Is it normal or intrusive for a grandfather to ask a teenager how her thrush is?

[willthereverbeanysleep]

Sorry, gross topic all round and I'm not a troll, just a name changer.

I am in counselling at the moment. I grew up with my grandparents, Grandma was a warm loving person who treated me as her own, but my Grandfather was generally sharp and made me feel like crap. At times he was outright horrible to me and a few times really frightened me. I know he hit me a couple of times when I was very small but I don't remember what happened, just a lot of fear and even thinking of it now makes me feel very distressed. I know that doesn't really matter as it was far from the norm for him to hit me, it was more a couple of one offs. He sometimes was nice and thoughtful, buying me a toy or a book and I was not generally afraid of him.

I generally get the sense that he wanted no harm to come to me and wanted me to be ok but found a child my age and then a teen irritating so sometimes lost it with me.

Hoewever, when he was angry it was frequently like he wanted to shame and embarrass me? I was very ill as a teenager and multiple courses of antibiotics meant I got thrush, and went to the Dr instead of school one morning. My Grandma must have said where we were and he asked me about it. We didn't have a relaxed comfortable relationship talking about private body problems, it was so weird and felt like he was trying to embarrass me.

AIBU silly and overreacting, should I just forget about it? Or is an odd thing to say that is worth bringing up in counselling?

Thank you.

Just bring up whatever you need to at counselling, that is totally your call.

But don't fixate and ruminate on this particular thing (would be my humble non-counsellor opinion!), because it's one of those things that he might have said with concern, or not, it's just too hard to say. I say this as someone whose parents said a lot of stuff like that and worse, regularly.

No never sexually inappropriate.

He was not sexually interested in me, it's not about that.

It's more, I feel he crossed a line commenting on something personal because it was a good way to make me feel uncomfortable embarrassed.

It feels inappropriate in some way, but not about sex. More that it was inappropriately mean, trying to cause a level of distress.

Yes I don't want to ruminate and I'm not sure if I am doing, that's a very fair point.

My self esteem is low though, and I'm trying to work on it, and he was my harshest critic in general.

I would think it's odd and 'overstepping', OP

If my grandfather asked me that question as a teen I would probably have blushed, laughed and told him it was none of his business.

But my relationship with my grandfather was obviously very different to yours. His comment might have been innocent and coming from a place of concern, or ignorance, but your counselling is not about him and whether it was appropriate or not, it is about you, the bigger picture of your relationship and how it made you feel. So talk about anything you think will give your counsellor an insight into your relationship, your reactions, and how you think it impacted you.

It would have felt very icky to me. OP.
Especially as he doesn't sound like he was asking out of concern for you.

Why did your GM tell him what you had been to the Drs for?

How old were your GPs at the time?

Were they of the opinion that you were & child & they both had a right to know everything about you?

Yes I don't know why my Grandma even told him. My best guess is she was giving him a heads up that I was having a really shit time, with some difficulty with my parents plus being so poorly with the original illnesses I was taking antibiotics for, and then feeling miserable with awful thrush on top of this.

I think she was probably trying to get him to have some compassion for me.

He would have been in his 70's.

Thrush can be in your throat or on your skin. It seems you think he was asking about your genitals but did he specify or that she had told him that?

Thrush is also not that uncommon after multiple rounds of antibiotics. Given they were in a loco parentis role, I don't think it would be an uncommon thing go one parent to mention to the other.

Bring up what you need to in counselling OP ❤

It sounds like they were acting as parents to you. TBH- if my own dad had asked me about thrush at that age I would have been angry at my mum for telling him, and also uncomfortable with him asking. Saying it to my own grandfather would have been even more uncomfortable and cringy IMO.

Is your grandmother still around to ask why it was mentioned?

Yes he knew it was vaginal thrush because previously he thought he could catch it from my being part of the household sharing laundry and bathroom, like threadworms, and was annoyed about it all.

No both are long dead now.

I don't think it's odd for a family member to ask about a medical issue, even an intimate one. It wouldn't be considered odd in my family anyway.

If you feel weird enough about it to start this thread you should definitely bring it up in counselling though, it's your feelings that matter.

It would have been more appropriate to ask 'how are you feeling?'

If you are having counselling and this kind of thing is nagging at you, it may be doing that for a reason. Its worth exploring because it can lead on to a realisation.

I kind of think that I'd something is stuck in your mind and you feel you can't move on from it it is exactly the kind of thing you might want to address in counselling no matter what it is. Because it isn't the thing itself necessarily, it is what it makes you feel and why it makes you feel that and what else it might be linked to.

Definitely bring it up in counselling as it’s still causing you some distress

Ewww! Not normal

I think him being annoyed about it also might be why it has stuck.

It does sound to me also as if GM didn't really need to tell him & that might also rankle somewhat.

They might have been the sort of couple to tell each other everything but when it concerns someone else it's crossing a line.

Times & ideas change but an awful lot of behaviour was/is excused by "just the way they are".

Sometimes pretend concern when it's really to find out as much as possible & maybe use it against someone at a later date!

If it worries you bring it up...
Don't forget that hitting was not an unusual punishment for children by parents who would now be in their 80s plus even 70s

I think he was wrong to bring it up. My dad would never have asked me anything personal if he knew my mum was dealing with it because he knew as a teenager I would have been mortified. Your grandad knew your grandmother had taken you to the doctors, really he should have addressed her about it if he was concerned.

Well that explains the hitting....or smacking I guess he would have been caned at home and school as a child if he was 70 when looking after you. Men then did tend to be more distant on a daily basis. It didn't mean they were not concerned about health or wellbeing. My parents would have called a cold sore harpies back then because it's that virus and nobody talked about genital hepies so would he have even known about a female condition called thrush rather than its general oral thrush?

Yes I know hitting was commonplace, I'm not blaming him for doing that a couple of times, I was trying to paint a picture of the angry person he was.

He had good reason to be angry as he grew up in awful domestic violence himself, watching his mother beaten up. He curbed his impulse to lash out physically himself when angry, and that must have been very difficult for him.

But I mean smacking was the normal punishment for all children nothing to do with DA or being angry so it's not really posting a picture of his moods especially as you only remember a few occasions.....gentle parenting and time outs didn't exist for this generation and any neighbour or policeman could clip you around the ear if you complained your parents would give you another one. Men didn't do childcare they were the silent ones in the corner and you did keep quiet because they were home and tired from work.
Looking at your statement against today's standards is different and abusive but not for that generation ....how old would they be now if they were 70 then and been gone for years?

I'm sorry, now I'm confused?

He grew up in bad domestic violence.

When I was a kid, he would get terrifyingly angry at times, losing the plot, but it was rare. We didn't do smacking in our house as punishment. He just hit me due to uncontrollable rage a couple of times, I think before he managed to rein it all in.

He was just a very angry person who like I say, mostly managed to keep his temper under wraps, but on occassion could lose it.

He didn't actually want to hit me or his own kids, I think he thought that was wrong after what he'd grown up with.