ODD or just being a teen?

Ckasa

New Member
oh boy.. this will be long, but I'm hoping I will get some help or opinion out of this.

I'm thinking my friend which is a self proclaimed sociopath has ODD, because he meets the criteria below.

* Losing temper
* Arguing with adults
* Refusing to follow the rules
* Deliberately annoying people
* Blaming others
* Easily annoyed
* Angry and resentful
* Spiteful or even revengeful

He's 15 year old and I've been his friend for 3 years and during these all the negative aspects of him just seem to get worse to the point I can't stand him anymore. I'm a girl who likes guys company better than girls because I like sports and games so I believe guys and girls can be platonic friends. Although from last summer, whenever we are alone he keeps on pressuring me to have sex with him. No matter how many times I tell him no or tell him to stop putting his arms around me, he won' stop. He's a hypocrite, manipulative, sexually active, attention seeker and he thinks he's cooler than everybody else around him that gets lots of girls with his charm. He has already scared his father away by pulling out knife on him and pushing his mother around. He hasn't gone to school for months before the summer started.

Now... I want to help him to become better of a person and make better choices in his life, but I'm just a friend of his that can't just drift away from him like many other friends do and care enough to want to do something. I'm not also his parent but his parents are tired to take care of their 6th son and they want a self centered, happy life with jade in every corner in the house. Plus he hangs out with people that is just more messed up than him, but at least he's not on drugs from what I know. Only cigs.

My friend (ex-girlfriend of his) and I are planning to have a nice long talk and to even get to that point where we can just sit and talk, we'll have to tape him around a chair so he wouldn't run away from us. We want to tell him how much he's hurting other ppl, show him our point of view and make him think coz we know he's just an attention seeker with low self-esteem trying to cover it up with anything a teen would think he's cool. There's a gotta be a part of him that he cares. We'll not duct tape his mouth unless he becomes too rude, but we want to hear his thoughts and opinion.

I want to know if this is a good idea and I'd like to know if there are other ways that could help him realize and make him want to change himself for better. Or is this just a helpless case so I should drift away from him so that I will not get raped and corrupted by him?

 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Was he always this way? Are you 100% sure he isn't drinking heavily or even smoking pot? My daughter changed when she started doing these things. She became like a different person. You're a very mature kid and a good friend!
 

nvts

Active Member
I want to know if this is a good idea and I'd like to know if there are other ways that could help him realize and make him want to change himself for better. Or is this just a helpless case so I should drift away from him so that I will not get raped and corrupted by him?

Hi! There is a point in this life where you have to look out for yourself and well-being. I really respect the person that you are and are likely to become (I only have 1 female friend - and I went to an all girl high school - ALL of the rest are still guys - and I'M 2 years older than dirt!!).

Here's the deal: He might have ODD, he might be rebelling, he might be doing drugs, he might be straight, he might, he might, he might. The bottom line here: you wouldn't have written the above if you weren't even slightly concerned for your own safety. Teens are dealt a rough hand compared to when I was younger, society itself is way worse than when I was 15 everything is upside down. You have reason to worry - he's headed down a lousy path. Can you talk to your mom & dad, a friends mom & dad, a school counselor, any trusted adult? This kid sounds like he needs some serious help, but I worry that things could get nasty if you discuss it with him.

Please let us know if we can offer any help - even just an ear to listen and bang ideas up against!

You truly are awesome, and I'd like to think I'd have been as responsible as you!

Beth
 

Ckasa

New Member
Was he always this way? Are you 100% sure he isn't drinking heavily or even smoking pot?
Unless it's occasional, but he's not that much into those kind of things unless there's peer pressure. Plus a friend made him smoke half a pack a day, but that friend moved far away so now he only smokes a couple of cigs a day.
He wasn't always like this. I think insufficient support from his parents (little problems can seem big without a good support) and hanging out with wrong people slowly made him this way.

You're a very mature kid and a good friend!
Thank you :smile: I'm lucky I've had a good combination of influences, parents and experiences.
 

Ckasa

New Member
Can you talk to your mom & dad, a friends mom & dad, a school counselor, any trusted adult? This kid sounds like he needs some serious help, but I worry that things could get nasty if you discuss it with him.

I talked to my mom and she said it'd be a good idea to talk with him. I didn't know who else to talk to so i found this forum. I do think he needs help, but I don't think his parents will be much of a help and I have no idea who else would help him except for me and maybe his ex-girlfriend. He's not that dangerous, plus his brother is my friend too. I will get his help for this. It could turn nasty like "he will hate me forever" way, but if it gets worse than this, finally he'll be bad enough to have some help from society. I was a little concerned of my safety, but I'm concerned about him and the people around him too. That's why I want to do this. Plus I don't want to break the friendship between me and his brother just because of him.
 

busywend

Well-Known Member
Do you know of ANY adults that he gets along with? A teacher, counselor at school, security at school, sports coach, ANY ADULT????

If there is any adult that has had in any way a positive impact on his life - get that adult to be there for the talk. That will hopefully make you safer confronting your friend.

I would be sure to have alot of printed material. You can not just say 'I think...' or 'You are...'

You need facts and real life examples. Also, try to find success stories with people that improved due to medications and/or counseling. You really have to plan an intervention. And I strongly believe you should have an adult with you.

It is possible even he does not think he would do anything to harm you - bit he still could given circumstances.
Also, if he is bipolar - he could be hypersexual - be careful!
 

busywend

Well-Known Member
Oh I want to stress that he may not be able to control some of his actions and reactions - so you really can not count on just knowing 'the kind of guy he is'.
 

Ckasa

New Member
I don't know any adult he gets along with. He doesn't trust any adult and he even gets beaten up by older brothers that he doesn't see too often. He listens to his brother's ex-girlfriend so I was thinking I could ask her for some help too.

I'm doing a lot of research and carefully putting words together, but I should look up more about ODD, the medications/counseling.

He has done no harm at least to me, that is why I think he has ODD instead of CD, but he's not becoming any nicer so I want to stop that.
 

nvts

Active Member
Hi! Just checking in: did you get anyone to help you out with this? I wonder if you mailed some of the research that you've done to his parents if that might wake them up a litte. It couldn't hurt!

Still concerned that you need an adult to help talk to him about this. Make sure that he knows your intent is to help rather than to criticize, but definately make sure that someone is with you if you do decide to talk to him.

KIT

Beth
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Wow, you've taken on quite a burden. You are a caring person.
No matter how caring you are, this kid sounds so messed up, I don't know that he will listen to you at all, and that he won't lash out at you. IOW, no matter how caring you are, it won't take the place of professionals, and yrs of counseling or even Tough Love.
I'm not sure taping him to a chair is a good idea... I don't know if you were being facetious or serious... Expect that he's going to explode and that he may never forgive you. If that's okay, and he's gone for good, you can assure yourself that you did your best.
Plus, since he's so manipulative and he's pressuring you for sex and you don't want to, there's an imbalance in the relationship right there and it already sounds rocky.
So much responsibility for such a young person...

Wish I had some advice, but you've already gotten good advice from the people here.

Good luck! And welcome to our world. Sorry you had to find us.
 

Ckasa

New Member
Hahah.. yeah..
I realized the taping plan wouldn't work. I found a behavioral treatment in local area. I talked about this with his brother but he's around him 24/7 so he thinks nothing is wrong with his little brother. Even I thought he's not as bad to be in a program, but he isn't getting any better and whenever I talk about this with other people they think he's messed up. I'm hoping I'll get an email from the program with more info before I take this to his mother and talk with her. Although now I don't even know if I should even do something, except for making him stop pressuring me into sex.

Is professional help necessary or should I just let it be until something happens?
 

Ckasa

New Member
The only help I've gotten so far was talking with my friends and my mom. Nobody seems to care enough to actually do something. Although I'm not going for the taping plan anymore, I'm thinking to talk with him a little by little whenever there's something about him that disturbs me.
 
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flutterbee

Guest
Good for you for being such a good person and compassionate friend.

Your friend sounds A LOT like my "second son" (he even introduces me as his second mom) and while there is probably a lot of overcompensating for self-esteem issues, there is also a lot of anger and that is what you need to protect yourself from. Anger is often used as a protective mechanism and can be the first emotion some jump to so they don't feel the hurt or rejection, etc. Even though I'm an adult and am close friends with his mother, there is only so much I can do. He spends a lot of time at my house - even when my son isn't home - I let him know that he can talk to me, and I try to talk to him, but as I am not his parent there isn't a whole lot I can do in terms of him seeking counseling, etc. I doubt his mother could even make him go. Well, she could make him go but she couldn't make him participate. It has to be something he wants to do. If you can make him see that this is something that needs to change, make it something he wants to do...well, that's most of the battle right there.

I agree with the poster who said to arm yourself with information. Unfortunately, a lot of our kids don't seem to learn from other's experiences...the "that's them, not me" line of reasoning. My second son seems to think the difference between him and those that get caught is that they were stupid and he's not. :rolleyes: It's only been sheer luck and that will eventually run out. Even watching his best friend go to juvie for a long stint has taught him nothing. It was someone else's fault, I'm sure.
 
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flutterbee

Guest
I wanted to add that even though my second son can be a major PITA and brings a lot of trouble on himself and others (he was staying with his friend this week and friend's dad said he couldn't stay there anymore...again, not his fault though...sigh...), he has a good heart. That's probably what you are responding to. You see that flicker of good in him that tells you that he can be better....that he's not just a bad seed. It's hard to walk away when you care and have hope. However, if it becomes too much for you it is ok to walk away and I hope, if it comes to that, that you can do so without beating yourself up or thinking you failed him. It sounds like you've already done more than most.
 
M

ML

Guest
She sound very much like my son. I agree with the summer routine! Of course we got some summer homework because the red and green reading groups were the only ones who got it. He's a fine reader, he just has trouble reading in front of others (anxiety) AND focus and attention and all that is nill. Homework is horrible and I can't even imagine what the demand in higher grades will do to us. Hugs, Michele
 

Marguerite

Active Member
Hi, Ckasa. I was like you, I always preferred male company because I liked the same topics. I never liked hanging around with the girls talking about babies, boys, make-up and fashion (couldn't afford it, anyway) and I much preferred hanging around with the guys tinkering under a car bonnet.

The problems I encountered -
some guys can misunderstand, and want more from a relationship that you are prepared to give.
Some females (adult as well as peers) can also misconstrue and label you very negatively. I had female classmates who ostracised me and female teachers who assumed I was a tart. They didn't see that the boys I hung around with were the ones who treated me as another one of the boys.

So watch out. It can get very nasty.

Regarding this boy I have a few concerns for you.

1) You are his friend. He sees you as something more but you are doing your best to control THAT situation.
BUT - whatever his emotional needs, you do not want your status in his eyes to change. Your aim is for him to continue to see you as just a friend. But as soon as you become a therapist, a parent, an organiser, a counsellor, you take on a different role.
Whatever has messed up his head, chances are it involves some adult in one of those roles who mishandled the situation. You do not want to be identified with that person.
Example - my daughter, easy child 2/difficult child 2 was going out with a guy whose mother simply left him to raise himself. She provided a roof over his head and paid his school fees. She would give him money to buy food or clothes. Sometimes she would be home; sometimes she would go out and maybe not come home for days. I met her - she looked (and acted) like a kid herself. Sex in the City lifestyle.
So when my daughter began going out with this guy, she began to look after him. Helped him with grooming; helped him cook and clean. Cuddled him, cozened him, soothed him, comforted him when his mother was off with a new boyfriend. The troubles developed because boyfriend really needed a mother, not a girlfriend. And by putting my daughter into the 'mother' pigeonhole, boyfriend inadvertently doomed the relationship. Because in his mind, he could not separate his girlfriend's form of 'mother' from his own incompetent parent. Plus, a sexual relationship feels really weird when you see this person as your mother!
It killed their relationship stone dead. He simply couldn't reconcile his girlfriend with ANY parental role and yet he kept shoving her there. He became demanding, "Where have you been? I need you to help me with my hair!" and also using her for money when his mother wouldn't give him any.

So be careful. Whatever you do with this guy, if it goes beyond what you normally find in a friendship, you risk a great deal.

2) My daughter's ex-boyfriend was fairly stable, but this happened. With a guy who claims to be a sociopath, he's already telling you he isn't stable. he's giving you fair warning. He's also telling you that he doesn't want to change.

3) You can't change a person. They have to choose to change. They also have to make that choice without being influenced into it. The most you can do, without ever having to be accused of pushing them into it, is to lay the choices before him. After that he has to make his own decisions.

4) If you do more than an average friend would do, he will perceive you as more than an average friend. What this means to him is anybody's guess, but chances are, it won't be pretty. GO CAREFULLY.

5) And now to you - what is it about YOU that makes you want to rescue him? Is it possible for you to be anyone's friend, and not try to fix them? Are you casting yourself constantly in the role of rescuer? If so, why do you not value yourself as you are? Why do you have to make yourself as useful as possible, to consider yourself to be a person of worth? I worry about your own self-esteem and where this is coming from, in you. Because you sound a great deal like my best friend. She now realises, she collects lame ducks. I suspect she saw me as a lame duck when we first met (well, lame, anyway). She tries to fix things, to do nice things for people, to be there for them, to support them, to try and help them through a depressive patch or a sad time. And what ends up happening - she especially reaches out to the sad cases that nobody else wants to help. She refuses to consider that there are often good reasons why you shouldn't do this - other people will stop helping someone who refuses to be helped, or is a user. You can get badly hurt, and still not have helped anyone. You can also find yourself time and time again, getting suckered by some very unstable and vindictive characters. With my friend, I can see it happening. I can't tell her, I can't do a thing. Sometimes when she talks about it and asks why so-and-so treated her like dirt, I point out, "You lie in the door and say, 'walk over me' and wonder why she treats you like a doormat?"
My friend was emotionally abused as a child. She then married an abuser - once again, she was trying to 'save' him. But it turned out, he wasn't interested in being helped. he just pretended to be, so he would have a good character witness to his latest rape charge. Her husband pleaded with her to help, saying he hadn't done it anyway, he wasn't like that, and my friend believed him. It wasn't until years later she found out the truth - after he left her for another woman.
My friend had been set up for a bad marriage (and some of her bad friendships) by her abused background. her self-esteem rock-bottom, she felt that if she could help people and make THEM happier, then SHE would be happier. She is a wonderful person and I love her to bits, but I want her to feel good about herself even when she can't do good things for other people.

And I have to admit, I'm a bit like that too. And I think you are too, very much. So watch out - until you understand WHY you are like this, you are setting yourself up for a lot of pain without necessarily a lot of result to justify it.

Learn to value yourself purely for who you are, not for what you do.

You want to be a good friend - don't try to change him. Don't nag (puts you in a parental role, or a teacher role). Don't tell him too much about what he should do (or maybe even could do) because it puts you in a controlling role, and almost by definition, he HATES people who try to control him. I suspect that if he snaps, it won't be pretty.

If you want to help him, then just listen. But also keep yourself sufficiently apart so you don't send him mixed messages about your intentions.

And now finally, a story about myself from when I was your age - at our church, our pastor had a mission to 'save' young men who were heading for a criminal career. He would bring one young man in particular, to our youth group. He felt that by bringing Fred (not his real name) to our group he would surround Fred with good influences.
But the pastor didn't really do much else. Fred got romantically involved with a number of "nice young gels" whose mothers were NOT happy. He was an emotional basket-case, threatening self-harm if his girlfriend couldn't visit, or wouldn't skip school to see him, or if he had another charge to appear in court for. He was basically using emotional blackmail to get the various GFs to do what he wanted.
And, of course, they wanted to help him. So they gave in to his childish tantrums. Hey, none of us were equipped to deal with him, we were just kids.

Fred brought HIS friends to our youth group. While Fred WAS interested in rehabilitation, his friends weren't. They just wanted a good time. And t he pastor was not paying attention.

One night, youth group was a discussion group, held at my parents' home. We all had a pleasant evening but these crim types clearly didn't know the social rules. When it was 11 pm and time for Youth group to finish, the other "nice young men" got up to leave. Fred's mates waved goodbye but didn't move. I made more coffee. A Telethon was starting on TV and these guys were watching it. My parents were glaring at me - but what could I do?
I talked with them a while longer and I thought I noticed signs of them getting ready to leave - they wanted to buy beer and we didn't have any. Then my father found one of them going through our bathroom cabinet, and that snapped him into action - he asked them all to leave.

One of them, "Steve", told me, a year later, what happened next. Fred went home. He had to meet with the pastor next day about a job. The rest went back to Steve's place. Steve had a fridge full of beer (he was the only one legally old enough to buy it). They watched the telethon and drank beer. At about 2 am, Steve was asleep and the others were into mischief. They went up and down the street stealing milk bottles just delivered by the milkman. They brought them back and put them in Steve's fridge. Then they drank more beer and feel asleep on the back veranda.
Steve was woken by a knock on the door - the cops. The others had been seen swiping milk. The police came inside and went to the fridge - Steve thought he was still dreaming (or on something) when he saw that all the beer had apparently metamorphosed into milk. Because it was obvious that Steve had been asleep (and was clearly still too incapable of having been up to mischief) he didn't get charged. The others did. because two of them were under 16, they went to reform school. The others, who all had petty crim records, went to jail.
Steve sobered up and joined the army.

Meanwhile the pastor brought along another bloke. I wondered why we had an apparently older bloke at Youth Group. I did the polite thing and introduced myself, he told he his name. He seemed quiet and nice - a change after that last lot. Fred was fitting in well by this stage, on his 3rd girlfriend and still not dead. But this bloke - I kept running into him, he seemed to be following me like a puppy. he finally told me he had just got out of jail.
"What for?" I asked.
"Carnal knowledge," he told me. (That was an old charge now replaced. It referred to sex of ANY kind with an under-age girl). Basically, he was a pedophile. And like an idiot, I'd already given him my address in the city so he could write to me - I had just left home, at 17, to go to uni.

A few months later, I was having a study evening in my city bedsitter, when this bloke turned up. I'd already received a few worrying letters from him - signed "SWALK" which I didn't even know what it meant. Then he turned up - luckily, my friends (all male - like I said, I get on better with males than females) recognised the problem and didn't leave. This bloke had brought some love tokens - two barbecued chickens. So everybody ate barbecued chicken.

I was stuck - didn't know what to do. I was so glad of my mates, though, for sticking around and outstaying this bloke. He had arrived at 10 pm, just as my friends were about to leave (like, WHY do you go visiting an underage girl, uninvited, on her own, in the city, at 10 pm?). They ended up staying until this fella left, at 2 am. One of my friends stayed and slept on the couch. My bedsitter had a ground-floor window that didn't lock and I was so scared for months after, until I moved away.

This bloke probably didn't wish me any harm at all, it's just that he had NO idea of how to behave. I could easily have been raped because he didn't know what rape was, or how to interact appropriately. So sad.
But when you're 17 and terrified, you realise you have to keep yourself safe. And my friends - what made them good friends? They asked no questions. They gave me no advice. They just saw a need and made sure they were there for me to lean on. Nothing more.

Sorry this is so long, but I thought it would help, to go into a bit more detail.

Marg
 

Ckasa

New Member
Thank you so much for taking your time to write all that, it sure helped me.

I was already thinking why do I want to help him? The main reason is probably because I became friends with one of his ex-girlfriends for the first time. So I'm not going to pressure him to change or anything anymore. Although I think if he doesn't go school once it starts this September and if something else happens, I'll to talk with his mother and maybe suggest her to put him in an innovative program.

One thing I will change is my way of being around him. I will make sure I don't seem like more than friends to him and talk to him when there's something about him that bothers me. I will try my best not to sound like I'm against him, but to get his reasons behind his actions.
 
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