To find people who like making a three act tragedy out of everything v annoying

[arabesque]

One of my colleagues does this and she's getting on people's nerves. Last week her American cousin's husband died suddenly. Very tragic, obviously but my colleague barely knows her cousin and had only met the husband a couple of times. However, on Friday she wouldn't come to another colleague's retirement drinks because 'given her family bereavement it wouldn't really be appropriate and she didn't want to put a dampener on things'. I mean, FFS. Two colleagues have lost their fathers in recent months and she's making more of a fuss than they did.

Last year her mother had her credit card skimmed and this colleague went on as if the woman had been mugged at knife point, talking about how 'shaken up' the whole family were and 'you never really think it will happen to someone you know, do you'.

She took a day off work when her sister was having her appendics out (op in morning, home that afternoon) because she'd only be 'worrying and no use to anyone'.

AIBU to wonder how she will ever cope if she has something serious to cope with and also to feel that there are people in work with real worries and traumas and she should get over herself and stop being such a drama queen?

My former best friend (she's still a friend but I keep my distance) was like this.

A family member of hers had died when she was a child. Clearly an awful thing to have happened, but everyone who ever met her was acquainted with this fact and it was used as an excuse for all manner of things. She wore it as a badge of honour.

Another mutual friend had experienced a similar tragedy growing up. Very few of us who knew her knew about it, she told people as she saw fit, or when it came up.

Friend 1 expressed surprise when, after knowing friend 2 for many years, she finally found out they had both lost the same family member at about the same age. I think friend 1 said something like "but she never told me."

Well, no, she didn't. She probably couldn't get a word in edgeways whilst you were banging on about your own tragedy. Again.

Our friendship drifted when she told me how hurt she was when I hadn't supported her through something she was going through that she hadn't told me about whilst she was at the other end of the country. In spite of the fact that I was attending my beloved grandmother's funeral at the time.

OK then! Before DS was born we knew he would need surgery. We live in Sussex and I had him in London. He was in NICU for nearly 10 months before we could, finally and happily, take him home.

MIL came to London once. She needed a new bra so decided shopping in London was a good place to do it and thought she would "pop in to see how he was doing". She then told DH and I she didn't want to bother seeing him as it upset her. Then she went off to buy her new bra.

Apparently she told the doctors and nurses how to treat DS and they took notice of her as they had not thought about his treatment that way. x infinity. Quite how she managed this from the cafe downstairs is beyond me. DH was completely floored by this and still cannot speak about it.

I knew a bitch of a woman who said she was jealous of all the attention I recieved for having a 'sick' child.

I did the right thing by cutting the toxic cow out of my life.

Another one.
Having been informed that I was in hospital bleeding heavily when 13 weeks pregnant with my gorgeous twins, my mother phoned, insisted upon speaking to me and told me that my stepfather's sister whom I had never met (didn't in fact know he had a sister) had died.
She apparently wonders on occasion why I don't speak to her.

I've got a friend who is a bit like that. She came to visit me in ICU and opened with 'I've just got such a headache today...'

It's the ones that have always had it worse than everybody else that get me.

me - dh has come off his bike.
drama llama - my neighbour came off his bike, he had 4 months in hospital, oh it was terrible we had to walk the dog for 4 months and his garden was in such a state, he was never the same after that and the burglary as well, took all the tiles off our roof, we had buckets everywhere I tell you.
me - eh?

I have a friend like this too! She really seems to get off on death or tragedy and tries to make them about her.

My sisters call her the grim reaper!

She also loves going to funerals!

Has anyone ever successfully confronted/silenced a drama llama?

I notice not one of you has asked how my poorly-hoofed drama llama is!
(He's an alpaca actually but likes to keep that quiet)

My SIL is like this.

She tried to get my OH taken off a Nuclear Sub (on patrol) because his Auntie (who I didn't even know existed) and he had never mentioned was dying.

She also gets drawn in to a lot of FB guff/photos about people who didn't have abortions and went on to have an amazing disabled/non disabled child.

And is ill ALL THE FUCKING TIME!!!!!

Was wondering the same holla. Some of theses are really shocking, I'm amazed that you've never said anything

Holla it's not possible - it just gives them more fuel because your confrontation = drama.

I had a neighbour like this. She ended up having more time off work as she kept being sent home for being 'distressed' AND had councilling through work, when MY dh died

i have a female relative like this,

she never has a period, its always an eptopic pregnacy, every month!
a cold is never a cold, it's bubonic plague,
a head ache is a suspected brain tumour.
she had a MAJOR hystorectomy, as opposed to a what, a minor one?

she had ovarian cancer, but never had surgery or any other form of treatment for it,

when my mum was laying in a hospital bed, just having had a huge op on her back, said relative was crying all over her, we thought it was concern for my mum, oh no, it was because her boyfriend of a few weeks had dumped her.

and

the topper, this little gem :

my husband was in itu, having just undergone 17 hours of surgery to remove a massive tumour, i got a text, asking me to phone her, when i called her back, it was to be told that she was so worried, the reason, her child had nearly had to have micro surgery on her finger after she cut it with a knife.

this person might realise i have talked about her, if so,, happy to be outed to have got some of that off my chest.

curryeater I actually stopped seeing my NCT group because of that kind of thing. One woman was full of drama, nothing was straightforward for her. Whether it was pregnancy (normal niggles like we all had), birth, PND. And the others were all totally taken in by it and swarmed around her, offering help and telling her how wonderful she was, all the time.

Final straw was when I mentioned I had PND only to be told I was 'lucky' as it wasn't as bad as X's PND. X actually had a private psychiatrist, so I think they more or less told her what she wanted to hear, hence giving her more 'dramatic' things to talk about.

You have all met my mother obviously. Or have Irish relatives? I can hear those phone calls;
ME "hello"
MOTHER "guess who died, guess who has cancer, guess who killed themselves...actually just guess....TERRIBLE ISN@T IT
She inveigled her way into the room of a young man who was dying (actually in the physical process of passing away) she knew the family a bit. She had nothing but contempt for them, but she thought that they might need her, you know.
ONe event I would love to witness is my mother coming through the door with a smile on her face.
A woman I had met at DD's school, her son is in DD's class and both were put on a little extra help for phonics. HOURS she spent on about it. When I tried to express my own feeling, she actually said it was more important for her to talk and rant as he is her first child. My eldest is 20....
She is in the rear view mirror

I did end up telling her she talked shite all the time and her permanent state of martydom was tedious.
I did, I really did.
Working up the balls to say the same to my mum

kerala ..... my heart absolutely went out to you & BIL when I read your post, as experienced it with my own M when my son died.
The drama llamas are more toxic than they will ever know (self analysis not being a strong point!)
Going NC works well.

We have a girl at work like this. Has hysterics every time she hears of a death that has any tenous link to her.
ie old next door neighbour from 30 years ago, Son of someone she says hi to in the shops, friend of a lady from church (who she has never met).
We get the quivering lip all day and the sad cat from Shrek face every time you look at her. not to mention the constant FB updates about how she cant believe whats happened and she can barely eat with the distress.
What boggles me though is the number of people who fall over themselves to offer hugs and sympathy and feed her attention seeking.

MumnG am trying NC too, moving to Texas for the summer. How is it going for you?

Mine died eventually.

I knew someone who treated her MIL appallingly and basically sold her home from under her and dumped her in a long stay hospice centre. When the poor woman eventually died the DIL was there, walking behind the coffin with big red eyes from all the sad weeping. Myself and my mum ignored her and just sympathised with the rest of the family.
I remember someone actually telling me once that it's often the family members who were the least interested in visiting the person when they were alive who becomes all dramatic and inconsolable at the funeral.

Well I've dumped a drama llama today, she put a post asking people to give reasons why she should keep them as a friend on facebook.

I asked her why she should remain on mine, when all she does is put passive aggressive shit and moans about how hard her life is constantly, you give her advice and she ignores it. She never gives anything back. So pointed out a few of my problems that she has never helped with, inferred that autistic DD is something I can do something about and went back to her problems.

Blocked and deleted.