RacerX wrote:This particular episode took place during a conversation with her partner during a visit where my sis had chimed in to bring up how she had been abused as a child.
She went into great detail about this abuse and when I told her I didn’t recall those events she pressed and pressed as she rapidly became very angry.
I have an aunt that has memories of events that never took place, primarily negative memories that portray herself as a victim in one form or another. The family has dealt with her wild, exaggerated claims for decades now.
Members of the family and the community have handled their relationship with her in various ways. Unfortunately, the bottom line is that over the years she has become largely alienated. Her own daughter and closest family members no longer have very much interaction with her. Understandably, they are exhausted, but they have all come to accept the situation in their own way. They have established boundaries that limit their contact with my aunt, so as to avoid the arguments and frustration that comes with trying to reconcile my aunts memories with reality.
With my aunt is it confabulation, dementia, a chemical imbalance, a personality disorder, brain damage, a combination of multiple issues? We don't know. No one knows. And it doesn't matter. Whatever "treatment" is available, everyone knows that it does not consist of some magical combination of words or phrases that will result in some epiphany or mental awakening for my aunt. Talking to my aunt isn't going to solve the issue. Nope, my aunt will go to her grave with these false memories, believing her life was full of negative events that never actually happened.
As a nephew, my role in the situation is "nephew". It isn't my role to try and be a therapist. That would just cause turmoil and damage relationships across and within the family. Instead, I accept my aunt for who she is, set my personal boundaries, and behave accordingly.