TheBanyanTree: Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...

[Monique]

My condolences -- and of course you're not a happy camper. And of course
you're thinking of your family. That's quite all right.

And as someone with some perhaps negligible experience in dealing with the
unbalanced, I'd like to offer this advice: 

Wait a minute. I'm thinking.

This is harder than I thought. 

Let me backtrack. Just a short while ago, my mentally unbalanced charge
called me because his sim was sad.

That's right. His sim, in his sim game, keeps crying, and he doesn't know
why, and it makes him sad. He doesn't know what to do.

I told him the sim would be fine, one way or another, that he would recover
from whatever was bothering him. I also asked him if he made his sim in his
image, with borderline personality disorder. He laughed at that and said
that was probably the problem.

Anyway. While I'm here sitting here agonizing over what to do about housing
and thinking I'm selfish for wanting the house that has the best stuff for
me, while the other house is probably better for him, I'm reminded that it's
okay to think of me first, because in the end I'm the one who deals with
real life. Well, sometimes I do. Not always. I don't want to overstate my
case or anything. 

I told him if the game was going to make him sad I wouldn't be able to let
him play it. He said he understood that, and said he'd go make his sim
happy. Or try to. That is his big emotional upheaval today. His sim is sad
and cries. Maybe in the overall scheme it's not that big of a deal, but to
him it is, just like when Data died. THAT was bad. So I treat it with
respect, while also making sure he can see that it the fact of it isn't real
in itself, though it is okay to be emotional. (Denying emotions because
they're "stupid" or shouldn't be doesn't, in my experience, work, because
eventually the stuffs going to come out one way or another.) 

So if you should have to deal with the crazy sister, and hopefully you won't
be responsible, just remember that you're the one in charge, and sometimes
what needs to be done may seem silly, but if it doesn't hurt anyone and
helps the crazy person, it's okay. 

I believe what I've written here today will stand as evidence of my
intellectual decay, because I have no idea what I'm saying. Remember, you
saw it here first. 

Monique