Anxiety and lying.

Momneedsadvice
Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:14:34 +0000

Emeraldkity, I am so sorry to hear about your past.

I don’t want to sound like Ann Landers, but we went thru something similar with D, and a couple months of therapy helped. D had always been the “happy” one in our house. All her life, when confronted with a decision that wasn’t a moral one (i.e. should I stay with this activity? Should I join that club?) I would say to her, “We just want you to be happy.” What I meant was: we just want what’s best for you in the long run, and we want you to make the choices that are right for you. What D heard was, “If you’re not happy, we’ll be disappointed.” I had NO idea that was her interpretation of what we were saying to her until she hit a crisis during her freshman year in high school. She was smiling and telling me all was fine, until another mom told me that she had heard a rumor about D and she felt obligated to tell me, because if it were her daughter she’d want to know what was being said about her. When I asked D about it she reassured me it was false. I later overheard D’s conversation with a friend and realized the rumor was semi-true - the situation wasn’t as bad as the rumor said, but D had been engaging in a behavior I never thought she would do at her age. When we confronted her she cried, then told us what was going on. She said she did it because she thought it would make her feel better, and that she thought she was depressed. All her middle school friends had turned on her, she had nowhere to sit at lunch, kids were whispering behind her back, etc. When we said, “Why didn’t you talk to us if you were unhappy and having problems?” she said, “Because I thought you would be disappointed.”

A few sessions with a therapist showed D that although she had assumed responsibility for making the rest of the family happy, that it really wasn’t her job. If she felt stressed, or sad, she was free to show it. If there was conflict, she didn’t have to avoid it. The therapist also explained this to us, and gave us instances of times going back to early childhood where D had hid news from us that she thought would make us unhappy.

D is now a junior. This fall she was unhappy with some things involving one of her good friends, and frustrated with her relationship with her coach. But when she got home, she told us how mad she was, and how the situation made her feel. We didn’t try to resolve it, but we sympathized and told her to “hang in there, even though it’s frustrating, you can’t control other people, you can only do your best.” And after a week or two she cheered up. I honestly think that if it hadn’t been for the therapy, she wouldn’t have confided in us and had an outlet for her feelings, and she might be finding opportunities for inappropriate behavior in an attempt to make herself feel better again.

So a good therapist may be worth the investment. Good luck!