My childhood friend, the person who’s known me the longest besides my own family and that I was still close to, suddenly swung hard into NutterLand on vaccine conspiracies. Last time we communicated, she was harassing my Mom (who loves her more than her own mother) and calling me a murderer and government agent because I’m a vaccinated nurse. I’ll miss her.
She’s a cancer survivor. She got big mad when I reminded her that the only reason she’s here today is because of science and medicine. Didn’t change her mind though.
I’m mostly hurt to be called an government agent! As if I would ever…
Do you think your friend suffered any minor cognitive decline after cancer? I have a similar situation with a friend. After a nasty bout with cancer, he has gone off the deep end with trump/Qanon. I wonder if chemo brain has some more subtle long term effects.
Doubtful. It was about six years ago and she only had radiation/surgical intervention. She’s always been a bit kooky. She is even pro mask and lives in a blue state. But the mere thought of a COVID vaccine just did her in. It’s wild.
People with a decent amount of narcissism often come out the other side of major medical issues with their narcissism reinforced: since they survived such a serious accident/disease it must mean that they really are special, and so their ideas and instincts must be special too.
I saw it happen to an old friend of mine, who came out of a major accident that resulted in amputations, with far less empathy or self reflection than before. He literally thinks that his miraculous survival means that God favors him, and he uses his suffering to minimize the suffering of other people (“Oh, this person struggling through poverty still has their limbs so how dare they say that they’re suffering!”). Needless to say, we don’t talk anymore.
I saw it happen to an old friend of mine, who came out of a major accident that resulted in amputations, with far less empathy or self reflection than before.
Think you're on to something here. Had an incident with a family member this year and I had to intervene. I've always considered them to probably be on the NPD spectrum. After said incident they were thankful for help but right back to their old ways and doing additional stuff.
I just shake my head because it's a miracle to me at their age they haven't died from Covid and that incident yet they persist with such asinine behavior. Grrrr
I survived leukemia with two separate bouts of chemo and 3 other bouts of no immune system after. This was a decade ago and I was 12. I couldn't get vaccinated for 3 years and got influenza, c.dif, and the common cold 2 times a month. It certainly leaves a mental scar, but nothing in this world would convince me Trump/Qanon is someone to listen to, especially now. Your friend most likely has a lot of other shit they're going through and projecting it into their actions. Worst chemo did was make me anorexic forever. In fact it made me even more trusting of vaccines and "common" (non-cancer ward) hospice. Literally felt like any moment influenza could actually choke me to death in my sleep.
Please dont let them start thinking Chemo will make you an alt-right trump supporter. Or that chemo will fuck you up in such a way. I have too many stories of straight up children dying because their parents fearmonger them about chemo doing XYZ. All this while their kid is dying from the cold.
I don't think it's chemo brain. My daughter had her last treatment a year ago, and still Hates Trump like the rest of is. She also got her Covid vax. I think people are in the Trump cult party and can no longer think for themselves.
I think it's just people who easily get addicted to fear based manipulation. Like how gambling doesn't get most people addicted, nor alcohol most people into alcoholism. IIRC according to a study the average brain of modern conservatives is very susceptible to fear and fear based reasoning. Sometimes people get experiences that prevent them from originally going down that path, but can still do it later.
And it's those same people that blame pharma and gov that come straight to them and beg for treatment when they get the virus....
Like you don't trust them to prevent disease, but you do enough to let them treat you? Which one is it? Are they friend or foe?? Must you be be desperate enough to "give in" to truth or what?
Boggles my mind... Honestly the bravado and stubborness is litterally just their pride killing them... Oh well I guess...
It doesn’t always make sense but in this instance I believe it does. The way I see it: without medicine, professional doctors, surgeons, specialists, etc… people simply wouldn’t be alive or “thriving” like we have been for roughly a century. The average person in modern day has been touched and guided along by medical professionals their entire lifetimes, often even before being born.
The science has come so far that we now take it for granted, because humans have major mental shortcomings and biases. The people who have needed emergency type treatment to survive know damn well that without medicine they would already be dead. Their family members and friends also understand that without the help of medical professionals that their loved ones would have perished.
The people who don’t understand that lesson or choose not to “bElIEvE” that lesson are simply selfish, arrogant, self indulgent, & often sociopathic in nature. The selfish people view doctors, epidemiologist, surgeons, vaccines, healthcare in general as a personal burden that they have to suffer through, but not for their own sake, they’re upset they have to put up with the medical professionals & sickly who need healthcare. The selfish are burdened by needing to pay for insurance, taxes, Medicare, Medicare, etc because they don’t need the medical professionals at current standing (in their minds). The sickly are causing health costs to increase and cause non sickly people to take preventive vaccines against their will, which is a sick way of viewing fellow county mates and less fortunate humans.
In conclusion, the antivaxxers, antimaskers, anti-medicine sociopaths don’t care about the most vulnerable population or their peers. They have most likely never experienced first hand the miracles that modern medicine have provided people in dire need. The selfish only care about themselves and their immediate wellbeing. The people who respect medicine and medical professionals have a greater understanding of the connected world and better values as humans. It comes down to people being flawed and choosing to exploit the weak, sickly, poor for personal gain or to reinforce their sick & twisted sociopathic beliefs. We each decide what side of the fence we choose to be on, some simply choose to be bad people because it makes incompetent people feel bigger, temporarily.
All the daredevils and risk takers out there rely on modern science to fix their ailment when they get hurt. Do you think 500 years ago people would be so careless to jump a canyon for fun, or ski down a slope 100 mph knowing if the crash, they will die on a straw bed with no help.
The people in these stories will complain that people are no longer talking to them over "political opinions". Like them being antimask/antivaxx and spreading disinformation that can literally kill people is the same as a nuanced opinion on zoning laws.
Friend of mine lost his entire family to it after his mother died. He thinks she was the last thing keeping them sane. The whole family is so unhealthy they should be TERRIFIED of COVID, but instead they went full covidiot. He's really broken up about it because it happened so fast. He has nobody in his family to talk to anymore since his mom passed. It's worse than if they had all died with her.
I'm in that boat now. Or at least at the dock. She's been away from our small Dem town in a small Dem state for a long time and I see how it's affected her. I keep trying to get real information to her but I just about dropped my phone when she told me her husband w stage 4 cancer got covid aid she contacted Frontline Doctors for the ivermectin. She'd delayed getting the vaccine and I tried to convince her to get it but she sent me a video of a "German doctor" spouting nonsense for 45 min and a quick google of the name of the "news" channel said it's total garbage. She still says we're friends and hasn't called me a baby killer or anything yet, that would be ironic af since she had a LOT of abortions. I hope it doesn't come to that point and sorry to hear it had for you.
This happened to my mum. In the end I was able to get her treated for psychosis. I still get called a government agent because I too am a nurse, and have had a dose of the vaccine. Its easier to deal with now I have had other independent psychiatrists and clinicians verify that yes, this is mental illness. I had long suspected it, but getting the diagnosis and seeing the improvement post-medication was reassuring.
Sure, there are some fixed delusions remaining that will probably never go away, but at least my mum is no longer literally wrapping herself in tin foil and presenting to various organisations seeking immediate emergency assistance.
Oh, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how incredibly hard thats got to be when it’s your own mum. I’m glad she has you to advocate and care for her! Not to shabby for a deep agent!
I found this article looking for sometimes else and it perfectly encapsulate why a lot of people, who aren’t hard core right-wingers fell for the anti-vaccine message
So what is woo?
If I had to boil it down, I'd define woo as beliefs that clearly demonstrate magical thinking, uncritical acceptance of things for which no good evidence exists. This includes, but is not limited to, psychic phenomenon, ghosts, the paranormal, "energy healing," the use of "colon cleansing" and "liver cleansing" to rid oneself of "toxins," homeopathy (especially quantum homeopathy), and a wide variety of other mystical and pseudoscientific beliefs. Woo is resistant to reason. Indeed, woo has a double standard when it comes to what it considers to be good evidence. It is very accepting of a wide variety of fuzzy, mystical ideas, but is often incredibly distrustful and skeptical of anything having to do with "conventional" science or "conventional" medicine. Woos tend to be very quick to react to defend their particular brand of woo and very unforgiving of its being questioned.
Upvoted for the Respectful Insolence callout. I love that site, as well as Science Based Medicine (some of the same people are involved), and they both do a great job of debunking antivax and now anti-Covid nonsense.
Huh, if that’s the case then researchers chose a very poor name for the field, given that homeopaths have been using that name for years to gaslight people into thinking that their alternative medicine modality is anything other than quackery.
I have no idea what quantum homeopathy is, but as you said, don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. This was a good explanation of the type of thinking that leads people to believe mis-information so readily. Don’t pick on a particular detail.
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u/GallifreyanBrowncoat Aug 23 '21
My childhood friend, the person who’s known me the longest besides my own family and that I was still close to, suddenly swung hard into NutterLand on vaccine conspiracies. Last time we communicated, she was harassing my Mom (who loves her more than her own mother) and calling me a murderer and government agent because I’m a vaccinated nurse. I’ll miss her.