@StreetcarBlanche it is disconcerting the way you started out as if you were good friends with that woman. I did have a childhood friend who started making occasional rude comnents because she somehow got the idea that my family was rich when we were not. And she would misinterpret random things I said as bragging about being rich and we stopped being good friends over time.

Maybe some people just get the idea that you are luckier then they are and they imagine things and start to hate and resent you for imaginary reasons. Like when you used to babysit for your friend, maybe she perceived you as being better off and resented that she needed your help. I think people have to be really jealous to take offense at someone's life events that don't negatively impact them. Like how my sister thought a casual compliment paid to me was deliberately mistreating her.

Normal people might. feel a little envy or jealousy, but they will know to either suppress expression of jealousy or use it as motivation to work hard to get what someone else has. I just read an article on narcissists projecting their own feelings on others. Maybe your bully was so insecure that when she felt jealous, she convinced herself that you were jealous and that you arranged an accident to make sure she didn't get any attention. I think the more unacceptable someone's feelings and motive are, the more desperate they are to attribute them to someone else.

Sometimes, I think people who falsely accuse others of things, simply do not have the imagination to realize that other people might be different from themselves. I think its a side effect of the empathy system in our brains where you think you know how someone is feeling based on knowing how you would feel in their situation. So if someone contrived to get attention from others, their brains are wired to think you would do the same.