Well...if my pain helps you..it's not in vain. But it still sucks ass.

I was reading the facebook status updates of my friends the other day when one from an old high school friend of mine caught my eye. We were not good friends per se. We were passing friends in high school and since we've reconnected we're simply passing friends today. Until NOW.
On her status she indicated that she was being called "spoiled" and a "bitch" and "crazy" by members of her family because she had DARED to speak up to one family member that everyone else spent their time walking on eggshells around. When she tried to talk to anyone about this persons behaviour they acted like SHE was the one with the problem
DING! DING! DING! DING!
Uh...yeah. Slightly familiar story to me.
I left her a comment that said something like "Don't go to crazy town with the rest of your family. Call the bi-polar relative out and do not allow their maniuplations to rule your life or make you sacrifice your self respect the way others do as a form of self protection"
She emailed me IMMEDIATELY.
First she wanted to know how I knew the person was bi-polar (Because they ARE and off their meds like my mother was)
And how I NAILED how the others were treating her so succinctly.
Turns out the person is her mother-in-law!
I told her 40 years of experience honey. Forty years of having NO ONE stand up for me when I was the victim of my mother's mental illness. In fact they chose to pretend she was normal and that I was the asshole. They chose to make up hateful stories in their heads about ME to keep from dealing with HER. And also...when she died...if I was the asshole in their imagination then they could use that to excuse their THEFT of my mothers things. Did I mention that like HER in-laws mine are all bible beating Jeezers? They go to church every Sunday.
Probably wearing something they stole from my mother (and thus me and my daughter) all the while.
I told her that the she had to never give in. She could never let herself turn into the cowards her relatives had chosen to become in order not to rock the boat. That if left untreated her mother-in-law's behaviour would only escalate.
I had to pull my mother off of my elderly grandmother during one visit home. My mother asked my grandmother where her purse was and my grandmother simply replied she "had not seen it". My mother decided she didn't like her "tone" and proceeded to jump on top of her and I had to grab her toprevent her from HITTING my 70 year old grandmother!!
I called both of my aunts and asked them to watch out for my grandmother but of course I WAS MAKING IT UP. IT WAS ALL IN MY HEAD. (Thus releasing them from their duty as being anything but the dead beat daughters they were....unless they NEEDED something from my grandmother)
She said she had already witnessed a couple of borderline criminal incidents. That her in-laws are wealthy and that they really like to pretend none of it is happening.
Well...at least she has ME to vent to and compare notes.
I had NO ONE.