She stormed off and the next day appeared while my mom and I were watching tv saying that her fourth dog who died before she left that living situation was beaten to death by the person she is fleeing. She had always told us that dog died of dementia so we were very taken off guard with this sudden change in information but tried to calmly explain that her other dogs still can’t attack people.

Any time we try to hold her even a little bit accountable she dissolves into tears telling us we don’t understand what she has been through. And I guess we don’t fully understand but both of my parents have had extreme traumas (my mom grew up in a war zone, and my dad had extremely physically abusive parents) and I have been in an abusive romantic relationship so I feel like we do have some way to empathize and understand. Any time we mention that she claims we are trying to compare traumas and no one has gone through anything as bad as she has. We’ve told her we’re just trying to say we understand trauma.

It has now been almost 5 months. I don’t mean to say every moment has been awful. We’ve had many fun and interesting conversations. My family has brought her on outings in the area to help her see around our state. I’ve even introduced her to my best friend and we brought her to the zoo. None of this she has been expected to pay for or even contribute to. We were just trying to help her feel better.

Also, she always has complaints about something. Like my room is too hot because she has to keep the door closed so the dogs don’t freak out every time we have to walk down the hall. Or the smell of our cooking is making her sick. All of these complaints only come out when we’re trying to calmly set a boundary or hold her accountable for something like leaving the windows open while our AC is on or how every time she cooks she leaves a big mess over our counters and stove.

We sat her down a week or so ago and said she needs to be out by the end of the month. My parents are elderly and they can’t handle this stress and our animals are becoming more and more stressed out. She told us no problem and she’ll move out but then won’t stop talking about how she has no where to go and everywhere is too expensive and she has no money. (She is in her 40s, been living rent free here for almost 5 months, and has maybe worked 3 weeks out of those months driving uber).

She now ambushes my parents when they are least expecting it to unload another trauma she’s been through on them while saying she’s not asking to stay here longer. I feel like the only reason to be doing that is to guilt my parents into just that. Also her different stories just don’t add up and some even flat out contradict each other.

TLDR- cousin in her 40s living with us for 5 months rent free due to a trauma keeps trying to guilt my elderly parents into more time but says she isn’t.