Not crazy for you, but crazy at you

Unfortunately, as we know the passing of a major family member can unleash problems with the surviving members.   This is especially true if the family member that passed away was controversial and/or thought to have assets (even if the latter was not so true).  The 'black sheep' member of my family has decided that they are/were entitled to the assets of my dad, which in reality were very limited.  I basically am presiding over just a little bit more than a pile of rubble.

Anyway, this led to a blog idea.  The ways to deal with a destructive, manipulative and likely mentally ill person.  In my case a family member.  Here goes:

Dealing with destructive, manipulative, mentally ill persons:

1) Attempting to rationally discuss their gripes with them. Generally pointless and frustrating as they are experts at irrational thinking.  To them the irrational is quite rational.  No matter how you try to pull them back toward the rational, they will tend not to concede rational, logical points.

2) Getting into the mud with them.  Generally a bad idea as they are experts at attacking in an irrational way.  It can effectively result in 'poked bear' response from them.

3) Attempting to appease them.  That's like trying to feed the crocodiles and hope they are satisfied enough not to attack you.

4) Shutting them out, ignoring them, not giving any oxygen.  Only surfacing long enough to make it clear you will not tolerate their abuse and preferably through a third party.  This will upset them, probably piss them off that you are not making yourself a target for them, but will save you the stress of dealing with them directly and leave them with uncertainty.  In other words, they may think twice when trying to mess with you as they won't be able to read how you'll react.  However, this is a long drawn out process and can be very frustrating waiting for the fruits of it.

5) Attempt to completely destroy them.  This could very well result in very serious consequences for you and could unleash 'fear biting' in them.

6) Use the law to disable them.  It could be a long, annoying, draining and seemingly frustrating process which requires a sacrifice of time, energy and possibly money.

I am leaning toward option 4.  It is a bit frustrating as when you are attacked by such a person.  There is a tendency to want to immediately shut that person up.  But, as we know the law isn't always on the side of the harassed person.  I guess if option 4 fails, I will go with option 6.  I've tried option 1 and 3 already.  I figured option 2 would be both pointless at best and destructive at worst.  I don't want to engage in option 5 as it is not my intention to punish a person for being mentally ill, besides trying to destroy someone typically has serious repercussions or reverberations