difficult child Lying, sort of.....

Mikey

Psycho Gorilla Dad
[Re-posted from General, was in the wrong forum)

Okay, this is weird - maybe someone else here has gone through this and can give me some perspective?

difficult child lies - duh! But it's not the lying, but the type of lies he's telling. Primarily, he does everything he can to make us think he has a miserable life at school, hates his therapist, and is generally unhappy. But, when I follow up with the schools and the therapist, they're completely stunned by difficult child's comments.

Example: difficult child has informed me several times that he wants to quit his "shrink sessions" - that he hates them, he gets nothing out of them, and they're a waste of his time. I tell him "okay, go to the one you've already scheduled, but don't schedule any more". As he's coming out of his latest session, he's in a great mood, and immediately schedules his next session. Hunh? Therapist says that sessions are going well, progress is being made, and he's always in a great mood afterwards.

Example 2: difficult child informs us that his Graphics class is a waste of time - that he spends the whole time surfing the web, goofing off, and generally just playing around on computers. Talked to the teacher today, who said that he's not only NOT goofing off, but he's up on all of his assignments, is engaged in every activity, pays attention when instruction is offered, and actually seems excited about several of the projects he's been assigned and completed.

This also goes along with his boasts of being a "king stoner", but his random UA's don't bear that out (he had two consecutive negatives late last year, when he was REALLY acting out).

:hammer:

There are other examples, but you get the gist. I understand lying to hide something, lying to get something, lying to make something appear better than it is. But why would he lie and make his apparently improving (and somewhat happy) life seem worse than it is to us?

Dazed and confused.....

Mikey
 

KFld

New Member
Maybe he likes to come off as a bad :censored2:. He doesn't want people to think he actually doesn't mind going to therapy and that he's actually doing well in school. Could just be a whole image thing. Maybe you should just try ignoring the negative comments he makes or say something like, sorry your feeling that way, and change the subject. Sounds like he's seeking some kind of attention from the lies, so don't give him the attention he's looking for.

Don't know if that makes sense, and I could be completely wrong, but then again, maybe not :smile:
 

Mikey

Psycho Gorilla Dad
That's what I was thinking. Or maybe he's scared to admit that good things are happening because then people will expect him to "keep it up". So far, every positive change has been because he chose to make the change. He could, if he wanted to, just as easily "revert" back to his old nasty ways, if he chose to (and so far, he chooses to continue improvement in some areas).

I'm hoping it's just him trying to keep his autonomy, and keep our expectations (and demands) low. I hope it isn't some weird need on his part to cause us pain. Planning to bring it up with his therapist, but I thought I'd put it out there for the rest of the CD gang to comment on as well.

Thanks,

Mikey

 

SunnyFlorida

Active Member
Sounds to me like he's not quite comfortable with himself. Like it's an image problem. He wants to be "cool" and cool does this and that. He certainly sounds like he's walking' the walk and talkin' a different talk :smile:
 
Top