Simesangel

I have a sister-in-law that I am almost positive has this disorder. She ALWAYS needs to be the center of attention. In every conversation she has a story that relates to it, that is more fantastic than the person that started the conversation - even if she has to make the story up, which she does, very often. She is always extremely animated - facial expressions, arms flying around, very loud. We have no idea what nationality she is because if it's St. Patricks day, she's Irish - If someone is talking about their trip to England, she's english - she also claims to have come from Africa and Poland, depending on the conversation. She always seems to have some extremly rare medical problem - she's claimed cancer (never once showed a sign), back problems (that only seem to appear when she needs some sympathy) and numerous other malady's. We catch her in lie's constantly - we don't call her on them most of the time because she goes crazy if you doubt anything she says!! She has also thrown her family into financial ruin because she likes to look like a "high roller". Spending money they don't have, on all kinds of stuff they don't need, but she feels it makes them look good. She tells her husband that she gets everything on clearance for $1 or whatever...and he believes her. She lost her business due to financial mismanagement - translation: she liked to spend the business money on lavish social functions to show off, instead of paying the bills, taxes, etc. Now she stays home and won't work because it would be beneath her to ever work for someone else. She made her husband quit one of the jobs he had because he only made $8. His other job is contruction which means he only works about half the year. This puts them in a bit of a pickle obviously. They have almost lost their home twice and have had their vehicle repossesed. She's threatened suicide several times. But when all is said and done, most of the time she acts like they don't have a care in the world, even though everyone know's how bad their situation is. This is obviously not normal behavior (and I haven't even given HALF of the crazy details of her behavior!) and in doing some research, I ran accross the histrionic personality disorder information and she seems to hit every description on the list!! She is tearing our family apart - anyone else dealing with a family member like this??