We’re ok. She was mostly my mom’s friend, and the experience of caring for someone that ill until they died, and then the havoc that happened afterwards, affected her. She’s still a wonderful, loving person, but friendships changed, and then she developed a close, motherly relationship with her friend’s older son when…

That is so sad.

The whole situation was sad, and then got worse after their mom died. It really changed my mom.

That is so sad. Did your mom end up undergoing chemo?

There are also highly educated people who believe climate change doesn’t exist. I generally find that the anti-vaxxers do believe in climate change. I’m saying that these are all rejections of different kinds of science. Same coin, different sides.

She’s the type who would likely never get shaken out of her beliefs. I mean, this woman treated a somewhat serious dog bite with acupuncture, so... Evidence based facts are paid for by big pharma if they don’t agree with her already held ideas, and everything else that agrees with her beliefs are true. And there’s…

Yeah, most of the men I know, and the ones I respect, tend to avoid health issues, whether physical or mental. BoyPenguin is the first guy I’ve dated to willingly go to a therapist to help him cope with some heavy stuff. He did it on his own with no prompting or coercing from others.

Probably in a sense, yes. That chemo’s toxicness would leak onto her somehow? Her problem, so to speak, is that she prefers to be conditional about the way she shows love. People have to conform to her preferences in order for her to care for them in a loving, open way. So when you resist what she wants, she drops you…

Yep, sign me up for your newsletter please.

Omg, I just spent 20 minutes browsing that and LOLing.

I am so sorry about your friend. That’s incredibly hard.

I think that’s a valid question. I’ve definitely seen men fall for the alternative stuff though, and some teach it, but I would agree it’s the majority women who get into this woo woo stuff. The men I’ve seen involved have often been teachers or leaders of some kind of group (one I’m thinking of bordered on a cult…

You’re absolutely right. There is a lot of similarities between being anti-vax, not believing in evolution, and not believing in climate change.

Both of those stories are so sad.

That’s some serious levels of fucked up.

Oh yeah. I’ve heard that.

A sore throat is not strep. And yes with the effing apple cider vinegar. Ugh.

That is weird. I do think it comes from a desire to feel in control of the uncontrollable.

Right. Exactly.

Exactly. Stepmom and even my mom are convinced that cancer is only a modern thing as a result of living around so many “toxins.”