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Bad Sources
May. 29th, 2025 05:06 pmRecently, I’ve been thinking a lot about misunderstandings and how people very confidently believe things that are trivial to demonstrate as Not True, either as a result of trusting someone who told them something incorrect or because they heard something unfamiliar, imagined what that might have meant, and assumed they were correct. So in the one case, the person was specifically told something that was incorrect. The other case, they were told something, but misunderstood it and as a result now believe they were told something wrong (that they weren’t — they didn’t understand).
That was confusing, and boy, it’s even more confusing when it happens.
Today’s Say What Now involved a request to start a refund process with Amazon. The item in question was cheap enough (around $20) that I probably would have donated the item rather than return (tray for a walker that did not work out for the person who needed a tray for their walker). However, if they want to drive it over to return it, I will do the two minutes of work on the web to make that happen. Which I did. I had a choice of Kohls for free or two different UPS for $6.99 options. I went with the Kohls AFTER checking to make sure there were Kohls options close to where the item was currently located. There’s one 6ish miles away, 20 minute drive, and there’s a person involved who has a vehicle. Kohls it is.
She had specifically requested a Staples, which confused me, because I can only do what options Amazon presents. I told her nope on Staples, but Kohls instead.
“ We apparently don't have a Kohl's...”
Say what now.
I went back, this time to google maps instead of the Kohls store locator, confirmed the presence and the Yep Still In Business status of the two closest Kohls and sent that information along, and asked where they were that there wasn’t a Kohls. This took a while to get an answer, but basically, the person’s elderly mother told them that there wasn’t a Kohls nearby or perhaps that it was inconveniently located.
!!!
The mad disrespect these people routinely point in my direction. I mean, they don’t _mean_ it. But every single time I suggest something and they shoot it down _because of something false or confused_, it is fundamentally a choice on their part to believe a bad source or something garbled (as in the, shooting down Harmony because of a bad review of Homeland, but turning around and going with Homeland anyway), versus whatever I said. I’m extremely accustomed to being told No You Can’t Because on the house project, and at this point, I just view it all as, tell me exactly why I can’t, and I’ll use that to find how I actually can so much faster with that information.
But having it happen in this other context is raising a lot of questions in my mind. I want to be clear _I am not taking this personally_. I _am_ being disrespected, unless you really want to be finicky in which case you could say I am merely being disregarded, and I will look at you and go, my point exactly. I am choosing to view this as an opportunity to better understand why people would do this.
I think the easiest way to understand this choice to disregard or disrespect or treat as less trustworthy a suggestion, idea, or information from me, versus the sources that _are_ being attended to, is to look at motivation. The motivation in all of the above cases is crystal clear: an anxious adult daughter, attending to her aging mother, is hearing conflicting statements about reality from her mother than from her cousin’s wife. I mean. Obviously you believe the aging mother, right? Anything else would be Being a Bad Daughter, right?
And obviously, it would NOT be being a bad daughter to disregard the easily checkable and factually incorrect stuff coming out of Dear Mother. If you argued with mom, THAT might be Being a Bad Daughter. Mom’s in a care home and doesn’t need any additional stress. But why make Mom get every last little detail correct? So the issue I am having here is not the obvious one: is Mom more believable or is Walkitout more believable. No, the issue here is, Why Does Daughter Think She Has to Believe the Stuff Mom is Saying?
And I think the answer there also is motivated. I think if at any point Daughter starts critically thinking about the stuff Mom has been saying for Daughter’s entire life, Daughter would have a radically different set of thoughts, feelings, beliefs about herself, her mom, and their relationship. And she doesn’t necessarily want to commit to that.
Who really does, anyway?
I mean, obviously _I_ do. I’m Team Reality, and I have the terminated relationships to prove it. So why is it when we talk about “critical thinking” we don’t talk about the impact on relationships of engaging in critical thinking? I asked the therapist yesterday how do you teach people to have discernment and to make good choices. And she was talking about trust. And boy, she’s just not wrong at all. The people you choose to trust create the structure of what you can and cannot think and know and believe about reality.
As a little addendum, I was told:
“Ok. Already have several things to go to Staples for Amazon returns.
And I have to FedEx something else.
So I'll add Kohls to the list and hopefully get time to do all those before I go to placenameremoved.
(Though when setting up Amazon returns you can pick a specific Staples, but can actually take it to any Staples.)”
This actually has nothing at all to do with Mom. This is straightforwardly the person telling me how to do the return process at Amazon, which, LOL. I had _already told her_ that I didn’t have a Staples option; I had to repeat it for it to get through at all. I mentioned that in my part of the world, the good choice is a UPS store which is free, and she finally seemed to absorb the idea that maybe the choices are different in different places. *shrug*
Anyone who read this far and is wondering why I’m doing this at all, this was a conscious choice on my part and it’s not driven by pity. I chose to provide a certain type of support (problem solving and at times monetary support) in her journey to manage anxiety and motivation issues that I see very broadly in my husband’s family. Because I have kids with half that DNA, it seemed like it might be useful to get a real insider perspective on what it’s like to live with these issues (since they very much are not issues I have personally!), and to get some perspective on what helps and what doesn’t in a person who also has that DNA. I got roped into this Mom Fell etc. situation, and chose not to step away because there’s a pretty clear need and I hate watching people do things in the obviously wrong way. It’s not actually taking up much of my time or money and the germophobia guarantees I won’t be asked to provide any hands on support. And boy, am I learning a ton from this process. Way more than I would have expected. I learned about respite, I learned pricing (in that particular area), I’ve learned about a bunch of equipment and therapy for rehabbing from this kind of incident, I’ve learned about transportation and all kinds of other stuff. But mostly, I’m learning a ton about how distortions in relationships can really limit the ability of people to understand reality and to make better choices in reality.
That was confusing, and boy, it’s even more confusing when it happens.
Today’s Say What Now involved a request to start a refund process with Amazon. The item in question was cheap enough (around $20) that I probably would have donated the item rather than return (tray for a walker that did not work out for the person who needed a tray for their walker). However, if they want to drive it over to return it, I will do the two minutes of work on the web to make that happen. Which I did. I had a choice of Kohls for free or two different UPS for $6.99 options. I went with the Kohls AFTER checking to make sure there were Kohls options close to where the item was currently located. There’s one 6ish miles away, 20 minute drive, and there’s a person involved who has a vehicle. Kohls it is.
She had specifically requested a Staples, which confused me, because I can only do what options Amazon presents. I told her nope on Staples, but Kohls instead.
“ We apparently don't have a Kohl's...”
Say what now.
I went back, this time to google maps instead of the Kohls store locator, confirmed the presence and the Yep Still In Business status of the two closest Kohls and sent that information along, and asked where they were that there wasn’t a Kohls. This took a while to get an answer, but basically, the person’s elderly mother told them that there wasn’t a Kohls nearby or perhaps that it was inconveniently located.
!!!
The mad disrespect these people routinely point in my direction. I mean, they don’t _mean_ it. But every single time I suggest something and they shoot it down _because of something false or confused_, it is fundamentally a choice on their part to believe a bad source or something garbled (as in the, shooting down Harmony because of a bad review of Homeland, but turning around and going with Homeland anyway), versus whatever I said. I’m extremely accustomed to being told No You Can’t Because on the house project, and at this point, I just view it all as, tell me exactly why I can’t, and I’ll use that to find how I actually can so much faster with that information.
But having it happen in this other context is raising a lot of questions in my mind. I want to be clear _I am not taking this personally_. I _am_ being disrespected, unless you really want to be finicky in which case you could say I am merely being disregarded, and I will look at you and go, my point exactly. I am choosing to view this as an opportunity to better understand why people would do this.
I think the easiest way to understand this choice to disregard or disrespect or treat as less trustworthy a suggestion, idea, or information from me, versus the sources that _are_ being attended to, is to look at motivation. The motivation in all of the above cases is crystal clear: an anxious adult daughter, attending to her aging mother, is hearing conflicting statements about reality from her mother than from her cousin’s wife. I mean. Obviously you believe the aging mother, right? Anything else would be Being a Bad Daughter, right?
And obviously, it would NOT be being a bad daughter to disregard the easily checkable and factually incorrect stuff coming out of Dear Mother. If you argued with mom, THAT might be Being a Bad Daughter. Mom’s in a care home and doesn’t need any additional stress. But why make Mom get every last little detail correct? So the issue I am having here is not the obvious one: is Mom more believable or is Walkitout more believable. No, the issue here is, Why Does Daughter Think She Has to Believe the Stuff Mom is Saying?
And I think the answer there also is motivated. I think if at any point Daughter starts critically thinking about the stuff Mom has been saying for Daughter’s entire life, Daughter would have a radically different set of thoughts, feelings, beliefs about herself, her mom, and their relationship. And she doesn’t necessarily want to commit to that.
Who really does, anyway?
I mean, obviously _I_ do. I’m Team Reality, and I have the terminated relationships to prove it. So why is it when we talk about “critical thinking” we don’t talk about the impact on relationships of engaging in critical thinking? I asked the therapist yesterday how do you teach people to have discernment and to make good choices. And she was talking about trust. And boy, she’s just not wrong at all. The people you choose to trust create the structure of what you can and cannot think and know and believe about reality.
As a little addendum, I was told:
“Ok. Already have several things to go to Staples for Amazon returns.
And I have to FedEx something else.
So I'll add Kohls to the list and hopefully get time to do all those before I go to placenameremoved.
(Though when setting up Amazon returns you can pick a specific Staples, but can actually take it to any Staples.)”
This actually has nothing at all to do with Mom. This is straightforwardly the person telling me how to do the return process at Amazon, which, LOL. I had _already told her_ that I didn’t have a Staples option; I had to repeat it for it to get through at all. I mentioned that in my part of the world, the good choice is a UPS store which is free, and she finally seemed to absorb the idea that maybe the choices are different in different places. *shrug*
Anyone who read this far and is wondering why I’m doing this at all, this was a conscious choice on my part and it’s not driven by pity. I chose to provide a certain type of support (problem solving and at times monetary support) in her journey to manage anxiety and motivation issues that I see very broadly in my husband’s family. Because I have kids with half that DNA, it seemed like it might be useful to get a real insider perspective on what it’s like to live with these issues (since they very much are not issues I have personally!), and to get some perspective on what helps and what doesn’t in a person who also has that DNA. I got roped into this Mom Fell etc. situation, and chose not to step away because there’s a pretty clear need and I hate watching people do things in the obviously wrong way. It’s not actually taking up much of my time or money and the germophobia guarantees I won’t be asked to provide any hands on support. And boy, am I learning a ton from this process. Way more than I would have expected. I learned about respite, I learned pricing (in that particular area), I’ve learned about a bunch of equipment and therapy for rehabbing from this kind of incident, I’ve learned about transportation and all kinds of other stuff. But mostly, I’m learning a ton about how distortions in relationships can really limit the ability of people to understand reality and to make better choices in reality.