Anxiety and lying.

emeraldkity4
Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:33:43 +0000

When I was a child/teen- I was a very proficient liar. ( or I thought I was)
Not to hurt anyone, or to avoid punishment, but to avoid stress.
One case that really sticks out in my mind, was when I was in Girl Scouts , I think I was 7, and we were working on a badge as a troop. I was painfully shy & anxious, so much that I would do almost anything to avoid talking to most people, especially adults. Every time I tried to get one of the leaders to sign my book for this particular badge, they either didn’t hear me or they were busy so that when it came time to turn all of our books in to be checked for the badges to be ordered, I took a * crayon* and signed it myself as neatly as I could. :o

Of course then, it was discovered & they confronted me-but in a way that I couldn’t answer truthfully. It makes me angry now, because they knew that I had finished the badge, as it had been a group activity & as adults- they could have signed all the books at once.

Later I learned to lie to tell adults what they wanted to hear- as it was easier than trying to explain to them why I wasn’t doing what they thought I should be doing. Like when my parents expected me to be popular- I lied about what I was doing at school. I didn’t tell them I spent the entire lunch time walking the halls because I didn’t have any friends- so I made up stories which they ate right up.

It was very hard to stop trying to sugar coat everything & it took me a long time to stop all the lying- because I had to get to a place where I wasn’t so anxious.

My daughter I think is in that place. I don’t think she does it very much, but while I have caught her in some relatively innocuous lies- I don’t know how to get through to her that it is worse to lie, than to tell the truth when you make a mistake , as it makes the mistake more of a mess to clean up.

it is so frustrating, because of the anxiety- I find it difficult if not impossible to get the truth- to discipline her or at least be able to react in some way- but at the same time reassure her so that she may be more likely to tell the truth next time.

Again they are relatively small things- and not intentional but big enough to cause me problems .
Anyone else have to deal with this and have suggestions?