After reading approximately 150 or so pages over the course of the last week, during commute or while waiting for hogs to show up so I can take pictures, the main term my mind came back to over and over was "Geltungsdrang", which I believe has no equal in the English language.
It is a German word (because of course, those Germans have a word for everything) meaning "the drive to matter" or perhaps "the urge to be acknowledged". It is of course, a very human desire - on the one hand we are social animals, so validation from others is a sensible goal, on the other we are intellectual creatures and require purpose, so that we may "matter", within and without so to speak.
But Geltungsdrang is often used when referring to people who feel a deep sense of insignificance and desperately try to find some way to receive the external confirmation that will prove to them that their existence is relevant, that others acknowledge it as being valid (it's the behavior springing from an inferiority complex basically) - to fill that void that healthy people can fill by other means.
Her religious convictions allow her to consider herself validated by the highest of forces, while simultaneously creating a huge out-group that she can consider herself superior to. Finally, Melinda matters.
She spawns many children that she home schools and raises mostly on her own, so that she can fulfill her role as mother at all times while ensuring that in turn, her children adore her (and only her, because they are isolated). Finally, Melinda matters.
A husband and a stalker, the former no doubt coveted by many other women (she has to check his phone because he is such a stud) want her and clearly only her. Finally, Melinda matters.
And now, that she has achieved not only a DEGREE, but built such an amazing family, those filled with jealousy or sin or some other deficiency have banded together to stop her - an entire group of online bullies, working in cohorts with real life antagonists, past and present, have it in for HER specifically and are working together to harass her. And FINALLY, Melinda matters.
Sorry for the armchair psychology, but it really is like a checklist, especially given her family history, burning bridges, the way she tries to find a surrogate when her father is no longer around to talk to her, the fact that she sees her dismissed lawsuits as a sign the judge is personally trying to further her growth, all the details she has voluntarily relinquished on this thread - and of course, the fact that she comes back. Over. And over. Again.