Counterintuitive

[cosmolinguist]

(an LJ Idol entry)

My mom thinks Karen is going to die.

She has breast cancer, and Lynn (Neil's first wife, you know) had breast cancer. It got better, but then it came back. "They say it's in my back," she said, and she died from it a couple of months later.

My aunt is worried she's going to get dementia.

She might have to have heart surgery, and her dad had to have heart surgery some years ago and then he got dementia. so she doesn't want to have the surgery.

I find my family very frustrating to deal with because they tell me I'm smart and leave me alone with books for my whole childhood and sned me off to school and then I can't talk to them about anything I learn. Not only can I not use the word RISIBLE when I get it in Scrabble (because my mom won't know it, and there's not even a dictionary in the house to consult), but I can't argue with these stories. I can't be counterintuitive.

Never mind that the surgeons took a lot of tissue surrounding that immediately affected with Karen's cancer, in hopes of catching it all; Lynn relapsed and so my mom talks about Karen she's doomed. Her son is getting married next year and she and he've had a falling-out over it, and he didn't even want to come see his parents for Christmas, his own parents, and now my mom's sure Karen won't even be around for the wedding, and how's that going to make him feel? This is all part of the narrative too, the powerful story, the intuition. And I can't be counterintuitive.

Never mind that my aunt doesn't have the same thing wrong with her that my grandpa does and would need a different kind of surgery, that my aunt's always a dreadfully pessimistic person who has no trouble having the courage of really odd convctions (she told my husband that he doesn't get pork chops much in England, when they are one of his favorites and a perfectly ordinary food, and also that Manchester, where we live, doesn't have any humidity). She made family portraits happen because she's not sure how much longer she'll be around to be in them, and i can't tell her about the self-fulfilling prophecies. I can't counter her intuition.

I already have to bite my tongue when anything political comes up (oh these Mexicans are disgusting, Al Franken's the one who committed election fraud, I don't know why there are all these gay people these days...), to not even be able to call my old friends logic and the scientific method to my aid, to send me off to get educated them make me listen to stories that sound like they've been told since we, as a species, were just getting the hang of fire or pointed sticks, is as maddening as having an itch under my skin that I can't scratch.

These kinds of unexamined beilefs are why we have relgion and politics and other pernicious human endeavors that are about how good a story you can tell more than what's good or true or useful.

Comments

[sfred]

Aaaagh.

[lawchicky.livejournal.com]

Ugh- opinionated family members can be a giant pain!

[cosmolinguist]

Indeed. Opinionated other-people you can walk away from (or stop arguing with on the internet). Opinionated family members are just a special class of evil :)

[sweeny-todd.livejournal.com]

Oh dear - I understand. My grandpa has just been given the cancer diagnosis, and 6 months to live, but his wife is terrified, and thinks he is dying right now, in front of her, and can't hear a word to the contrary.

Maybe.. bring a dictionary into the house, just for scrabble ^_^

[cosmolinguist]

Argh, I'm sorry to hear about your grandpa, but separately sorry about his wife. I just find people like that make the actual illness/condition/situation/whatever so much more difficult than it already is. I guess I can see people trying to come to terms with bad news by embracing it and not getting their hopes up or whatever, but it is absolutely no fun to be around.

I do actually have a Scrabble dictionary (got it for Christmas last year from my in-laws; this is how differently the two families think about Scrabble!) but it seems like such an assholish thing to do: "oh here's a book of special words you can't argue with even though you've never heard of them." I find it makes for a most unsatisfyiing Scrabble experience :)

[sweeny-todd.livejournal.com]

We use a normal dictionary in our games (but we are folk who like word). I have definitely learnt more words that way, but if it isn't right for your family, it isn't right. Sigh. Words can be so much fun.

And thanks. My mum is there now, and Grandpas wife listens to her a bit, so hopefully mum can soothe some of what is happening.

[whipchick.livejournal.com]

Wow. That must be so frustrating to live with - especially because they could be happier if they were more open-minded!

[cosmolinguist]

I know! This is what I think is so baffling about it: what's in it for them, thinking like this?

Even knowing i'm adopted sometimes seems insufficient for how I ended up so different from these people in some ways :)

[nodressrehersal.livejournal.com]

You're caught in kind of a Catch-22 with your family. Think of all the energy they've wasted on negative stuff!

[cosmolinguist]

I try not to :)

[basric.livejournal.com]

My FIL infuriates me making statements that are so far in left field I want to strangle him. I can talk at him because he doesn't want to hear anything but agreement with what nonsense he says. I always wish he had internet access so I could show him, but he wouldn't believe that either. Global warming, melting icecaps (even though there is videos of ice breaking loose) greenhouse effect all propaganda by that damn Ralph Nader groups.

I', an RN but he knows argued with me that the liver is on the right side of the body. I could just scream.
So if your family is like him you are wasting your breath.

Your frustration is well written. Well done.

[cosmolinguist]

Thanks. I've been harboring this frustration for such a long time I suppose I have it honed to an art form by now :)

[zeitgeistic.livejournal.com]

Wow, poor Karen. I hope she never hears your mom talking like that. I can't imagine how frightening and depressing it would be fore her.

Your last sentence pretty much sums it up, yep.

[cosmolinguist]

I hope she never hears your mom talking like that.

I know! I thought this too. I don;'t think my mom would actually talk like that to her, but she gets a kind of pinched expression on her face and makes sad noises and looks really solemn, like people do when you tell them, I dunno "they're taking him off life support" or something. Not to minimize how serious and scary cancer is, but she had a kind with a reasonably good survival rate, and in some ways it's a good sign that so much surrounding tissue was taken; the surgeons wouldn't have done that if there was no hope of getting it all. My husband and I tried to sneak things like this into conversation (not with Karen, but with my mom telling other people) but it didn't seem to change her attitude at all.

Luckily Karen herself seems to be thinking positively. it's not enough to beat cancer on its own but it sure does help.

[pixiebelle.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about it being counterintuitive to disagree with your family members. I still try, and it really is a difficult task. I love my family to bits, but some of the ideas they have...

[cosmolinguist]

Oh I don't think it's counterintuitive at all -- I don't think being related to someone is any guarantee you'll agree with them or think like they do -- but my family think that way. Indeed they don't just think it about family; they think that everyone must think like they do, if they want to be a proper person anyway.

Ah well. As a friend of mine said, Christmas with the family is almost worth it because it makes January so good -- 12 months until Christmas!

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the tongue-biting :P
(I understand.)

[cosmolinguist]

Understanding helps :)

So does living far enough from them that I don't have to deal with this very often.

[nyxocity.livejournal.com]

These kinds of unexamined beilefs are why we have religion and politics and other pernicious human endeavors that are about how good a story you can tell more than what's good or true or useful.

Well said!

[cosmolinguist]

Thank you! After I wrote that I almost deleted it in case Offense Was Taken but then decided to put it back in :) And I've only had good feedback about it actually, so there's intuition working in my favor!

[myrna-bird.livejournal.com]

I guess they would all rather be right than happy.

[cosmolinguist]

::nods:: I can do no worse to them than leave them to the world they think they live in.

I just wish I could do better.

[karmasoup.livejournal.com]

I think all of us have a few in our tree that we have to look at and think, it's a good thing you have family so someone will feel obligated to love you anyway.

[cosmolinguist]

My mom has actually said pretty much exactly this about this aunt (her sister): she's got no friends, only family. She spies on her neighbors, she never has a good word to say about anywhere she lives until she's moved away, she's never had to work...she has nothing and no one in her life expect her family.

[baxaphobia.livejournal.com]

Aren't families fun? haha. not!