Disagreeing with trivial facts

[Cat of the Canals]

I don't know how it came up, but during one of the most recent phone conversations I had with PDmom, we were talking about Girl Scout cookies. She was saying she likes the ones with peanut butter in the middle and chocolate on the outside.

ME: Tagalongs?
HER: No. That's not what they're called.

She didn't have an idea or suggestion of what the correct name was, either. She just knew my suggestion was wrong.

I looked it up after we got off the phone, and guess what? They're called Tagalongs.

She's done this for as long as I can remember... just spontaneously deciding that someone is wrong about something that is a simple fact. She doesn't try to back it up. She just says, "you're wrong," and that's that.

Then it occurred to me that PDmil does the same thing. One time we were taking a walk. My SIL was about 7 years old at the time, and she found a baby turtle. She wanted to keep it. There were a thousand reasons this was a bad idea, but the most obvious to me was, "That's a snapping turtle."

PDmil immediately responded, "No, it's not."

I said, "See those ridges on the back of the shell?"

PDmil won't listen. "It isn't a snapping turtle."

Mark Twain says to never argue with a fool, so I gave up. I figured they'd find out sooner or later. Not my circus.

We started walking back to their house and passed one of their neighbors on the way. SIL shows off her new "pet." And the first words out of the neighbor's mouth: "That's a snapping turtle!"



Of course PDmil made SIL put the turtle down then, since the information was coming from an outsider and couldn't be so easily dismissed without coming across as rude.

Just curious if this is one of those textbook PD things or just a quirk my PDmom and PDmil happen to share.

[SparkStillLit]

Har. PDh did this. I had to have concrete, written facts or from someone else HE thought was an "expert" or anyone else but me.
It was honestly too much trouble to bother about, so I would either let it go, or I also became a bit of an expert myself at arranging things so it bit him in the butt, ignoring what I knew.

[11JB68]

Yes Updh does this. Not just to me.
In my friend's partners words he'always has to be the smartest in the room'
I just mc it now. Arguing gets me no where and just escalates drama.
When I was deep in the fog I believed that he was so smart her must be right. Now I know better

[Simon]

This little gem is from when I was a teen, quite a while ago, and I knew nothing about Personality Disorders then, but this thread brought back the memory, and it suggests she was BPD/NPD.
It all makes sense now.

We had a neighbour who always had to be right.
Always had to have the last word.
She went through 3 husbands, and growing up I remember at least 2 of them, and they were doormats.
Wouldn't say boo to her.
One of her daughters is EXACTLY the same as her now.

Anyway, at some point, my Mother and a bunch of the neighbours were in the Bingo hall, including this neighbour, and they were discussing their children.
My mother mentioned that all her children were born in the same hospital, except one, and named the hospital where one of my sisters was born.
This neighbour looked up and said "No! No she wasn't. She was born in the same hospital as the others!"
Everyone on the table just looked at her.
My Mother corrected her, saying that she knows where she gave birth to her own daughter, but it didn't make any difference.
She kept saying that my Mother was wrong. 

Everyone on the table knew what she was like, and after a few minutes they all gave up trying to tell her she was wrong.
My mother and all her friends just put it down to just another example of her "strange" behaviour.
Mind boggling isn't it? 

[doglady]

Oh boy, do I feel the pain of everyone on this thread - there are some doozies of examples. I, too, have extensive experience of this behaviour in my FOO and with my in laws.

My uPDm has always disagreed with basically everything I say. It seems to be her 'do not collect $200' go-to reaction with me. And I can only presume it's because it's me saying it, because I have observed that whenever my uPDGCbro churns out one of his frequent pontifications, she agrees with it. Every. Single. Time. Because it's him. It's actually hilarious how obvious it is. However, she completely denies point blank having treated us differently when it's pointed out to her. Or, when given an example that she simply can't deny, because there are witnesses, she then starts playing the victim and having a pity party or cries and says people are picking on her. Like she's five. 

My uPDmil does something slightly different, where she simply gets angry and belligerent if someone has a different opinion from her, and she then insists that she is right as if this should be an end to all discussion. She also tries to bully and intimidate people into agreeing with her and literally snarls and even calls them names when they won't. She seems to find it hard to understand the concept of opinions not being facts, ie. if she thinks it, it's an iron-clad fact. Ergo, if someone thinks something different to her, they are wrong and she should basically hate them for it. She has also been heard to say on numerous occasions, when disagreed with: 'I'm always right!' She seems to genuinely believe this. I once had the audacity to question this worldview (because everyone else is apparently too scared to address the issue - everyone is just supposed to placate her no matter how ridiculous she's being). I steeled myself and gently and politely said, 'I'm not sure if this a joke? I mean, I've heard you say this a few times now, and, well, ... surely no one can be right all the time, mil.' She said 'What!' which is what she does when she is daring you to repeat yourself. So I repeated myself. Her answer was, 'But I am always right!' Then enFil got it on the act, because he was obviously going to really pay for it later if he didn't go in to bat for her, and he started saying, 'Now, now' to me, as if I wasn't allowed to question the mighty overlord. She then screamed - and I kid you not- 'I'm always right because I'm the MOTHER!'  Honestly, you couldn't make this shit up. I am so glad I no longer have any contact with these people.

[Prototypian]

I get that exact same behavior too.   Interrupting anyone telling any flow of any story to correct and reset any details no matter how specific.   I've started making up really big round numbers like "say that car costs some random number like a trillion dollars..." So that the exact dollar amount of "roughly 40k" doesnt get challenged, google looked up and corrected during the story.   And leaving out unimportant details is a big deal as well.  Saying we use "XYZ insurance" but skipping the part about "but PDQ insurance for our life insurance" even if we are taking about the cost of car insurance for teenagers means that the story must be interrupted and corrected.   To me it's the OCPD and need for exactness and completeness in all things that she can control.

And it is similar even when there is an expert or someone who has string expertise on a specific fact: "the Dallas cowboys record last season was 6:9" gets an immediate correction even if this person is a strong fan of the team and in reality no one cares about the statement.   She will interrupt and challenge numbers just to make sure.   I think part of that is she doesn't trust anything she is not reading herself.

We have to pull over and let her physically see a phone anytime she is driving and someone says "the map program says it's 17 miles to the next rest stop'

She won't believe it and definitely won't trust the person reading that without physically verifying it even if she is the driver.   It's a complete distrust and a need to be completely accurate.

[Cat of the Canals]

Thanks for sharing, everyone. I suspected this was a PD thing... it fits so well with everything else. But I wasn't sure.

She then screamed - and I kid you not- 'I'm always right because I'm the MOTHER!' 

Sometimes this site just gives me chills. PDmom said this when I was a kid, all the time! It was her signal that the discussion was OVER. The queen had spoken! And yet I convinced myself it was a "joke" until I came Out of the FOG. 

I get that exact same behavior too.   Interrupting anyone telling any flow of any story to correct and reset any details no matter how specific. 

PDmom does this, mostly to enDad, who is her main scapegoat. He'll be telling a story and say something like, "We saw probably about thirty geese on the lake this morning." She interrupts as if he's just completely fabricated something. "There were NOT thirty geese. It was more like 25!"

In her case, she resents when my dad is getting family attention, so she resorts to nitpicking every word he says to take him down a peg.

[Fae Greenwood]

For my uNPDh, it's about me being wrong. Always. I've repeated information to him, gathered at his request, and he's insisted that I am wrong but told the EXACT same thing by the original source later the info is now acceptable.

[OWIU (Only Way Is Up)]

My uPDM always disagreed using one of her special 'tones of voice' and wide, bulging eyes (I can imagine both now, and it makes me feel sick).

She'd start the sentence with "Correct me if I'm wrong, OWIU, but....".  Of course no-one was ever actually allowed to correct her (or there would be hell to pay)!

When I think of the dramas, and the traumas, caused by the most insignificant/trivial disagreements (e.g. over the 'wrong' apples my Dad once bought) I just want to shout "who gives a flying f...."? (fudge)!