They are so much like children who design a world they want to live in and then make everyone around fit into the show or else close their eyes and wish them away.
Beth, honey - this is exactly what I witnessed in my D - with horror movie accuracy. I almost said my youngest D - because of how she's acting; she's 13 months older than her sister. At 34, with a soon to be 12 yr old (who has educational challenges which sis & I believe are more emotional/psychological than anything else) and a soon to be 8 yr old...
Well. I could tell you stories that would keep you up all night. Actually, her sister has some I've begged her to NOT tell me.
In A's world - everyone should listen to her words, stories, songs, delusions, painful (and sometimes hostile; resentful) attempts at jokes and adore her as "the most interesting person in the world". She is so "different" than other people, she can't "help being interesting" to everyone -- except the blind, stupid, mean people who want to judge her all the time. (That being her sister and I who point out that if she's so drunk she can't walk/talk that she can't take care of her kids, either.)
And that simple observation is seen as persecution and the evil "judgement" (I've got more to say about she calls "judgement").
NUTSHELL VERSION of what's bugging the hell out of me:
A few weeks ago she told me she was drunk, fell 15 ft. out of a tree stand and broke her arm. Fortunately, it wasn't her dominant hand. She can't work, because she must be physically able to transport patients (!!!!) without re-injuring herself. When she showed up here last week, for a family R&R get together she proudly proclaimed to all of us that she was using alcohol to self-medicate for pain. (She has been accepted to a nursing program - oh the irony.) And that her doctor told her this was better than taking painkillers which would affect her liver. School has been good for her and I've been trying to positively reinforce this goal; she's got a 4.0 and has been helping her classmates study. But now I have some serious doubts.
Actually, nothing came out of my mouth at that moment. I always have something to say, as y'all know, but this "logic" floored me.
The next day, I told her I was having a bit of an intellectual problem reconciling the contradictions in her using exactly the same substance that caused her injury to ease the pain. That everything I knew about alcohol and painkillers was that one or the other wouldn't cause a problem unless used to excess; that it was the combination of them that is the issue. Oh... that's just wrong. She's a medical expert now. And we were off to the races to an ugly ending to the day - very late in the day.
So, the whole evening was her spewing out her "reality" from inside her distorted bubble - demanding we applaud her genius for psychosis and accept and love her this way - and us pointing out where she contradicted her previous statement from just a moment before (which she denied saying) until we hit this point of her personal pain - where we were accused yet again of judging her because she's different. Mostly, we were simply saying you've had enough to drink let's go to bed. Here have some water. And we're the bad guys trying to ruin her "happy time" when we insisted. She was on the verge of passing out. We kept trying to distract with different topics... toys... let's play instead... music... nope; she was "driving" the evening and would continue on alone if we left her to her own devices.
After that experience, all of my issues were in full red-alert trigger. I woke up screaming, an hour after finally falling asleep, in a nightmare. Poor hubs - I scared him & the dog to death. I really don't need to experience any more crazy people in my life - ESPECIALLY if I'm related to them.
Top it off: I observed some intense sibling rivalry - flat out jealousy - from older D to younger. A wants to be someone else and in the process, be "ok". She drew some tattoos on her arm, to look like her sis's tattoos... and posted them on FB.
But the absolute worst, most awful moment I experienced (and those of you with sexual abuse in the past? PLEASE look away and stop reading!) was she in the "Mommy, I love you" phase... and proceeded lean over and rub herself all over me, like she was trying to seduce me. Thankfully H, my other D, dragged her off me and back to her seat - H's fiancee was as shocked as I was (and I was sick & disgusted, too).
And it just took 15 minutes to finally type that last paragraph.
She has absolutely zip, nada, zilch awareness - even sober - of how her behavior affects other people... it's as if she is forcing us to be responsible for her and then of course, resents that. I tried to talk to her about empathy and feelings a couple days later... just in general, feeling her out... but I think we've all had enough delving into this kind of insanity for one post, today. I need to walk away, smoke and take a shower.
And yes, I know. I have about as much chance of changing A, as I had with my mom. Thanks Beth, for the opening to tell the basics of the story. I won't monopolize - but the HPD list really got my attention. Now you know why.