One example of the OP is the family "joke" that I once burned cole slaw. The implication in that so-called joke is that not only was I so bad a cook that I burned it, but I was too stupid to know that cole slaw isn't even something you're supposed to cook. Of course, my denying that it ever happened was answered with, "She blocked it out because it was so embarrassing."

There is the slightest possibility that one of my brothers--the one who took the most joy in telling anybody and everybody I burned cole slaw as an example of how stupid I am--honestly thinks it did happen. If so, I know where it came from. You see, other than the gaps in the traumatic events, my memory is actually very detailed and highly reliable. Well, two things happened in my younger years: One, a comic strip appeared in the paper. It was one of those "Lockhorns" type married couples. They're having guests for dinner, and the wife is looking angry while the husband says, "Welcome to our home, the only place in the world you can be served burned cole slaw." Around the same time, when asked what the school lunch had been, I remembered the not-very-shredded cabbage in the cole slaw and said something about "cole slaw that wasn't cut." My mother misunderstood, thought I said "wasn't cooked," laughed, and said, "Honey, you're not supposed to cook cole slaw." Although I did repeat what I said, "wasn't cut," and she accepted that, it's very possible my brother fused these two incidents together in his mind. But I tried to tell him that once, and he wouldn't even let me get the words out. The minute I brought the subject up, it was, "NO! You burned cole slaw because you didn't know you weren't supposed to cook it, and you don't remember it because it was so humiliating you blocked it out." The more I tried to tell what really happened, the more he over-talked me with his own version of it.

He made it a point to tell anyone he had a chance to tell--his friends, my friends, strangers on the street, anyone--and took pleasure in the upset it caused me. Finally I figured out that the angrier I got when he told people, the more likely they were to think it was true. So I stopped getting angry about it (or at least stopped showing it) and eventually he stopped telling everybody. Is this evidence that he didn't really believe it, but was just going for the reaction? If so, the pleasure that comes from upsetting other people, I'll never understand. If he thought it was true, or if he didn't, I'm not sure.

I've also had people (yes, I do mean mostly immediate family members, but an occasional "friend" too) prank me by doing such things as whispering my name, and then when I answered, pretending they didn't say anything, I must be hallucinating, OMG they're worried about me, did I take my medicine today? Or they'll stop talking in mid-conversation, and begin looking at me strangely. With voice full of concern, they'll ask who I was talking to. Them, of course, we'd been talking for the past several minutes. But no, they'll insist they just now walked into the room and caught me talking to myself. Again with the OMG I'm worried, and again with the did I take my medicine today?

It is my opinion that they would only do this to a person with a mental illness, because if their chosen victim did not have a psychiatric diagnosis, there wouldn't be any fun in it. Of course, if I get upset, it's me being too sensitive, and "Chill, I'm just messin' with ya. It's only a joke."

My other brother--not the one guilty of spreading the cole slaw lie--is trying to tell me that I am loved by the family, and always have been. I answer, bull. There have been too many "I was only joking" putdowns, fat jokes, and we-don't-want-you-around messages for me to be under that delusion. People who love you don't tell lies about you, make you look bad in front of other people, or continue "joking" when it obviously hurts you. And they certainly don't use your illness to prank you.