Thanks everyone for your thoughts and support on the issue I posted yesterday. I did a lot of reading yesterday and a lot of thinking today because I feel that it's my job in this life to grow and learn. As I stated in that post, this is CLEARLY a learning opportunity for me and I'll be darned if I'm going to go to graduate school.

Special thanks to Kat for mentioning Crazymakers in Julia Cameron's book, "The Artist's Way". I will purchase the book because I can see many uses for reading it beyond this particular issue.

Here are some things I've found about "Crazymakers" that I particularly related to:

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Crazymakers–

• break deals and destroy schedules


• expect special treatment


• discount your reality


• triangulate those they deal with (create drama, pit against each other)


• are expert blamers


• create dramas–seldom where they belong


• hate schedules


• hate order


• don’t care about what is going on with YOU. It’s all ME ME ME


• make dramatic entrances


• are manipulators


• make sure your sense of well being is snuffed before it ever gets going


• might change what's working to a plan that doesn't work just to have a feeling of power over you


• deny they are crazy makers [this is VERY important for me to understand. There will never be any ownership]


• are out of control, long on problems, short on solutions. They are a mess


• want attention, they like thriving on drama, and they want help with those problems, but they never listen to you [Boy, did I relate to this. I'm still trying to learn this one...]


• are always in one crisis or another


• are grounded in personal power, disrupting your life to gain that power, while you want to relate as equals, trying to make things better


• are creators of storm centers. Creating a storm center is the opposite of spiritual power. Authentic, spiritual power invites love and loyalty, cooperation, consistency, clarity and peace into every situation. It's core is not confusion but tranquility. [Yes! Yes! Yes!!!]

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Holy Cow! I think this author has been a fly on the wall and it makes me feel a little less isolated in this problem to read all of this. Apparently there are a lot of crazymakers in the world. I should count myself lucky that I'm only permanently attached to two of them. Of course, I've been around many of them, but I cut myself loose at the earliest opportunity.

In reading and pondering last night, I think *most* of my stress comes from worrying about what other people think because using self care and being protective of my husband could be construed as unwilling to be supportive if all the facts are not known. She has pitted family members against each other and I worry about what she's saying about me. Why worry about something that I cannot control?

Maybe my lesson in this is that I need to quit caring what other people think. I know that this has always been a huge issue for me because I have "good girl" syndrome. Dr. Phil has a statement that I should just go ahead and tattoo on my forehead; "what other people think about me is not any of my business".

My plan:

• I shall continue being civil to her, and will not confront her. Confronting would do absolutely no good because she will never own her behavior.


• When she says something offensive, I will continue to say to her "What was the intent behind that statement?" And then I'll be silent.


• When she says something off the wall, I'll just say, "hmmmmmmm". And then I'll be silent.


• When she tells me she needs help, I will remember that she never accepts help that I offer. And then I will stop feeling guilty that I am not helpful.


• When I start to obsess about this, I will gently remind myself that there are other people more in need of my thoughts and energy. And then I'll think about that other person and send my energy their way.

Finally, I shall tie her to a slowly lowering metal thing over a pool of sharks with laser beams attached to their foreheads.