The Xccentrik Tigress

Anonymous asked:

Hi Simon,

I'd like to ask advice for something I didn't really talk about with anyone (apart my therapist), mostly because I respect my father and I don't want to spread bad talk about him but I still need advice, so here I am in anon mode.

Premise:

- I live in Italy

- I've always considered my father to be a smart person with a good heart, empathy and which had a huge positive personal development during the years.

Unfortunately my dad decided to not get vaccinated even if I tried with all my might to give him good reliable info and to debunk all the fake news from the very start of the pandemic with scientific papers, easy explanation, etc.

And yet he has the most weird/twisted ideas on the vaccine and the Covid19 that I haven't even read anywhere (so he must have reached those conclusion by himself and that's even more worrying for me-), which are:

1) "I don't think this virus is as problematic as they say, if it was, a lot more people would have died in percentage". I then asked him if he looked for data on what he was saying and he replied "no, I ask myself those things but I don't care about looking for data, they're not accurate anyway since they didn't test the entire population so you don't know the true percentage". He didn't want to reason on this after saying that, even if I looked for the data.

2) "My body is healthy and already did a good job protecting me from the virus up until now, why should I inject him with the virus? My body has been good up until now and then as a reward I inject him the virus? He doesn't deserve it!". I then explained to him how the vaccine effectively works and he looked me with a puzzled look that very obviously said "that's not how I thought it works".. but then proceeded to say he won't do it anyway because:

3) "I think half the doses of vaccine are a placebo and don't work anyway". I asked him why he thought so and he replied he doesn't believe in politics and in the government; I then tried to explain to him that the politics have nothing to do with science (at least here in Italy) but he was immovable and started talking how there were so many wars based on lies and so he doesn't trust what the institutions tells him to do

4) the only "positive" thing from all his conviction is that he wants to wait September, look how things go and MAYBE he'll get vaccinated...but my hopes are very low, he should also repeat the anti-tetanus shot and already said "I'm not gonna do it" and I'm.. exhausted? I don't know what else I can do to make him reason...

I even explained him that the vaccine is not only useful/made for him but society as a whole, with so so so many people immunocompromised which can't vaccine themselves and he replied "look at you, what society made you with all this sense of guilt towards others" and I was speechless, it's not guilt, it's common sense!! But he didn't listen at all..

But let's get to the other amazing thing that happened! The day before my aunt (my father's sister) was going to get her vaccine shot, they talked to each other and obviously my dad shared with her his amazing ideas! And guess what??? My aunt got even more scared and run away from her vaccine, yeeeey!

Also, it seems that even his dearest friends won't get vaccinated... *sigh*

So I ask: what can I do? Can I even do something?? Even if I tried to give them all the right info, can I do something more??

Dulcis in fundo: I'll have to be with both my dad and my aunt these next three days (from Monday to Wednesday) and I already don't have the energy to argue with them for three days straight, I just hope none brings this up..even though it's the topic of the moment so I won't be able to avoid it I guess T_T

Well, thanks for listening and sorry for the wall of text, have a nice day then.