NC for this as potentially outing. I'm not going into the specifics as it's not important, rather it's an attempt to understand why some people behave the way they do.
I have a relative - we are not close. She had the most appalling childhood, with a very hard adult life to follow. She's now in her mid-50s. I find it heartbreaking at times to think of what she went through, and it's no wonder she's the way she is. However, throughout my adulthood, I have consistently given her a very, very wide berth, due to her bad behaviour.
I suppose initially I was too young to understand what she was doing (there's about ten years between us), but certainly when I hit my thirties I was much more aware, perhaps not so much of the depth of her spite, but the victim-playing and the lies were blatantly obvious, as I knew some of what she said was simply not true & had been twisted around to suit her narrative, given that I'd also been involved in and/or witnessed the situation for myself. As time has gone on, I've got a much greater measure of her.
I have done all I can to keep her out of my life, which until this last 18 months was quite easy, although when I was younger (and as above less able to understand what she was doing) I saw her a lot more and did a lot more for her. However, I've recently had no choice but to communicate with her following the deaths of other (older) relatives, due to me being the one who's been sorting out wills and estates etc. It's been a living hell.
I've never had to dovetail with anyone who puts themselves right at the centre of other people's problems and makes it about them, and who seems to be continually on the look out for opportunities to be offended, or to say they were deliberately left out of something, even the most trivial of activities, - and by that I don't mean a wedding or a party, I've been chastised before now because on one occasion when she telephoned me, I'd ad-hoc dropped in for coffee with an elderly member of the family as I would do anyway, and she had to make it known she was not impressed I was there and had not invited her to join me.
There is no self-reflection on their behaviour, no awareness of the problems they have cause, the lies they have told, the money they have borrowed and not paid back, none of which bothers me until I am again being blamed for events which were nothing to do with me, or else were outside of my control. She has no respect for the law, or for legal guidelines, does not understand why we can't all just do what we want, when we want (I had to deal with the sale of a property which took forever, and was frequently told I was delaying the process), regardless of the processes that need to be followed. If it wasn't for her age and life experience, I would say she is almost childlike and incredibly immature.
I'm being blamed for a few things right now. I only speak via whatsapp (it is too stressful to speak on the phone) and I refuse to engage in her arguments. What I am being blamed for is nothing to do with me, but having cut all ties with just about everyone else in her life, I am the target now that she's backed herself into a corner. I don't know if she deliberately refuses to see that she's caused the problems she's having as a result of the choices she's made, or if it genuinely is not in her skill set to do so. Several times over the years I've offered to do things for her, to which she has declined, only to later have a go at me & say something was my fault as I didn't do it. I don't know whether the fact she told me not to is forgotten, or consciously left out of the equation, as it suits her to not refer to it so that she can play the victim.
Meanwhile, whilst ranting about how everyone else has put her at a disadvantage, there appears to be no awareness of how she's alienated so many people and how she's found herself almost entirely alone, with no support network. In her situation, I'd be terrified to open my mouth, for fear of someone pointing out my shortcomings, as it's something I'm painfully aware someone might do to me as it is (God knows I've made mistakes over the years).
Right now, I am very stressed and I don't know how to handle her, and yet I find it equally as fascinating as to why she is behaving in this way. Are there really people in this world who have no ability to reflect, have no self-awareness, empathy, and only look at a situation in respect of how it affects them? Is it a learnt behaviour, or genetic, or does it come from a place of trauma? Does it never occur to them why people keep walking away? I just don't get all of this turning-things-around-to-make-it-me-me-me.
Help me, someone.