Drama Queen
With the drama queen, the spotlight bends back toward her every time (and yes, it can be a him too). A new grandchild arrives and somehow every photo features her cradling the baby. The day meant for the new mother turns into a retelling of her own labor and delivery from years ago. Whatever she decided to wear, new or dug out of the closet, must be the outfit she keeps on for the ride home or the christening. The moment events drift off the track she pictured, she falls apart. A sudden family tragedy leaves her stranded because she never once rehearsed for it, and the rest of the household struggles to stay focused on the person actually hurt and on what the situation calls for.
She carries a fixed blueprint for how her life is supposed to run. A husband who adores her and never wavers. The house she always wanted. Children who turn out successful and attentive, who marry a partner of the opposite sex from the right racial and cultural background, and who then produce the expected grandchild or grandchildren of the expected gender. Nowhere in this picture is there room for things to go sideways, which is odd, since the odds of life refusing to follow the script sit at nearly one hundred percent. She has a plan A and nothing else behind it.
For the most part, the trouble her rigidity creates lands on everyone around her, and they are the ones who quietly sort it out rather than her. The real crisis arrives when a problem is unmistakably hers and no one is left to carry it. Think of her having to survive the death of the spouse she leaned on and organized her whole world around. The denial she usually reaches for stops working at that point, and what she spent years avoiding finally arrives in full.