Anonymous asked this question on 3/20/2000:

My husband's sister is constantly competing with everyone around her.Is this a mental disorder? She also suffers from depression, anxiety, bad nerves,anti-social behaviour. You hate to be around her because she is so phony, and selfish. When we got married, she got married. When her sister got pregnant for the first time she decide she would have another baby after ten years since her first one. Her sister and her baby were born a month apart. It's constant competition with her. She gets into debit trying to keep up with everyone. She has no friends because of it. Is there a name for this? And what should we do about it. We tried talking to her and her husband years ago but got nowhere. She said she didn't realized she was doing this. And she is still doing it today. She doesn't see what she doing and therefore counseling is out of the question. Her doctor just gives her drugs when she gets depressed and her nerves are bad. Her father suffered anxiety attacks and had alot of mental problems also. We are so sick of this situation we have chosen not see her unless we have to. She has just bought a house with the same main floor plan as ours and the top floor is the same as her sister's house. When she comes over now I feel she is taking notes on how our house is decorated so she can copy it. What do we do?

karunap gave this response on 3/20/2000:

Competition grows out of scarcity. When children grow up in a house where there isn't enough love, enough food, enough whatever then they learn to compete for whatever is there. The childhood sense of scarcity will last into adulthood. It will be there even when there is "enough" of everything in the here and now.

Your sister in law needs therapy in order to get to the roots of the problems. You are right.... an endless series of medicines is not going to solve the problem.

However, if she doesn't think there is a problem, there is nothing you can do but set limits.... i.e. you decide how often you see her and what the terms of the contact will be. Work at getting to the point where you can say inside of you, "Wow, you really do that well.... you can make an opportunity to compete out of anything!" This won't solve the problem but it may lighten the situation inside of you.

The work at this point is within you.... to get unhooked from her behavior. She is who she is and it doesn't sound like she has any interest in changing.

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Anonymous rated this answer a 3.