Managing frustration with ignorant/unintelligent relatives

[Tamworth123]

This sounds terrible, I know.

I am struggling to manage my frustration and anger with close relatives who tend towards ignorance (and do pretty much nothing to change it), yet are very opinionated and verbose.

This crystallised recently when I found out that a. one of them failed to provide reassuring and useful information to other relatives going through something terrible; because they cannot grasp the basics of the subject, and have never really bothered to try (a family genetic illness/disease), and the only reason the couple were facing that in the first place was because another relative (whose behaviour mirrors my close relative;s) failed to understand & take appropriate action re. the disease i.e. testing.

Several years ago my close relative also heavily discouraged me from sharing information, seekng information and encouraging other family members to get tested, and apparently still holds that view ... despite a youg child's life now being affected by the lack of discussion, info. sharing and encouraging people to get tested. (Yes, that branch of the family may still have chosen not to, but at least we would have done our best to try).

It was obvious during the discussion taht my close relatives still have little to no grasp/understanding of the basics, still believe misinformation, and have not made any apparent effort to learn; even while they knew this was going on (and one hid it from me because she knew my views).

I know a lot of it is genuine inability to understand .... how do I manage my anger & frustration at something which I suppose is not their faults?

@Swayingpalmtrees

You do nothing and mind your own business.

It's people like you who ensure things like this continue to devastate innocents

You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself.

You are sickening.

@Swayingpalmtrees

And a big gold star for you - for being compassionate and kind, and well balanced.

Ditto.

You are abhorrent.

You can't force people to feel the same as you op. No matter how much you might want to.

You have to respect people's decisions/opinions even if you disagree.

@Swayingpalmtrees

You do nothing and mind your own business.

You mind your own business about a potentially devastating health issue that could be avoided if people had the right knowledge? Righto.

@Tamworth123

I found out about this at a Mother's day lunch, when we were discussing this family and my sister talked about it; not realising I didn't know.

The reason I didn't know is that my Mum has been lying about it by omission for seemingly months; because she knows I asked her to inform her sisters and encourage them to get tested years ago, and she didnt want to ....
And in the case of one sister who is a known carrier of the disease, and her daughter (who i do have regular contact with) she was discouraging to the point of repression/heavy pressure when I encouraged the daughter to get tested.

As I said, yes; it's perfectly possible her sisters would have not gotten tested even if she informed them what we established from our genetics appointment and encouraged them.to test, but she wasn't even really willing to try and she actively discouraged me from doing so with my cousin. I had to essentially disobey/disregard my Mum to speak.to her. She did get tested, she says, and is thankfully not a carrier.

Why didn't you tell them if you're that bothered?

I still don't properly understand the issue.

Your mum and sister have an illness that has been diagnosed. They kept this to themselves, not telling your aunts, who went on to have children, unaware there is a disease in the family line. These children have now had children and you think they should have been told of the disease before they had children?

You need to mind your own business really, it's nothing to do with you

Op you are getting really rough ride here.

Having experience of genetic disability severe in nature requiring lifelong 24 hour care with reduced quality of life and daily pain, if genetic testing can prevent this, then why would you not go ahead and read a bit about it and do everything possible to stop it from happening.

I still see your point of view with your frustration and emotion towards the people who can put a stop to something like this happening, who are choosing to not.

It’s horrendous.

That sounds very frustrating for you, OP. However, I found your comment about ‘disobeying your mum’ to contact a family member about this a bit strange. Your are an adult, why do you need your mum’s permission to contact other family members? Does you mum gate-keep and insist all communications go through her?

Am I right that you found out through genetic testing yourself? If so, I wonder why you didn’t just contact every member of your family saying ‘I’ve found out this, you could be at risk as well, here’s links to more information’ rather than filtering it through your mum.

I don't get why all this needs such cloak and dagger description. No wonder your family don't talk about things like this with you if you blow everything up and make it all so complicated.

And I thi k it matters what the illness is and how serious it is, again, why all the cloak and daggers?

I'm guessing it's sickle cell?

In terms of a potential life threatening genetic condition , maybe some people are just too afraid to know, maybe they would rather enjoy their lives as best they can now rather than have something awful in the future hanging over them. That's their choice and perhaps yoi should respect that

I’m guessing heamophilia

You seem frustrated because others do not have the same opinion as you and have made other decisions. That is understandable but it is not the other persons fault and I’m not sure what advice you want in terms of how to deal with it. From my perspective I would avoid the topic to preserve what remains of my relationships with my family and agree we disagree. As for not helping a couple going through the same thing - again it would be lovely to be able to help but I wouldn’t be giving out medical information about my family for them to support as that is a massive breach of privacy and may put them in an awkward position. There is information available and doctors to sign post support so I’m unsure why you feel a personal responsibility. You seem like a nice person but for your own sake I would try and take a step back.

@blueshoes

I think many people - I'd say majority - lack critical thinking skills or the ability to research and process complicated facts or think logically . This includes so-called professional people.

Your relatives are not unusual. So sad they won't even try to understand especially when it affects a child.

I agree with this. The lack of joined up thinking with some of the drs Dh has met in the last 3 years drives me mad.

I’m in healthcare though and some of my own profession are lacking too. All they care about is brown nosing the manager and getting that band 8 job 🙄. Two of them got sued and I agreed with the patient.

@Ozanj

My mum was like this about a genetic illness that runs in my family. She isn’t uneducated, far from it, but she is thick and a conspiracy theorist. Ultimately I used shame to get her to do the right thing - I told her if she didn’t get tested and the baby got it I would tell everyone she knew it was her fault, that it was her family he got it from, and she would never see any of my kids again. So she did get tested. On the opposite end of the spectrum my mil isn’t educated past year 6 (equiv) but understood exactly why the test was needed and got the test arranged the very next day from us telling her about it.

Who's baby are you talking about? Yours? Why didn't YOU get tested?

People may not want to get tested for a variety of reasons, most of which are nothing to do with ignorance. Firstly they may not want to know, they may just want to enjoy their life without the constant worry of what if. They may just be afraid, maybe they think they will be blamed for carrying a genetic disease that then makes it difficult for other family members to have children. Or maybe they have seen other family members with the disease and think that by preventing future people born with it that somehow it invalidates the life of the affected person , or maybe they are concerned about eugenics.

I found your comment about ‘disobeying your mum’ to contact a family member about this a bit strange. Your are an adult, why do you need your mum’s permission to contact other family members?

As I explained in my post, that was years ago. I suppose I was a young adult.

Even young adults feel reluctance go against their parents strongly expressed wishes; that's obvious surely.

And my Mum can come extremely domineering. I grew up under the mantle of that and like many others , have at times struggled to throw off feeling pressure to do her bidding and disobey her wishes/orders.

*not disobey her wishes/orders

@AuntTwacky

Calling your close family ignorant is out of order

Is it though? Ignorant isn't a word which means rude or nasty. It means that you don't know about stuff. I am ignorant about certain things - cricket, astrophysics, Game of Thrones, rap music...

But there are some people out there who are ignorant in general. I have someone like this in my family. Didn't know Russia had invaded Ukraine. Definitely couldn't pick Ukraine out on a map. Left school at 16 and has not opened a book or pursued anything educational since. No interest in art, music, politics, travel, film, cooking, nature, history - in anything really. Watches soaps and reality TV and that's about it. The most eternally DULL person to be around because he knows nothing and is interested in nothing.

That's ignorance.

Perhaps not everyone finds it easy to just have IVF? You say it like it’s straightforward. It isn’t.

I think you need to accept that other people are allowed to see things differently than you. People are allowed to make their own decisions about being tested for (most) diseases. Your opinion about their decision is irrelevant. If you’re finding it difficult to accept other people’s autonomy perhaps it might help to consider why that autonomy is important.

The OP isn’t complaining about the decisions the couple have made. She’s concerned that they aren’t being given the tools to be able to make an informed decision, because of her mum and sister’s reluctance to pass the information on.

That’s also a decision they’re allowed to make.

Not everyone agrees with selecting embryos in the way you describe.

@RiojaRose

That’s also a decision they’re allowed to make.

Of course they are. But it might save a lot of pain and heartache if they did.

No interest in art, music, politics, travel, film, cooking, nature, history - in anything really. Watches soaps and reality TV and that's about it

You are describing lots of members of my family.

This extends to serious issues like this, which I find v frustrating. Especially when people are suffering because of it.

Then there is the push back and disapproval and pressure not to communicate others or warn them about issues like this.

@5zeds

Not everyone agrees with selecting embryos in the way you describe.

And not everyone agrees with playing Russian roulette with unborn children's lives.

My Mum espoused the strong opinion that otvwas the parents choice, that they would gave to deal with it when I replied that actually it's not really they who'd have to deal with it it's it's child, she had no response other than "well yes I suppose you're right".

Anyone who takes the risk if doing that to a child who had no choice ..... personally I think it's evil.

But in any case this couple don't appear to have taken any knowing risk, they weren't even informed of any risks by their Mum or Granny. I will give the latter the benefit of the doubt and say it was (mostly) due to ignorance.