god all of this is depressingly familiar. My parents, especially my mother, is exactly like this. It's horrifying. Blow by blow accounts of so & so's bowel movements (Or lack of.. ); medical updates galore in every phone call & she's incredulous that I'm not literally hanging on her every update for v minor ailments.
I find it exhausting.& alienating

Original poster
ChristieMalry · 15/10/2021 00:24

@NailPolishRemover YY both my mum and my sister get a bit wounded about me not asking how their most recent appointment was. To be clear none of these appointments have ever involved anything along the lines of amputation or decapitation etc.

OP posts:
RoseRedRoseBlue · 15/10/2021 00:26

This is totally my mother, who is almost self-indulgent in her discussion of my brother’s various minor ailments. I once stopped her halfway through giving the cashier in the Halifax chapter and verse on his gout flare up.

smoko · 15/10/2021 00:30

Yes my grandmother is this way. I have an aversion to sitting too near her because she’ll talk at you incessantly about ailments and have felt trapped by it. She has been this way for my whole life (approx 40yrs)

Never asks how you are, it’s very self involved

She is also a martyr who won’t take Panadol & claims to be allergic to painkillers

She seems to not grasp the concept that a side effect from a drug is not a reaction worthy of blow by blow account

PasstheBucket89 · 15/10/2021 00:44

my mother and grandmother do this and often grim detail aswell, i do sometimes think shoot me if I get like that.