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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Op here. I know you're right. I am deluding myself. The responses I'm getting here are making me think of a quote I heard once "hope is just delayed disappointment". I think the idea I have about this lunch is just some loophole to hold on to hope when there really isn't any.

Yes, mom has totally turned grandma against me and the letters I have received confirm that. I guess I need to do a better job of thinking about it from grandmas perspective. These letters contain weird hateful language that's not true and also paints me as a cartoon character villain. Stuff that's so crazy I kind of scoff and think, oh come on? You can't be serious? But I guess I should take it more seriously as a genuine representation of what she believes, even if it's not factually true.[/quote]

PP with the aunt here again. I've received similar letters and been the subject of screaming phone calls from aunt to other relatives because I am, apparently, in collusion with vile conspirators in another country (!) who have been horrible to this aunt (no idea how, but there is some unnamed, very specific Awful Thing that these people I've never met did to aunt with my help--in her mind). I am,as you put it, a cartoon character villain.

The  letters you describe sound as if there's mental illness at work possibly on both their parts. Mom is probably feeding grandma lies that mom really believes are truths and grandma Has accepted them because grandma's mind is failing. They both may share the same mental illness.

I want you to know, and say it to yourself as much as you need to -- these lies about your villainy are not personal because grandmother no longer sees you as the person you were years ago.

If they were not attacking you, they would find some other villain. The grandmother who loved you was a real person who did care for you--please don't doubt that. But you may need now to treat that grandmother as gone. The hateful lies about awful things you've supposedly done are the illness talking, not your grandmother. Please DON'T "take it more seriously as a genuine representation of what she really believes." In her mind (or mom's or both) these things are "the truth" but her mind is not that of the person who once loved you. It may help to let yourself grieve the death of that earlier grandmother and the death of the relationship you had with her. Grieve it as if she died, and focus on positive memories. Writing down positive memories could help and would give you things to share with your daughter as she gets older.

I love this aunt of my husband's and remember good times with her years ago. i truly can't feel anger toward her for the things she says about me; her brain picked me to exaggerate into a cartoon but it could as easily have picked our teen DC or my husband or the mailman. It's not personal and its reason more for sadness at losing her than for upset or anger at the utterly cartoonish fabrications. Please talk to your therapist for strategies on how to think about your grandmother.

The one thing to know is: Are there other family members who might believe some of what your mom and grandmother say? We are fortunate that other family members all understand aunt is ill and some have received milder versions of her paranoid verbal attacks, so no one else buys that I'm an international conspirator. [/quote]

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