Many thanks to those of you who have answered my hypothetical question. I think it unwise to tell this person, who I've had to deal with for seven long years, that he/she is probably in need of medication. This is an adoption acquaintance, and I've had to ban him/her from the four lists I own and run.

He/she has a rather obvious bipolar personality, and those people don't take well to criticism, no matter how well meaning it is. Thanks to the rational minds here who warned me not to even broach the subject. Since this is a degenerative disease, my impulse was to tell him/her and take whatever invective he/she wanted to spew back at me. (We are this one list together that I have no control over; thus, I have to put up with his/her insinuations and lies and distortions of the truth and astonishing grandiosity.) But most of you are right. One never knows how someone unstable is going to take the truth when they hear it. And I have had enough of him/her. I will simply refuse to respond to any more of his/her posts and leave it at that.

Thanks again for the OT help. You were, for the most part, a great group to bounce this one off of.

Cathryn