Family and Health — Are Your Lies to Protect Others from Worry Really Driving Family Away?
By: Autoimmune Feminist
Tags: Connection, Lies, Covid 19, Family, Wellbeing

What do non-estranged direct family members who live far away from each other who have completely different ideological, political, and religious beliefs have in common? The desire and care for the wellbeing of the other. At least that is the hope.

I talked with one of my sisters the other day and she let me know that she had recently ended a conversation with our parents and that they told her they had Covid-19 but it had been about 2 weeks and they were still recovering.

I had talked on the phone with my parents the day before and they told me their friends were recovering from Covid in response to my telling them my best friend currently had it and it was rough.

I was furious. Although my family and I have almost nothing in common and they don’t think the virus is a big deal in general, I didn’t think they would lie to me. Why even bring up their friends in the first place? And then why tell my sister (who also lives far from the rest of my family), the truth the very next day? I took the evening to process this and called my mom the next afternoon.

The essence of our conversation on her side was telling me that it wasn’t a big deal and they didn’t want anyone to worry unnecessarily.

My side went a little like this:

We don’t have anything in common. We don’t believe the same things. We don’t talk much because of these things. We aren’t going to change each other’s minds about anything, and with nothing much happening in our lives that is not political at the moment there is no reason to talk. What we can talk about however, is our health. If you are feeling poorly, I don’t care if it isn’t a big deal as long as it is more than a cold, I would like to know. I want to worry about you. I want to have a connection to you where you know that I am thinking about you and your health and sending good thoughts your way and I can check in with you on your symptoms of the day and how they suck. Or if you are feeling better I can celebrate with you! It benefits us both to be able to lean on each other for health issues. If you are going to pretend like you are fine because you believe that your health is a fake-it-till-you-make-it situation, you are missing out! You are missing out on an opportunity to bond with your family. Don’t you want support while you feel poorly even if it is just emotional support? Is being too proud to admit any weakness or not wanting to worry someone really worth isolating the people who are looking for a way to connect with you?

Why pretend like being family matters when we are strangers because we aren’t emotionally available with each other? Does being family really matter? Do they not want to hear about my autoimmune condition and symptoms because it will worry them? Would they rather just know that I am out there in the world existing, no matter what shape I am in medically? At what point do they want to share this information?

I don’t have answers. I don’t really want to call them for Christmas. I wish that in thinking about others not being worried for them they actually put some reality into it and thought about how their actions are really affecting their family.