Parent with severe mental illness

[water747]

Hi
My mom suffers from numerous mental illnesses PTSD, depression, anxiety etc. She has started to lie frequently about very mundane things to make them seem grand. For example we passed by a McDonald's and she said to me "you are related to the McDonald's. Our last name used to be MacDonald. Someone probably just dropped the 'a' in our name."
Another example as we were driving through a historic area in the city we passed a low brick wall she said to me "those bricks have been there since the revolutionary war."
It's possible she is correct but she was just guessing. She had never seen the brick wall before. It's like a cross between magical thinking out loud and a bit of histrionic behavior. I would like to understand so that I can be empathetic.