Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Relatives that are completely unsympathetic to IBS

Does anyone have a problem with relatives or friends not being supportive (and sometimes being rude) of your IBS?

My parents are surprisingly very unsupportive, which is interesting because my Dad has IBS-C, though not even half as bad as mine (he doesn't bloat and he can just pop a laxative and he's fine). My parents don't ever want to hear about my tummy hurting and claim that I "complain too much." (Although, I don't know how they think that since I don't live with them - I'm 20 - and probably only mention it once a month.) I've pretty much given up ever mentioning anything related to my health to them, because they don't want to hear about it. And since they mentioned that they felt I complained too much, when I *have* said something to them about my IBS, I've been very cognacent of their perception.

Yesterday, I was talking to my Mom on the phone, telling her I'd read about the success of hypnosis and how I wish my doctors had been more "on the ball" in diagnosing me so that I could have tried different things. She interrupted me, in the middle of a sentence, and said, in a flat tone of voice, "So what else is new."

My parents have always been super supportive and caring up to this point in my life and our relationship is otherwise very good, so I can't understand why they are so unsupportive of such a (unfortunately) big part of my life.

Does anyone have a similar experience?

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Elizabeth

all those years it wasn't IBS - it was celiac!
send me an email: liz@dopple.net

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