Confabulation

My tenant isn’t lying to me, she’s confabulating. This link is an excellent definition from the NIH. My definition, the one given to me by my daughter when my mom was in care is much simpler and very graspable:

‘When the patient only remembers disconnected parts of the story, they fill in the gaps to make a whole.’ So, my tenant is only remembering bits and pieces about what the appliance repair guy tells her, and then tells me a fantastic fever dream of ‘he said this and that and the other about these shitty appliances.’

While this is still not easy to deal with, no matter the subject, at least now I know her misstatements are not made with malice aforethought.