Do you have an impossible person in your life?

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I have a family member who is incredibly frustrating. She makes me want to scream and her lack of self awareness makes me go crazy. She is incredibly pass remarkable and judgemental but criticises others for being passremarkable and refers to herself as someone who never judges. She takes offence at everything but has a tendency to say pretty shitty things, yet talks about how thick skinned she is, how kind and sensitive she is but also how easily offended everyone else is. She is racist and yet talks about how racism is terrible.

When you tell her a story she always pulls a face that implies she thinks your story was stupid. She also likes to pretend that whatever I tell her is very boring (stifling yawns or just not replying when I finish). She then complains that I dont tell her anything.

If I tell her about a problem I have she either tries to make it my own fault or turns it into a 'wow, how strange! I don't have that problem at all! How funny!'. I don't tell her my problems.

Calling her out on it ends up in disaster and I dont want to cut her out. I just need to know if anyone else has someone in their life who drives them absolutely crazy with their unreasonable personality. Please tell me what you have to bite your tongue with!

What's passremarkable?

I don't have anyone like this in my life, it sounds absolutely infuriating and I don't know how you can spend any time with her.

Passremarkable is possi ly an lrish phrase which signifies someone who constantly passes remarks about people or situations..negatively.

My dad.
'How are you then'
'Hows work'
'What have you been up to'
Respond 'oh right' in a bored tone and gives zero followup questions ever.
I could say 'well, ive actually been approved to be an astronaut' and he would say 'wow im so proud of you, I cant wait to tell everyone my daughters an astronaut' then would immediately start talking about his girlfriend or her kids or something else.
Never any more questions, absolutely zero genuine curiosity about my life, its a tick box exercise so he can tell other people how proud he is of me.
Then regularly complains I dont tell him anything!! I'll try and tell him stuff about my life (after spending 99% of the meetup him rambling on about himself) and woe betide me if i mention something that he thinks i should have told him immediately.
'Why didnt you tell me? You dont tell me anything!!' And will continue to bring it up over and over again. And he STILL wont actually ask me any real questions about it, only 'when did you do that?!?' So he can go 'you dont tell me anything!'
Im not talking massive life changes here either...
He's an arsehole. Who everything thinks is such a devoted proud dad. Which winds me up massively. He doesnt know me! He doesnt care about who I am, he just wants things to tell othe people.

I see you have met my mother then. Also Irish and very passremarkable about absolutely everything. Shes a vile toxic woman and I have no relationship with her.

this is giving my father.
Also Irish.
i do sometimes wonder if the trauma of growing up in Ireland created a cohort of toxic people…

Um, I’m Irish. I grew up in Ireland and still live here…what trauma are you referring to exactly?🤔
It’s lovely here where I am.

lol! My DM would go like this:

Me: I’ve approved to be an astronaut…
DM: Oh wow - Deidre from the chemists son wants to be an astronaut. Anyway, did I tell you that boy who used to live around the corner when you were 4, you know, the one with brown hair, well his Auntie’s dog died last week.” Then she would tell the whole planet she’d raised an astronaut, but not be able to answer any follow up questions 🤣

Yes. MIL. No interest in her grown children or grandchildren. Worth Millions and watches people struggle financially. Turns every conversation back to herself. I recently told her that my son might be getting married abroad, she stared into space for a minute, then said "I've been to X country, when I was there, I did X,Y,Z......" Did not ask who my son was marrying, why it would be in that Country..... It's mind boggling.

My next door neighbour. I once met her on the path by our front gardens and told her not to walk into town as there was an armed siege going on in the high street with police everywhere. She showed no sign of having heard a word I said and immediately started telling me about her dog's visit to the vet the day before.

Fortunately we have a nice solid wall between us.

This sounds like my mum, but in fairness she would manage a few more questions AFTER she told me about the dog at length!!

Do you also try modelling good behaviour by asking her lots of questions to try and prompt her? Ive been trying for years with my dad and not got very far...

She didnt ask who your son was marrying?!?! Oh thats fascinating. Did you have to offer up that information in the end or did you not bother, as id totally get that!

Maybe entertain yourself by reacting to her in a totally different way to catch her off guard. Sometimes the best way to change another's behavior is to change your own. Jolt things out of their normal loop.

Yes, and thank god I’ve finally gotten rid of him. He was a mean and nasty excuse of a man.

I would say they are referring to Northern Ireland the one that was made up after the english stole 6 of our counties and knows jack all about Ireland itself which has been an amazing place to grow up. Ignorance is usually louder than logic.

Yes Northern Irish and mine and Husband's parents definitely have some kind of residual trauma from the Troubles. Without a doubt.

I’m talking about my father’s generation born in the 1940s who grew up in a repressed and dogmatic Catholic country.
Plus the impact of their parents living through the fight for independence & civil war.
Northern Ireland obviously carries its own issues but I meant south of the border.

Yes, my mother. However I had the balls and the self respect to cut her out of my life so I don’t have to deal with it any more.
It bemuses me that the rest of my toxic family (also no contact) fuss around her and do everything for her except call her out on her nasty judgemental bullshit.
People are too stupid to realise they don’t have to put up with it, even under the label of “family”.

Okay thanks. I would specify NI in that case OP.

What do you mean? I never mentioned being Irish at all in my OP and just mentioned where I'm from for the first time in my last post, because someone else mentioned it.

My parents were also born in that generation (with their parents involved in the War of Independence). They definitely aren’t toxic and neither are their friends so I don’t think you can generalise. Parents don’t consider themselves traumatised either, though Ireland was poorer then of course.

Oh sorry, reading your previous reply I thought you had. I must have mixed you up with pp, apologies for that.

You just described my sister, OP.

She’s nearly 80 now so probably a lost cause. If anything I no longer volunteer any information at all in the hope that it might prompt her to ask questions, but in fact it has just meant that she knows even less about me than she did before. Oh well!

Dreadful generalistion. Completely untrue also.

Yes, my grandmother. She’s almost 88 and by far the most difficult person I know. Wilfully cruel to some, always sizing up the opportunity to say something snide to all.

She can be really lovely, if the conversation is carefully managed at all times and she’s not allowed to go off piste.

Absolutely nothing wrong with her from a cognitive perspective bar a minor degree of age related slowing down (takes her a bit longer to get the sharp comments out). She’s been the same my entire life.

I love her dearly, but accepted quite a long time ago that I don’t very much like her.