wanting to understand...

I have a neighbor with "skizo-paranoia" . I'm unsure how to react in certain moments. I really want to understand whats happening, so that i can be a better neighbor and friend. She gave me something this morning and told me it was because we were "best buds". I have my own issues with friendship, and dont feel as i have any friends, even tho others feel really close to me. Its rare for me to feel the same. but it doesn't make me care any less about a person. just the "friendship" lacks on my part, because i'm not able to just be myself around others, and generally dont have a want to hang out with someone that i dont feel the same about being friends. I'm more in the "i wanna help" than in the "lets have fun and hang out" kind of role. its mostly due to the aspergers i think tho.

Anyways, one thing she has often done over the past few days, is appologise of saying something (like most recently, she appolgised for calling me stupid, and explained why she shouldn't have done it, and more appolgy's) however, she spoke as if she had just did it. and it was in the middle of visiting with her for over an hour at that time.. but i never heard her call me stupid.. and when i tried to let her know that i didn't know that she ever did call me stupid, she restated she was sorry, and then told me that she knew and i knew that she had just called me stupid, and that i didn't need to deny it, because it was okay. and that she realized it, and she wasn't going to do it again, because she knows it wasn't something to say, and that she was truely sorry about calling me "stupid". and i couldn't figure out a way to let her know that through the time that we were chatting and stuff, she never once called me "stupid" or any other names. she 100% believed that she called me "stupid", and even when i tried to let her know that she called me that, and when she continued to apologize i said "it's okay, we all say things we dont mean sometimes. no worries " she still wasn't accepting that response. and the conversation went on for a good while before i used an excuse to go back into my apartment. then later she didn't bring it back up. although while we were coloring together she mentioned how the place she went to visit once she was 18 was horrible and thats when two voices came to her. but she said she doesn't hear them now. (i'm not sure if its completely accurate that they are gone now.. but i listen to her, and most of the time i dont know how to respond, or when i should or shouldn't respond). there were other things that she made me promise not to tell anyone... not your usual secrets... things that i'm 99.9% sure has no possible way of even ever happening.. and there's times she'll stop what shes doing and look at me, and keep a solid lock on eye contact (i'm bad with this myself to begin with.. as i make little to none), but she'll sometimes do that along with reassuring me that its okay, and that she knows.. and that i dont have to say anything, but she knows. and at the end she'll nod and make yes sounds (like "mm hmm"), and then go back to the previous focus (which is coloring lately).

I really want to know whats going on, so i can better understand her. shes also told me a few times, that shes schizo-paranoia . some of these times its like she doesn't remember ever saying or doing.. i never ask her afterwards, but some things she repeats that could signal she didn't remember telling me previously (like her diagnosis. which shes prolly told me about 4 to 5 times, but i never really point out that she already told me. i just accept it as if she were telling me for the first time). and also things that i have mentioned or said she sometimes wont remember even if it was an hour before. or she'll ask the same question of me multiple times since i've known her. i know shes on meds, and i've seen her take them sometimes-so i do know that she is. so that i kind of contribute to the possible forgetfulness.

she also hears things differently from what i say sometimes.. like i repeatedly pointed out that "if i had to go back to (insert local MHC here), then i would want (insert name here) to be my case manager again, because she was the most helpful, up until they made her distance herself and be completely professional, and not a friend".. but i would said many times in that 15 minute period after that intial part "if i had to go back to (insert local MHC here), then i would want (insert name here) to be my case manager again" (because she kept stating how great it was that i was going to have a casemanager again). then the next morning she woke me up to tell me she had a convo on the phone with someone in the MHC in a city nearby (same company, different location), and that she told the caseworker that i was coming back and she was thrilled and that i could come to the clubhouse groups and have all this fun.. and she went on and on, and spoke like i was already set back up with the MHC.... i dont know if that part of things is a side effect that can come from any of the meds shes on... or if thats part of her illness.. i'm unsure..

I wish i understood... as i was typing this out, i also had the thought of, if i could understand her in these moments, then i could start gaining an understanding about one of my parents... who has a lot of these beliefs and delusions and though she hasn't ever said it to me, i'm pretty sure she hears things.. things that she thinks is coming from others. but unlike my neighbor, she can get aggressive in these moments. and where my neighbor is like speaks and informs me that i know what she means and that nothing needs to be said. but that i know whatever it is (and i dont.. i have really no clue what shes insistant that i know.. its like she believes that without her coming out and telling me, that i know whatever it is, that she believes i know...) but in those moments, my neighbor is in a kind, and assuring type of actions and voice tone. where my parent would be aggressive and pacing and screaming at me, and when i asked what i did, she would just continue to scream "you know what you did" and "you know what you did, don't play dumb, i dont have to tell you". and i would press the issue because i was completely baffled by this when i walked into this rampage after school and only being 11 or 12yrs old. and it would only make her more mad with each time i asked, and i would insist that i really didn't know. and how was i supose to not do it again, if i didnt know what it was that i did. then she stopped the pacing in the area in front of the couch, and screamed at me and insisted that i tell her what i did, because i knew exactly what i did.... (still to this day, i dont know what i did). my biological mom also had one of these times when i was younger..and i still dont know what i did then either.. so i wonder if its genetic.. my parent seemed to have this all change and also wouldn't remember what happened or that it ever really happened (at that time i just thought she denied it because she didn't want to get into trouble with the school or any therapist) but even know, if i say or mention anything remotely on any of the "thin ice" conversations, about the past she gets into this quick and quickly denial mode that stops me before i've even finished the beginning of the sentence. its like she is expecting it, so she reacts quickly to it, before i have a chance to even finish a sentence. neither my parent, nor my biological mom are on meds, or ever been diagnosed, and refuse to ever have anything to do with getting mental health help with themselves. both are blood relatives.. both are also in the same family line.. and the next step up in the generation is even more confusing to me, i have came to say "my family line is all messed up" then worry that i might be that way, or end up like that..
my parent was in her later 20's, while my biological mom was about 19 when i remember her going off like this.
however.. they both self medicate.. and when they haven't been able to self medicate that aggressive confusing person resurfaces and delusions come back in full swing too.
and them never being diagnosed has had me on a long time search for what or why.. anything that would help me understand, and make sense of what i couldnt. and i've came a cross a lot.. like narcissistic sociopath, being one of them that even one of my T's had mentioned after having a few conversations with my parent. but it didn't completely fit everything that was going on.. and the more i get to know my neighbor, and her actions and words, along with others i have met in my inpatient stays... things like this.. is starting to place the pieces of this confusing mess with my family, most of the pieces fit in this puzzle, when i look at it in this way... also if this is whats going on with them... it means its not their fault... which would change a big part in the way i have always seen things... without a doubt, i'm certain my parent would have been hospitalized if it wasn't for my other parent- who has always taken it, and protected her when the police were ever called out (by neighbors, herself, or me). but if there's certain degrees of this illness, she certainly has more of a severe degree of it than my biological mom. when i was about 7yr i remember i was riding to school with my parent.. i dont remember what she was getting after me for, and i dont remember how she was acting or what she was saying.. i just remember the fact that i was in trouble.. and i broke down into tears and cried.. i couldn't answer why i was crying.. i didn't know myself as to why i was crying.. it was like i stressed, then BAM outburst of tears and crying. i remember afterwards she stopped, and it was like she tried to make it up to me by buying me a toy(and toys).. and this kind of thing happened again when i was about 9yr and i was in charge of paying the bills, and doing the checks, and making sure the bank wasnt being overdrawn, so she blamed me for each time the bank would be overdrawn, but i couldn't stop her from using the money or she would get mad too.. and i never won.. and there were times she actually had a warrant out for a hot check, which i remember we got in the mail and she drove to a nother town to use the pay phone to call them and explain the mix up. my other parent thought that she was taking care of it all, and she wanted me to keep it quiet from my other parent.. so during that time, she would act like she was the one, while i was the one worrying about the bills and how much she was spending, and how we didn't have it.... i dont ever write hot checks because of that... however... my own bank account suffers like it did during that time.. only i am the only one using the money this time....

I am so sorry for this very long post... i'll stop here.
I'm wanting and trying to understand it all...

You kind of sound like Alice in Wonderland. Or Gloria Steinem, whose mother was also very mentally ill. You did the best you could as a child. You send information in, and it comes out garbled. Do you have the right to live above what your parent is capable of, or are you limited to the best of their understanding? My mother doesnt understand my needs either.