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?

To summarise

Child has been born with a serious genetic condition.

Mother of child is naturally distressed by this. She has spoken to family about it.

They've said words to the effect of 'Yeah, we know, loads of us have it'

'Why didn't you tell me?'

(shrugs shoulders) 'Wasn't any of your business/not our place to say anything/didn't want anybody else to know about the family secret unless they had a child with it'.

Having been told in all innocence by DP's family that -

Psoriasis isn't anything much, it's just a bit ugly
It can't affect the nails
It can't affect anything other than the skin and Psoriatic Arthritis is nothing to do with the condition, arthritis is something you only get when you're old
It therefore doesn't have a very high death rate in respect of some cancers and cardiovascular disease and cholesterol levels are irrelevant (when it's vital to keep the levels down lower than the standard recommended level due to the increased risk associated with uncontrolled inflammation)
It can't be controlled with medication (because DMARDs, steroids, assorted topical products and Biologics don't exist, apparently)
There's no genetic component to it
It's caused solely by anxiety like getting lost when you're six years old
All you can do is put cream on, not get stressed and - get this - make sure there are no images of elephants anywhere you go and it'll go away again
There's no genetic component. And the older relative who clearly had an autoimmune condition only had those symptoms due to a picture of an elephant being brought into the house. But the grandchild also with the symptoms hasn't got the same thing. It's just a coincidence. Elephant related, naturally.

I've decided that even nice people can be thick as a barn door.

I don't bother explaining it to them. They know that the forces of pachyderm psychic malevolence are to blame along with insufficient infant geographical knowledge (he got lost and was found by a lady with an elephant on her t-shirt) and no amount of actual science could ever convince them otherwise.

You need to give it up as a bad job, OP. They're dim and can't stop being dim. And the damage to their relationship is as a direct result of this general lack of comprehension.

To summarise

Child has been born with a serious genetic condition.

Mother of child is naturally distressed by this. She has spoken to family about it.

They've said words to the effect of 'Yeah, we know, loads of us have it'

'Why didn't you tell me?'

(shrugs shoulders) 'Wasn't any of your business/not our place to say anything/didn't want anybody else to know about the family secret unless they had a child with it'.

Having been told in all innocence by DP's family that -

Psoriasis isn't anything much, it's just a bit ugly
It can't affect the nails
It can't affect anything other than the skin and Psoriatic Arthritis is nothing to do with the condition, arthritis is something you only get when you're old
It therefore doesn't have a very high death rate in respect of some cancers and cardiovascular disease and cholesterol levels are irrelevant (when it's vital to keep the levels down lower than the standard recommended level due to the increased risk associated with uncontrolled inflammation)
It can't be controlled with medication (because DMARDs, steroids, assorted topical products and Biologics don't exist, apparently)
There's no genetic component to it
It's caused solely by anxiety like getting lost when you're six years old
All you can do is put cream on, not get stressed and - get this - make sure there are no images of elephants anywhere you go and it'll go away again
There's no genetic component. And the older relative who clearly had an autoimmune condition only had those symptoms due to a picture of an elephant being brought into the house. But the grandchild also with the symptoms hasn't got the same thing. It's just a coincidence. Elephant related, naturally.

I've decided that even nice people can be thick as a barn door.

I don't bother explaining it to them. They know that the forces of pachyderm psychic malevolence are to blame along with insufficient infant geographical knowledge (he got lost and was found by a lady with an elephant on her t-shirt) and no amount of actual science could ever convince them otherwise.

You need to give it up as a bad job, OP. They're dim and can't stop being dim.

The damage to their relationship is as a direct result of this general lack of comprehension and logical thought.

You can support the unhappy mum, though. Even it's just to listen to her sympathetically (don't get yourself wound up more, just listen. She'll need it.)

Haemophilia runs in my husband's family too. His mum had expensive private genetic testing when she was pregnant and aborted a male pregnancy that had the condition. Her brother is, and father was a sufferer- and her brother in particular has had a difficult life because of this.