more MIL shenanigans.

[Cat of the Canals]

Got an unexpected package in the mail from PDmil yesterday. It's not my birthday, so I was like, "Oh lord, what now?"

Inside was a DVD box set we lent to H's sister probably 8-10 year ago. We'd absolutely lost track of them and actually bought a replacement at some point. Apparently MIL was doing a "deep clean" of SIL's old room, found it, and sent it back to us.

Well, actually, she sent them to ME. Specifically wrote my name on the box and the card. Not surprising, since this is a routine she's been playing out with my DEAD brother-in-laws ex-girlfriends for the last few years. She hoards items she thinks might belong to them and uses that as an excuse to initiate contact, going so far as to show up to their houses unannounced. Ughhhhh.

Anyway, not only does MIL act like she's doing me a big favor by returning my own possession to me, but she shipped it in a box that is covered inside and out with religious phrases and bible quotes.  I'm sure it was just a coincidence though! 

I just don't get her logic... does she think if she shoves enough Christian stuff in my face that at some point, I'll be forced to succumb to it??? I know it's pointless ever trying to apply logic to PD behavior, but all of this seemed to start when I came Out of the FOG and stopped playing the role of people pleaser. I think she senses that I've grown more and more distant. And yet it seems like her solution is to... go out of her way to alienate me further?

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi Cat,

I have learned that dealing with a person who has a personality disorder is like being in the upside down. Up is down, down is up.

I ask myself, how do non-PD's deal with the situation where they are cleaning up and find something they borrowed years earlier? Well obviously any one of us would wrap it up in packaging that reflects our religious beliefs  (but not the recipients) and send it on out to them as a surprise package! Obviously lol!

Would a non-PD do this? Pretty unlikely. Most healthy non's would be like "oh I found these DVD's, I should text Cat and ask if she wants them back". Or "Oh I found these old DVD's, I'll ask if she wants them back next time I see her."

And few healthy non's would wrap the item in religious themed wrapping, because ...why? Why do that??

The surprise non-sensical package is a theme (a greatest hit) on the PD playlist. I got some doozeys over the years. All out of the blue, and all odd. Wrapped oddly, and odd gifts inside, and sent without warning! And I watched my uNPDm do this to other people she had met as well. Heaven help the strangers she meets if she gets their mailing address! 

I think that they call this baiting. They may want to bait us into contact, so that then we can go around the crazy making merry-go-round one more time with them, where they treat us to more greatest hits from the PD playbook.

Does she realize how alienating her odd behaviours are? My money is on no. She doesn't see how alienating this is. All she can see is how hard she's trying to put you on the right path in life. I don't think she can see anything else.

Follow-up odd behaviour (bonus track). I used to call my PD mother asking about the odd surprise package. She would sometimes deny sending it or recall that it existed! Bonus! Now I'm gaslit into wondering what alice in wonderland life I'm living with this person. (Insert upside-down-smiley face here).

Thank goodness we don't live in their upside down world. They just send us packages from there from time to time.

I wonder how PD's did this before we had a post office system...Maybe carrier pigeons had to be trained so that the odd surprise package could get delivered by PD's back then? Those poor pigeons would need a lot of muscle to carry random DVD's across the miles lol!

Trees

[Cat of the Canals]

Heaven help the strangers she meets if she gets their mailing address! 

OMG this is so true. After my BIL's funeral, she was going through the guestbook and angrily bemoaning all the people who didn't put their address down! She actually suggested that the employees at the funeral home didn't do their jobs properly, because they should have compelled every single guest to not only sign the book, but to leave an address. My husband lost his composure and actually laughed because WHAT!!!

The upside down is a great way to put it. Most nons would think, "If I keep pestering this person, at some point they're going to get angry and want nothing to do with me." Whereas someone like my MIL must think, "If I keep pestering this person, they will be forced to give in and fall in line."

And you'd think after decades of this behavior, she'd notice a pattern in her relationships (i.e. she has none because she does rude, off-putting things like this pretty much constantly), but reality is no match for a PD's denial, I guess.

Speaking of denial, how strange that your mother would deny sending you anything. They truly will gaslight about anything.

[Call Me Cordelia]

The upside down is a great way to put it. Most nons would think, "If I keep pestering this person, at some point they're going to get angry and want nothing to do with me." Whereas someone like my MIL must think, "If I keep pestering this person, they will be forced to give in and fall in line."

My five-year-old is in peak pestering right now. I have a couple of ways I deal with it. One is asking her, "Is pestering me going to get you what you want?"  Another is, "What did I say when you asked me that before?" And then there's the chatbot. Repeat the answer in exactly the same monotone. All with a smile. Because she is five and this is developmentally appropriate. It's kind of refreshing. 

But your MIL... I'm a Christian but I'm really PO'd at the passive-aggressive "evangelization" techniques. That's just covert guilt trippy nagging that you can't really address directly. Because, "Oh, I didn't mean anything by it!"  And your own old DVDs as bait? Puhlease.  Such love and care is bound to make you fall right into her orbit and into the baptismal font. I'm so sorry.

[Cat of the Canals]

My five-year-old is in peak pestering right now. I have a couple of ways I deal with it. One is asking her, "Is pestering me going to get you what you want?"  Another is, "What did I say when you asked me that before?" And then there's the chatbot. Repeat the answer in exactly the same monotone. All with a smile. Because she is five and this is developmentally appropriate. It's kind of refreshing. 

Developmentally appropriate, and my guess is she actually kinda grasps it, right? Meanwhile, it would fly right over my 70-something mother-in-law's head. 

[NarcKiddo]

I never cease to marvel at how I never cease to marvel at the things they come up with. You'd think after over half a century of experience with a world-class N that nothing would surprise me. They are truly the gift that keeps on giving... 

[Poison Ivy]

 

[bloomie]

Cat - Oh wow, Down being up and up being down!! YES!!

Two things stood out to me in this latest with your mil. Or maybe they are the same thing? So, only one? 

My own mil - who is most likely your mil's elder sister , bypasses another person's choice and rights by sending letters to intimate family members telling them to repent, or sends gifts wrapped in Christian sayings, Christian poems or books, passes on her church's devotional newsletter to neighbors, with the seemingly total belief that those words will supplant an actual conversation about her beliefs with another.

Because in an actual conversation you would be a peer, an equal, and have opportunity and rights to respond or not. To discuss as equals or exit the conversation.

With my own mil it is a way to 'doing' her Christian 'duty' and is something she makes sure to tell everyone about so all will know how hard she has tried to convert a family member or friend. And if someone doesn't respond to the gospel via gift proxy? That is also duly noted and shared. 

I am a Christian and something that is so dear to me is God is gentle, filled with love and tenderness toward us. God doesn't wrap His messages in self serving, invalidating, free will ignoring paper.

[Cat of the Canals]

I'm definitely thankful I've had Christians in my life who were NOT like this, lest MIL give the whole religion a bad name. When it comes down to it, much of her behavior around religion leaves me thinking of her as a fraud. She does her duties every Sunday, buys religious trinkets, volunteers when it "looks good"... and that's about it. Where's the empathy? The grace? The generosity? The lack of judgment? Nowhere to be found, that's where.

[Call Me Cordelia]

My five-year-old is in peak pestering right now. I have a couple of ways I deal with it. One is asking her, "Is pestering me going to get you what you want?"  Another is, "What did I say when you asked me that before?" And then there's the chatbot. Repeat the answer in exactly the same monotone. All with a smile. Because she is five and this is developmentally appropriate. It's kind of refreshing. 

Developmentally appropriate, and my guess is she actually kinda grasps it, right? Meanwhile, it would fly right over my 70-something mother-in-law's head. 

Yes! She's definitely starting to get in on the joke here. I thought of this thread because today I used the robot and she repeated the question... also as a robot! 

[moglow]

Where's the empathy? The grace? The generosity? The lack of judgment? Nowhere to be found, that's where.

YES. Mother's behavior and treatment of us spoke a very different tale from what she preached, as apparently did many of yours. She used to like to quote convenient scripture to prove her point of the moment, conveniently disregarding anything even remotely resembling the rest of the story. "Honor thy father and thy mother" all thee likes, thou shalt also: "provoke not thy children to wrath/anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4) One of my brothers quoted that one to her recently; her response? "That's not what it says." Yes, it does - he pulled a Bible out and showed it to her. "That's not what it means." Really? Really. So she interprets now. Got it.

[Cat of the Canals]

Mo, you just reminded me of the time my BIL went to get a Covid test. He was chatting with MIL while he waited for his turn. The following conversation ensued:

MIL: Did you get the swab yet?
BIL: Yeah. It was very uncomfortable. Made my eyes water.
MIL: How crowded was it?
BIL: A woman just came out to my car.
MIL: What's going on?
MIL: Don't pick up prostitutes. They reduce you to a loaf of bread, according to the bible. You are more than that, and it's not worth the risk.

If this doesn't highlight how much of a true hermit my MIL is, I don't know what does. BIL obviously meant that a nurse had come out to his car to do the swab, thus he didn't know if the place was crowded. But MIL jumped to one of her bizarre, paranoid conclusions and decided he was talking about a random woman coming to his car. Which must be a prostitute!!!! And then, to top it off, thinks she needs to tell him not to pick up a prostitute. (I can't stress how much he wasn't the type.)

"Reduces you to a loaf of bread" has become an inside joke now. This happened several years ago, but we finally looked up the actual bible quote earlier and of course it's totally out of context. 

"For by means of a harlot a man is reduced to a crust of bread; And an adulteress will prey upon his precious life."

I.E. A prostitute will only cost you bread/money. Having an affair might cost you your life.

A cynic might say it's actually suggesting a prostitute is preferable over adultery! 

[moglow]

They never cease to amaze.

[Sneezy]

Where's the empathy? The grace? The generosity? The lack of judgment? Nowhere to be found, that's where.

Amen sister!!!  I don't care what label you put on a religion.  If a religion calls its followers to show love and grace and kindness to others (even those who aren't members), then it is a good religion.  If the whole point of a religion is to judge others so that its followers feel superior for being part of the club, then it's not a good religion.

Reduces you to a loaf of bread?  Ok, I'm going to start using that one, that is just too good.