Hi Kyle!

Was there a reason that you didn’t see your father for months? In a typical co-parenting relationship the time with each parent would be split 50-50.

How did your mom respond when you asked as a child to spend more time with your father?

It sounds like you were bullied in high school. Would you agree? Children and teens can be very cruel to each other.

I don’t know if what you surmised about how your friendships ended is true. I’m not suggesting that you are lying. But relationships come and go a lot in life. Perhaps no matter how you behave they would have ended? It is unfair to blame yourself for that. There are at least two people in a friendship. The other party is also responsible for keeping or ending the friendship.

Sometimes in school we have a limited choice of friends and we are just with anyone who will accept us. They might not even be good friends.

Did you know that you were adopted as a child? Do you have any feelings about being adopted?

I don’t think it seems like you are painting your mom out to be a bad person. Quite the contrary, you are defending her. I am not trying to suggest that this is your mom’s fault. But there generally reasons behind the way we behave.

You mentioned that you feel shame and that you break your mother’s trust when you make mistakes.

Are there any other mistakes that you’ve made relevant to your mom other than the false report and the difficulties with school work?

You mentioned that you feel shame about these situations and that lying is your mom’s pet peeve and she gets mad. More and more as time goes on.

A common reason why we learn to lie or hide our behaviour is when people respond poorly when we tell the truth. Another reason could be that it was your father that initially encouraged this behaviour.

Personally, I can understand why a little boy who barely gets to spend any time with his father can be coerced into saying something untrue in the hopes that they would spend more time with their father.

What happened was unfortunate, but it also wasn’t wholly your fault. It would have never happened if your father hadn’t coaxed you into action. You were manipulated.

I think you have a lot of good character to want to change this behaviour stemming from childhood.

Honestly, you aren’t the first person to lie about difficulties with school work. This is understandable too! It’s not ideal, but it’s not the end of the world.

Did your mom put any pressure on you to succeed in school?

It sounds like you carry a lot of shame. The difficulty about emotions is that sometimes we believe emotionally, something different from what logically we know to be true.

But when a mother rejects you because of mistakes it is easy to internalise that. In your mind her being mad is understandable, but in your heart you feel shame and mistrust.

It can feel like love is conditional, something that we don’t deserve when we make mistakes. What do you think?

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by Helcat.