How can I politely tell my family to be more optimistic?

Asked by ducky_dnl (5384) January 10th, 2011 from iPhone

I’ll start off by saying that my family is highly dysfunctional. Now to the question. My family talks only about death, murder and rape. I am sick and tired of hearing about it. It’s constant. I’ll wake up and my mom will be like: “Morning! Hey did you hear about the guy that got shot over on the north side?” I know for a fact that she learned it from her mother. My moms mother calls every 15–20 minutes talking about someone getting killed. She literally gets off on it. I have asked my mom to try to get her involuntary treatment because she needs help. She is a danger to herself and my family. She knocks me down all the time by calling me a failure, she says my mom is the reason for my problems, etc. I just want a somewhat normal optimistic family that sees more to life than murder. I mean driving to see a car accident isn’t what I call functional? How can I bring it up without losing my head? I just want to scream and beat the crap out of them.