Parents who don't want help

[hei]

My parents are both sick with an assortment of medical conditions for which "treatment" by various doctors and allied health practitioners seems to provide no obvious benefit. Even the dog is sick. They are very overweight, seem to eat ***t food and nothing obviously nutritious, and are increasingly immobile. When I try to help them they get mad and reject it because it's not what their <whatever> said, or otherwise just ignore it. They don't listen to me anyway (still treat me like a little kid and think I'm incapable of managing my own affairs) so I don't have any real strategy for getting through to them.

Anyone been able to help relatives like that? Don't really like seeing them get worse and worse.

 

[DANIEL]

Tough spot, really. Watching family members decline can be gut-wrenching.

They don't listen to me anyway (still treat me like a little kid and think I'm incapable of managing my own affairs) so I don't have any real strategy for getting through to them.

Do you still live with them? If so, I can see why they'd treat you that way, no offense.

I think the best approach would be for you to work on yourself and get rich, jacked/become a beacon of health, and move out if you haven't already. They'll start to listen to you once you can prove to them that you know what you're talking about.

 

[hei]

I haven't lived there for 6 years. They hated the idea of me moving away too, pretty much told me I'd get stabbed and die penniless in the gutter if I left their house. Literally told me I wouldn't be able to look after myself.

 

[Perry Staltic]

Anyone been able to help relatives like that? Don't really like seeing them get worse and worse.

No. My obese sister gets offended and blows me off. Her obese son, though, got scared of covid, went keto and has lost nearly 100 lbs, without any input from me. So that's encouraging and less heartbreak to have to deal with.

 

[Ben.]

Since my health declined immensely and i've developed a new understanding for health trough all the research i did the past year ... i see compromised / sick people everywhere. Suddenly i got to know people better from an health point of view and half of the people i know are on some kind of meds or live with a chronic illness.

I've tried often in people, atleast thoose dear to me, to help them with the informations i gathered, offering them some assistance for experimentations, how to approach doctors, what questions to ask and most of all motivate them to leave this helpless attitude behind.

Most decline thoose offers and ideas in a angry way.

The question is how do you approach your parents? Often times we "insult" them by triggering a weak spot coming from insecurities or guilt they have for themself.


"You need to take walks and go into nature ... in japan doctors describe this and ive a buckload of studies and evidence based informations how cortisol levels ....
"When did i raise a hippie? My doctor said i've this disease and i need to take these for the rest of my life"

I came to the conclusion that first you have to help yourself, then thoose who are open for your help and then if one finds time you can try to help thoose who can't seem to be helped.

Tough spot, really. Watching family members decline can be gut-wrenching.

Do you still live with them? If so, I can see why they'd treat you that way, no offense.

I think the best approach would be for you to work on yourself and get rich, jacked/become a beacon of health, and move out if you haven't already. They'll start to listen to you once you can prove to them that you know what you're talking about.

I agree with this so much. Breaks my heart at times even tho one knows there is something that could be done or some approach that could've been experiemented with....

Interestingly i've payed alot of money for an intense fitness trainer education, did weightlifting naturaly for 4 years (until my health broke), and i basicly invest most of my time reading and trying to get a better understanding in our biology in my free time almost on a daily basis. But people rather take advice from the roided up influencer who ammased twice of my muscle mass and makes a living by selling bad and expensive supplements. The same guy that can't differentiate between a chest and a back excercise because he has never looked at an anatomy book or picture before ...

But i get it. Why get help from someone who "cant make it work" either?

 

[Michael Mohn]

Parents make their own choices and they have to bear the consequences too. This sounds hard and I feel you as my mum died from cancer and I couldn't help her but you have to build your own life now that you're young. Ignore your feelings and become a little bit better healthwise than they were. The time and energy you give them now will be missing in advancing your life, career, family etc.

 

[Murtaza]

Ive found the same case with my grand parents. They'll take any drug their doctor tells them to take and their health has been getting worse. In the end you can have the satisfaction that you atleast tried your best, but ultimately everyone makes decisions for themselves

 

[mrchibbs]

@Murtaza

Same situation here. My grandmother thinks vitamins and minerals are so dangerous, and yet she takes any drug willingly. The fortunate aspect is that she still holds on to traditional ideas about nutrition and therefore drinks a lot of milk, and sweets, and I think that keeps her sane despite isolation and serious lack of vitamin D.

An interesting tidbit is that despite the fact that she's really scared of covid-19 (from watching the news all day long), she doesn't want to get any vaccine because her son (my uncle) got the Guillain Barré Syndrome from a flu shot in the 1990s and nearly died.

 

[Blossom]

My dad listens to me quite a bit and he’s doing well at 75. My mom wouldn’t listen to me or anyone else and sadly passed away right after her 69th birthday. She lived and died on her own terms though so I’ve just had to make peace with that fact. I will still give people my opinion if they ask but I’ve gotten better and not being overly emotionally invested in their decisions.

 

[mrchibbs]

My dad listens to me quite a bit and he’s doing well at 75. My mom wouldn’t listen to me or anyone else and sadly passed away right after her 69th birthday. She lived and died on her own terms though so I’ve just had to make peace with that fact. I will still give people my opinion if they ask but I’ve gotten better and not being overly emotionally invested in their decisions.

Wise words!

 

[Regina]

Maybe they should just listen to Gretchen

 

[hei]

When I started this thread I had only been here a day or two, but I have been here a bit too long now and it's just bad. The main food groups are literally bread, 35% vegetable oil "butter spread" slathered thickly on every piece of bread, supermarket rotisserie chickens (probably the least bad thing they put in their mouths), supermarket pasta salad/potato salad/coleslaw (made with vegetable oil mayo and a wide assortment of gums and preservatives), and sweets. Every meal there's bread. Even if they have spaghetti or rice (precooked microwavable rice) they have bread slathered with PUFA spread on the side. My father has eaten his way through kilograms of chocolate coated almonds that he pretended he had bought for me. Deep fried fish every week, with chips (of course). Sometimes they go out to eat breaded calamari or more spaghetti.

The government pays for some nutritionist to come every fortnight and I thought her meal plan was the problem but they don't even eat according to it and then lie to her face that they have been eating properly. Reminds me of when I lived with them and they magically treated me like an adult when their friends were over, only to go back to "little kid" treatment as soon as the visitors left.

I have been avoiding saying anything about the food as it's just obvious they couldn't give a rat's backside. My mother's breathing has deteriorated a lot and she doesn't even care about that: after yet another coughing/sputtering/grunting fit I asked if she was alright and she got mad at me. Tried to set an example by avoiding all the rubbish PUFA foods and going for a walk every day and they act like it's some kind of curiosity: "wherever are you going?", "goodness!! why on earth would you go there?!". The only time they care about food is when I'm seen coming home with something from the shop. That earns me a lecture about how I'm not to spend my own money on food when I'm in their house.