Throwaway acct for privacy reasons. Long,, sorry. This isn’t a “just no MIL”; we have genuine concern and wonder if she is suffering silently. 

TDLR; MIL may have a mental illness and displays erratic, polarizing, frightening behaviors. Yet can also have amazing weeks of complete normalcy. 


Would love to hear if someone thinks this is ... any type of mental illness or a personality disorder... or just part of who she is and it’s nothing.

Husbands mother has a terrible relationship with everyone in her family: a “sudden” divorce (not amicable) , doesn’t get along with her siblings, not close to any of her children, and her version of the truth is very much, well, not the truth. 

She hides information. Literally any and all information is discrete, yet she has to know everyone’s business at all times. Examples can be her digging through mail, rooms, drawers... creating fake accounts online to scan for info and screenshots almost anything and claims that someone “sent it to her”. 

Has significant money issues; this is probably one of the most profound issues we can all visibly see. Claims fraud on many cc’s, has online orders show up at various adult children’s homes in their names but will be purchased for her from her cc. Claims she shops only at thrift stores but is wearing decent labels/sometimes designers. Will say she has no money for rent so she’s living x y z (a friends house, a friends available apt at a discounted price, above a restaurant, at her relatives house, etc). Said she was renting a car so one of her adult children could borrow her car, but the “rental” kept showing up for over a month and had a dealership sticker on it (so not a rental... and she admitted “I’m renting it from the bank” aka she bought it). 

Tons of lies, but never any apologies or reasons for it. Leaves us (particularly me) confused. 

And then there are times where she’s completely normal, has a great head on her shoulders, seems to be working so hard and saving money, and appears to be extremely even and mellow (this really can’t be articulated well, but all of us family members can see when things are on an even keel... and when things have swayed back to being terrible and untrustworthy again).

One other example is we let her watch our toddler daughter one fall day a few years ago. The stipulation was I’d be back in an hour, please take your phone outside with you if you choose to play outside so I can reach you. This is someone who has her phone on her at all times... come home, can’t find them anywhere for over two hours. They were “walking the woods”. I was upset she didn’t have her phone and said that was all I asked her to do... 

Bipolar runs in their family. She claims to have over a dozen autoimmune diseases and will fall victim to hospitalizations for days at times at least a couple of times a year. We always visit her. We’ve asked drs for info which they obv will not share with us (many family members will ask if they can be a health proxy for her, she refuses). I’ve been in a few  times where drs have said they don’t know what’s wrong but she can go home... she will cry and say she can’t... she will be sicker there. Her weight sways towards being severely under weight to being such a healthy weight. 

She will put us on a “shit list” if we do anything “wrong” which can be extremely obscure and confusing. Grandchildren become confused as to why she is not around as often.... when I’ve been an advocate for my children who love her unconditionally, she will say I need to understand she is healing and needs time...

What the f is happening here? I don’t take anything personally, but sometimes I do get scared that something is really wrong (in many different ways). Any thoughts?



