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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Dsis Sending Herself Gifts..

92 replies

getawfmylaaaand · 01/05/2018 19:56

It’s an odd one and probably outing so I’ve name changed, im a regular.

For the last 6 months or so, my Dsis has been sending herself gifts through the post and claiming they’re from various family members and an ‘admirer’ we are fairly certain she’s invented.

This all started before Christmas. She was wearing a bit of jewellery I’d never seen before and although not my taste, she was twiddling with it and clearly wanted us to notice it so I said ‘that’s a lovely necklace Dsis, I’ve not seen it before is it new?’ She replied:
‘Oh yes it is, it was a gift’

Me: ‘that’s lovely, it suits you’

Her: ‘it was from Aunty Jane’ (names changed obvs)

Now, it wasn’t her birthday and too early to be a Christmas present. we haven’t received gifts from aunty jane since we were 15 and I haven’t spoken to her for about 15 years since and to my knowledge, neither has Dsis. It was odd, but the conversation moved on and I totally forgot about it until Christmas Day when we were all opening presents. Dsis produced a bag for life absolutely chocked with presents all wrapped in the same 3 variations of Tesco wrapping paper (I know, because we had the same stuff).

Each present was addressed from a different member of the family, none of whom had sent me a present and to my knowledge, no one else including my parents who are more closely related. For reference, this isn’t unusual. My parents and their siblings have a no presents for adults policy because we have a massive family and everyone agrees with it. It’s heen this way for 20 years.

Finally Dsis reaches her last present and opens it to reveal a £400 handbag. She gasps and reads the tag which says ‘from you know who’. She read the tag aloud, I didn’t see it and neither did DH. Obviously this invited questions, but she did a lot of ‘oh no it’s nothing’ etc until finally saying she had a ‘secret admirer’ that she was seeing and he had sent the bag.

In Jan, Dsis had work done on her house so came to live with us for a week, but the work was delayed and she ended up staying for 5 weeks.

During this 5 weeks, every other day a package would arrive at our house addressed to her. We didn’t question it as it’s none of our business, but after 3 weeks or so we were sat at the dinner table and she said ‘I’m sorry about all the packages, it’s SA (secret admirer, although we had a name for him at this point) AGAIN’. A bit perplexed we just sort of said ‘no problem’. She then went to her room and produced a huge box full or ‘gifts’ and proceeded to show us them all. It was lots of costume jewellery, clothes, bags etc. She went through them all saying ‘this is from SA, this is from aunty pat, this is from mum, this is from uncle stan’ etc etc with the majority from SA.

Anyway, long story short one day she left the packaging from a ‘gift’ on the kitchen side and the invoice that came in the package was for her credit card and her name etc and most definately sent to herself.

We had a family gathering in April where I was able to confirm she had indeed been sending herself gifts by lightly bringing the gifts up ‘that was a lovely ring you sent to DSis aunty pat’ etc etc and all of them were completely confused. I got very good at saying ‘oh no sorry my mistake, I must have gotten it wrong’ Hmm

I told DM what I’d discovered and she has no idea what’s going on either.

Is she unwell? I feel a mixture of worry and utter confusion about it, there’s no reason for her to lie to us. She must have spend ~£5k on this so far and that’s a lot of money to us and her.

Do I need to say something to her or WIBU to just go LC and ignore?

OP posts:
DontDribbleOnTheCarpet · 01/05/2018 20:01

It sounds like she's struggling somehow, and buying herself mountains of stuff to make her feel better. I think she needs support.

Furano · 01/05/2018 20:02

Super odd behaviour!

Sparkletastic · 01/05/2018 20:05

Can you gently confront her? She may well be trying to hide a shopping addiction.

getawfmylaaaand · 01/05/2018 20:07

She could be struggling. There’s been no major changes in her life. The last because big thing was when she got divorced (she left her husband because they grew apart) which was 5ish years ago. She was really positive about it though and it was the right thing for them both. She’s had a few relationships since then and has seemed quite content, although she could be hiding unhappiness obviously.

OP posts:
GeekyBlinders · 01/05/2018 20:10

Is she using a credit card? She sounds like she's shopping unhealthily and may be getting into debt to fund it if she wouldn't normally have so much money to spend on herself. She may be lying to hide this from you. Or could she be involved in something dodgy? Does she work in finance and could be embezzling or something similar?

NotTakenUsername · 01/05/2018 20:10

I have never heard of anything like this, but your posts made me really sad. I can’t quite put my finger on why. Sad

getawfmylaaaand · 01/05/2018 20:11

I’ve held off confronting her because she gets very defensive/ upset and has a tendency to try to get the rest of the family to take sides whenever she’s called out on unreasonable behaviour. She faked a serious illness in her early 20’s and had posted all about it on Facebook to friends. We only found out (it was a while before everyone had Facebook) because one of our cousins friends saw it and commented to cousin, then it got back to us. She then told anyone who would listen that the cousin had made it all up etc etc and it was a really nasty time where people were taking sides.

I don’t know if I’ve got the energy for a row Sad

OP posts:
WoodenCat · 01/05/2018 20:13

Can you ask her more about the secret admirer? Long time to have a secret
bf - wouldn’t you have met them by now? Perhaps she really wants to be wanted by someone and is missing what you and your DH have?

downthestrada · 01/05/2018 20:13

Oh this sounds really sad. Is there any way of bringing it up with her? How do you think she will react?

I would be worried about her getting into debt too. There must be some reason why she needs to show that she’s loved to everyone.

getawfmylaaaand · 01/05/2018 20:14

geek she’s a care assistant in a hospital setting so doesn’t handle money. I thought maybe she’s been shopping and trying to cover it up, but why show us all the ‘gifts’? We’d have had no idea if she’d had the packages sent to her own house and wouldnt have thought twice about it if she hadn’t shown them off to us?

OP posts:
NotTakenUsername · 01/05/2018 20:15

No, don’t bring it up yet. Try to work through the possible reasons for her behaviour.

Does she lack attention? Is she feeling lonely? Does she have a compulsive personality? Are these lies you have discovered the tip of an iceberg of a more complex disorder? Shopping addiction? Jealousy? Come into money and wants to spend secretly?

NotTakenUsername · 01/05/2018 20:16

Affair with married man?

AJPTaylor · 01/05/2018 20:16

It sounds like she is mentally unwell to me.
Could you and dmum raise it with her?

WinnersClub · 01/05/2018 20:17

Your last post kind of sheds a new light on your Dsis. Did you ever get to the bottom of why she faked the illness? failing that, what was your suspicion as to why she did it? it could give a clue as to what's going on now.

GeekyBlinders · 01/05/2018 20:17

I hate to ask but could she be stealing from patients' bags in hospital? Sorry, I don't mean to be offensive.

I'm just thinking she wants to show off her new stuff but has to think of a plausible reason to have extra cash. So there must be something irregular about where she's got the cash, even if it's just credit cards.

Petalbird · 01/05/2018 20:17

Hmm sorry to say this but it sounds exactly the sort of thing my mother would do and she is scitzophrenic (I can not spell that word)

TheNoseyProject · 01/05/2018 20:18

Its not usual behaviour is it. I wouldn’t confront her - she either knows she’s doing it so will be embarrassed or angry and deny it - but I wouldn’t engage. Sort of nonplussed as you have been.

You could say something about hoping money is ok with all the new stuff (subtly...) and then ‘remember’ it’s gifts so as to open the door to talking about money if that’s the issue.

That might actually be a terrible idea.

I’m stumped. There was a girl at my school like this. She’s still v odd as an adult but she seemed to grow out of it when it became clear no one was going to engage with it.

Thequeenisdeadboys · 01/05/2018 20:19

Sounds like a borderline personality disorder. Faking illness and a made up boyfriend. She does need support. You need to talk.

ConciseandNice · 01/05/2018 20:20

She’s clearly got some emotional issues and needs support. I had a friend like this and for a while I was angry and unpleasant (I was young and immature) until I understood that there was no harm meant and that it was attention and care she needed. It’s really hard. I’m not sure the best way forward, but if you are able to find times to talk alone and I’m comfort maybe she’ll open up. The shopping is a symptom of something bigger.

getawfmylaaaand · 01/05/2018 20:22

Sorry didn’t mean to drip feed, she does have previous for attention seeking/ lying. Apologies for not mentioning it in the OP.

I don’t think she’d ever steal, her personality is dramatic and extroverted but she’s not cruel or inherently ‘bad’, it would be extremely out of character.

I think it’s more likely she’s running up debts somewhere which is really worrying, there’s no one who can bail her out if she is, we’re all pretty skint.

OP posts:
Pollaidh · 01/05/2018 20:22

Until you posted about the fake illness, I thought she probably needed emotional support (well, she probably still does), but instead of a downward spiral it now seems there's a pattern.

Is there anything that was going on in her 20s that is similar to her divorce/stuff she's going through now? Or is there someone else in your family/her friends having babies/marriage/problems etc that is taken the attention off her and onto them, so she's competing for attention?

When she faked the illness before, did she full on fake it (look up 'fictitious disorderwww.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/factitious-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20356028) or did she just tell people she had it, but not go through the medical side? What did she appear to get out of it? Someone I went to school with, with attention seeking, bullying personality, faked cancer, and we all think it was because another pupil had actual cancer and was getting the attention and sympathy.

There could be a combination of low self esteem (making up admirers), shopping habit (trying to make self feel better with material things and/or buzz of buying) here. Whatever it is, she probably needs some form of help and could be getting into a financial mess.

SomeKnobend · 01/05/2018 20:23

I think shopping addiction can be a type of mental illness. She needs help very soon before she gets into more debt than she can get herself out of. Have a gentle word letting her know you can see what's going on and try to encourage her to see her gp and get a referral ASAP. Let her know she doesn't have to be ashamed and come out with these cover stories, and that you're there as a shoulder to lean on.

chocolateworshipper · 01/05/2018 20:24

There's definitely something not right here. Is there anyone that she would listen to who could gently probe and find out whether she's actually really unhappy?

SomeKnobend · 01/05/2018 20:26

x-posted with the drip feed. May be something other than shopping addiction then, some kind of personality disorder? She still needs help, but it may be that she doesn't see it that way, which is really difficult. Flowers

icelollycraving · 01/05/2018 20:30

Is there any history of bipolar? I think people with bpd have times of overspending etc. This isn’t to upset anyone with bpd, I am not an expert, it’s putely a suggestion.

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