Yes, OE, I have another friend who liked to talk about how her mother was cold and very strict. Her mother sounded like someone who was mean. The mother was long gone, and I ended up telling my friend that it was high time she buried her mother. This was the friend who is always preaching religion. We had worked together on a home care case. The reason I liked her was because she was one of the best, most hard-working caregivers I'ld ever worked with. She was extraordinarily kind and loving toward our patient. I believed she was that way toward any patient she worked with. She really was one of the most good-hearted people I've ever met. Based on how she described her childhood, she seemed to be the opposite of her own mother. I'ld love to know what influenced her to be such a caring person, but I haven't yet figured it out. Some people grow up to be replicas of their parents. Some turn out to be the opposite. Others follow a path in between.

I'm fascinated to try and understand what has influenced the formation of a person's character. Sometimes an explanation eludes me. O.E. you tend to define people by what psych diagnosis they've been given, or by which one you think they might qualify for. Human personality is more intricate than that. I find you greatly oversimplify things by trying to plug in some pat explanation. You're in too big of a hurry to say, "Oh, I know, I know." when you don't really know.

My friend who I describe in this thread actually has a good deal of self-awareness. That's one of the things I like about her. Shortly aftet we first met, she told me that her career had gone off the rails, and she explained that a lot of people at her jobs had come to really dislike her. She told me she tended to lord it over her subordinates and was considered smug and stuck up. She tells me now that she used to consider a lot of people beneath her. She even says now, "No wonder I got fired." That's a fair amont of self-awareness.

You can't pick one theory of personality and just apply it across the board to everyone. The thing I notice about this person is that she can be very thick skinned and hard-butted. Yet she's always on the lookout for sensitive, giving souls who she can recruit into doing things for her. She likes to exploit people. Right now she seems unsure of what to make of me. I've been very giving toward her on many occasions, but I'm capable of saying "No" and turning away from her. She seems perplexed by that and keeps doing these little tests, like she's trying to figure out how available I am to respond to her needs. From how she has described her workplace relations, it sounds like she is manipulative and likes to play games of seeing who will come out on top. She loves coming out in top. I don't say that her phonecalls to me are about that currently. Instead, I think she's lonely because she's alienated a lot of people.

Some people are takers. She kind of is.