u/Silver_Discount_1820

I swear I always find BPD/BPD-lite types wherever I go, and I am always their target. Lately, it’s been the mother of daughter’s best friend, who gives me major BPD vibes. She’ll see me one time and say hello in the loudest, happiest voice and reach out to hug me. Then the next time I see her, she doesn’t say hi at all and actively excludes me from conversation. She scolded me once at my daughter’s class Halloween party for not knowing what to do as a volunteer, when she was the room parent and was supposed to tell me. She got drunk at a game night thing with other neighborhood moms and bragged about how she has a favorite kid, and how much she loves her daughter because they paint nails together but can’t stand her son. She was laughing as she told a story about dropping him to the ground when he was a baby because he was crying, and she couldn’t take it anymore, so she just let go of him mid-air and walked away. She is always the victim and complains about all the injustices she endures, despite being highly accomplished.

Despite all that, I have never seen her be rude or catty with anyone but me! And I can’t figure out why. I am a chronic people pleaser who is probably overly nice and over accommodating. I’ve tried gray rocking around her, but then she’ll be nice to me the next time I see her, and I think maybe she was in a bad mood the last time, so I let it go. Today, her son was crying for her at a community pool party, and she asked me to go get her husband, who was working at the snack shack. I tried to get her son to come with me to go to her husband instead of just standing there crying, and she yelled “just get my husband!” in the most condescending tone. I’ve been in a bad mood since it happened because it was very triggering and always is.

The thing is this happens to me all the time! I’m like a magnet for these people no matter how much therapy I go through and see my patterns and how I contribute to it. I feel sometimes like I can’t escape them and can’t control it. Is this common among children of BPD parents??

Hi all! Thanks for the critique. I had an agent review the first ten pages and the query, and she said the conflict was too small, which took me by surprise since it's cozy fantasy, and all the conflicts are small with low stakes. I rewrote the query to clarify and up the stakes a little, but I'd still love your thoughts on that and whether the book stands out.

Dear Agent: 

I am seeking new representation after amicably parting with my agent, and you seem like a good fit because ... I’d like to pitch my 80,000-word cozy grounded fantasy novel, WHERE THE OLALLIEBERRIES GROW, which is about a woman who tries to overcome her past failures by reopening her grandmother’s famous strudel shop in a small California coastal town, only to find that her grandmother's former lover has cursed it. It’s for fans of The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst and The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic by Breanne Randal. 

Sarah Klein has always dreamed of following in the footsteps of her beloved grandmother, Liba, who founded a world-famous strudel store in the coastal town of Moonstone, California. When she tried to open her own bakery after culinary school, though, the building caught fire, and she never could reopen it. She took a job working for her then husband, making pastries at his bakery while he scrolled on his phone. After their divorce, Sarah desperately wants success of her own.

When Sarah’s grandmother dies, she doesn't leave the strudel store to anyone, and it goes to probate. Sarah buys it with the goal of reopening it exactly as it was when Nana ran it, hoping to capitalize on her success. The only problem is a local antique dealer and Liba's former lover, Marigold Rivers, keeps leaving poisonous hemlock on the store’s counter, a plant used in curses. When Sarah confronts her, Marigold says that Liba didn’t want anyone to reopen the store, and the curse ensures it remains closed.

Undeterred, Sarah hires Ivan Flores, a happy-go-lucky handyman with a gorgeous smile, to help demo and repair Moonstone Strudel. But nothing goes right, including their budding romance, and the renovations needed to reopen the store fall apart. If she wants to break the curse, she must convince Marigold that Nana really does want her to reopen the store. Through mediums and ghostly encounters with Nana’s spirit still lingering in the store, Sarah learns that her grandmother wants her to step out of her shoes and make the store her own, a tall ask when everything she has attempted on her own so far has failed.

[Bio]

Update: A glass container full of food fell from the top shelf of the fridge right onto my big toe, fracturing it, so this situation is now a moot point! No driving for a few weeks. No going into the office for six weeks either, which is nice! Thanks for the help, everyone.

Hello! My daughter (7) has swim practice every weekday and goes with a friend of hers, “Sarah,” who is almost 7. I take them some days, and her mom (whom I am friends with) and her dad take her the rest of the days. This would be fine except Sarah is not an easy child and is really testing my patience. Here’s a sampling of some what she does:

—When she sees my husband, she stomps on his feet or kicks him in the shins (dead serious).
—She got into my car and immediately asked why it smells.
—When I tried to help her with the seatbelt, she screamed that I was hurting her. Same with her swim cap.
—She backtalks me on everything.
—If I ask her to do something (carry her bag, put on sunscreen, leave practice), she refuses.
—If I ask her how she is, she says “bad. I’m bad.”
—She talks to me in a rude, disrespectful tone the entire time.
—She takes me daughter’s things and doesn’t give them back.

I have taken her to practice a whopping three times now, and each time is worse than before. Today, I got down on her level and kindly but firmly told her that I don’t like being talked to that way and am not her servant, and if she cannot treat me kindly and help carry her things, I won’t take her to practice anymore. I wanted to tell her never to step foot in my car again.

What’s complicating things is that I’m friends with her mom, who is wonderful. I just don’t know how she’ll take it if I say her daughter is being rude, and I don’t know if she’ll correct it. My take on their dynamic is that Sarah’s parents are divorced, and they feel bad about that, so they’re a little permissive. Her mom is a good person. Dad I’m not particularly fond of because of some things her mom told me about him.

I would like to take care of this on my own first, and if it doesn’t get better, then get the parents involved. But I don’t know what to say in either case because it could complicate our relationship. I know Sarah is just a child, and she has some challenges in her home life that I have empathy for, but I also don’t want to put up with a kid bullying me.

My son just turned four and is an easygoing, sociable little boy—except with strangers and his friends first thing in the morning. Whenever I drop him off, his friends are so excited to see him, but he gets angry when they call his name. He often screams at them when the say hi after I just dropped him off.

He does it with steamers too. I took him to a TK event the other day because he’ll he starting one in the fall. When the teachers approached him, he turned his head away and screamed “no” really loudly. He will turn away from anyone he doesn’t know and yell if they try to talk to him.

I absolutely get that he talks that way to his friends because he struggles with drop-offs, and he talks that way to strangers because he’s uncomfortable with people he doesn’t know. But I don’t want him to think it’s okay to treat people that way either. I’ve tried modeling ways to kindly tell his friends he needs space in the morning and at least not scream at strangers, but nothing has stuck. Any advice?