Unreliable

Daughter is a liar. There, I said it (or wrote it, as the case may be). It's one of the few symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder that still linger. We work on this constantly. It drives me crazy. There are times when it's crazy lying: I look at the dirty floor and she insists she mopped it, even as I point out the muddy footprint on it. That kind of lying is frustrating. There are other times, though, when it is dangerous.

Yesterday, during her appointment with Therapist, she finally acknowledged what I'd known: she's been sneaking extra food since we got back from Christmas. This lying is scary, because I was ready to increase her insulin, because she was consistently running high. She kept insisting she hadn't been into anything. She was lying. She begs me to trust her. She tells me she wants to earn my trust. She says all the right words. I want to believe her. I want to trust her.

Yesterday at supper, she told me something even more frightening: she's been lying to me about her blood sugar readings. The numbers she's been telling me aren't the real numbers. I watch her check her blood sugar. Then, instead of telling me the number that's on her meter, she makes something up.

She keeps reminding me that she's 21 years old, and that I need to back off and let her make her own decisions. She tells me she needs more independence. Yet she can't handle the responsibility that she does have. She can't give me accurate information so I can help keep her alive. We talked about why she lies to me. She says she's afraid to tell me the truth. We talk about what happens when she tells me the truth: nothing. I don't yell. There aren't consequences for getting into extra food. There aren't consequences for the lies, rather, I thank her when she finally tells me the truth.

We've done this battle for years. How do you tell professionals working with your child that she's a liar? Yet they need to be warned. I've always explained that she's not reliable, and they should check out her stories with me, and I will check out her stories with them. I'm tired of her being unreliable. It's very difficult to give her the kind of supervision that is necessary to catch her in the lies. There have been times when I've required her to stay in my line of sight at all times. I put the responsibility on her, but I still end up exhausted. I need space. Overall, though, I've discovered that for the most part all my efforts have done is helped her learn how to be sneakier. That definitely is not the lesson I had in mind....