Are they stuck at 15?!

[aninom]

Sorry, just need to vent.

difficult child just called (she's had a two-week streak of "How Dare You Try to Converse With Me, Mortals" after a one-week streak of "I Need Something" and is now testing out "I Will Speak At You Because If I Laughed About This To Someone Else They Would Know What I Am Like / I Need Something").

Well, firstly, she's getting ANOTHER plane ticket, this time to my parents', performing her annual pilgrimage to that set of drinking buddies. She usually stays at grandma, not as a hanging-out-with-grandma thing, but as a there-is-a-big-room-here-I-will-use-it-kthx-bye thing. But at least this buys me some free time in January - so hey, she wants to not study or even make it to the exam in February because she/we can't afford it, her choice.

And then, guess what, she's pretending to be engaged - it started a while ago to, and get this, make another girl jealous. I mean. COME ON. Pretending like that guy is your boyfriend (and he's in on it) is one thing, now saying you're engaged while sincere congratulations pour in from all sides is another. She thinks it fun. Uh, yeah. I don't think that girl you're intentionally trying to put down feels likewise.

Goddamn facebook feed. I can't read it, can't not read it. Day before yesterday she was bragging to the world about how fun last nights' party was, on the basis that she couldn't remember it (and she is promising everyone a "replay" when she's moved in here with me... No no no. No!).

I mean- I am sure this kind of petty, catty lying and black-out partying is cool.

IF YOU ARE FIFTEEN.

Gnaash. gnshh. *Gnashing teeth together*

I mean what goes through their head?!

 

[BusynMember]

Hi there.

Well, if she has antisocial personality disorder (I'm assuming that her diagnosis) then there's your answer. If you want to know more about ASPD, I found a link for a great site for all psychiatric disorders, and there is a specific forum to ASPD there. I'll link you to it. Lots of info there, I assume, because it is a very intensive site for ALL disorders that they list. Should give you some insight, if nothing else. You have my sympathy, but you can't change your sister. I really think the best thing you can do is to stop trying to expect her to act in a rational way and to detach. She is thirty years old already. She may act like an out-of-control fifteen, but she is an adult and you can't help her. She's the only one who can do that and with ASPD usually they don't want to change.

http://www.psychforums.com/antisocial-personality/

 

[aninom]

Hi there.
She may act like an out-of-control fifteen, but she is an adult and you can't help her. She's the only one who can do that and with ASPD usually they don't want to change.

http://www.psychforums.com/antisocial-personality/

I remember that site, I think I must've browsed it some years back when I'd first heard about it being ASPD. A lot of diagnosed people writing there. Before I read up on it, it was extremely upsetting and almost ridiculous to think of my sister as a "sociopath" - there is this black and white picture of what the label means out there that I fell for, popular culture portraying people with ASPD as slash-happy sadists.

I don't think difficult child likes hurting people overly much, I really don't - it's more as if she hurts people because she feels they're in her way or bothering her somehow, and when it's done or while she's doing it, she doesn't "get" the fact you're sad, upset, or hurt. If anything it only annoys her further - "why are you crying? why are you pretending?" It just doesn't connect. It makes her confused and annoyed. I think she like it better when she's not fighting with us, but then we go and do something she finds annoying, and she can't help herself. Boom goes the dynamite.

Maybe it's not so much that ASPD:ers are teenagers, as that all teenagers have a little ASPD?

It's just so FRUSTRATING! You'd think it'd be obvious to her by now that she can't go on like this without flunking more chances with her school, without alienating more people, without impulse-throwing away half of her life. But no, she's oblivious. And the more stuff that goes wrong because of her behavior over the years, the worse she gets towards us when we try and help her fix things.

 

[jbrain]

And the more stuff that goes wrong because of her behavior over the years, the worse she gets towards us when we try and help her fix things.

Well, that pretty much says it all. That's why many of us have quit trying to fix things.

Jane

 

[Suz]

Well, that pretty much says it all. That's why many of us have quit trying to fix things.

Yep.

Suz