Disturbing imaginary friends

[LaineyW]

Does anyone else's teen have imaginary friends? I'm very worried about my dd as one of her friend's mum has just phoned me to say that my dd has spun a massive web of imaginary people, told friends she's in a band, horrid things about me and her dad etc. etc. I'm completely shell-shocked. She's bright, pretty, high achiever etc. etc. I have no idea what to do. Why is she doing this? She has a good home life but has got in with a bunch of older kids at school (she's 13, 14 in August, lots of her friends are in Y10). Any ideas?

She's obviously stretching the truth which i think is different to imaginary friends. You should speak to the Pastoral Care Officer at school and see if he/she can get to the bottom of it. I bet she'd be horrified if you knew

I did something similar at that age - I think it was just an attempt to make my life appear much cooler or something along those lines.
Was absolutely mortified when my parents found out (they were as horrified as you).
Can I just reassure you that it was just a stupid, 'teenagey' thing to do? It never happened again, and I didn't do it because I hated my parents or anything like that.

Well I've just spent a very uncomfortable half an hour with another friend's mum and it seems that my dd has been creating people on the internet who have then gone out with her friends. Obviously they've never met up but they've presumably had long intimate conversations with each other, all the time not knowing that their 'boyfriend' was really my daughter and never actually existed.

I feel utterly devastated. My dd talks about these characters all the time (there are about four of them altogether) and tells me about their lives etc. etc. in great detail. I'm beginning to wonder if it might be a multi-personality disorder thing?? Don't know how she's going to be able to face everyone at school now that the truth has come out. It's a nightmare. Wish me luck when I talk to her about it after school today...

Oh LaineyW- i don't have any advice but of course i wish you luck for your talk with dd after school.

Just a thought, but has your dd friend's mum heard these stories for herself or has it come from her dd?xxxxxxxxxxx

Most of the stuff has come from the friends but one of the mums (who's just popped round with flowers! which reduced me to tears immediately...) told me she'd had a conversation with dd about her cousin who dh and I have apparently adopted and who was involved in a car accident earlier this year. All total fabrication. She does have a cousin but he has a different name and hasn't been in a car accident as far as I know!

I feel as if I've been hit by a sledgehammer.

Lainey - I think this is really quite common though. As I said, I was a top fabricator as a teenager (though your dd's level is quite staggering I agree).
I also went out with a boy for nearly 6 months who kept talking about his supposedly absent dad and what this dad was up to in great detail (elaborate wedding etc., etc.). I found out about a year after we split up that his dad had died when he was a little boy.
I'm sure your dd will be utterly, utterly mortified. And then hopefully never do it again after realising just what a silly thing to do this is. Good luck for this afternoon.

This is completly different to your problem really but after reading your thread I keep thinking about it and how it might apply. Perhaps it may help you see how your dd will feel.

When I was about 13 I fancied this boy and one day when we were at a friends house we had a cuddle on the bed - nothing more. When I got home I was so excited I wrote about how I'd "done stuff" with this boy in my diary. A few days later I was confronted by my mum who had read my diary and decided I was having sex with this boy. I was so embarressed, I had to explain to my mum that I had elaborated what had happened in my writing and that all we had done was have a little cuddle.

I was totally mortified when my mum confronted me with it and it took me weeks to get over the embarressment.

I know it's quite different but I hope you can see how embarressed your dd will be when you talk to her about this. I think you should take a sensitive approach.

Good luck.

Thanks for all your messages on this topic. We talked to dd yesterday afternoon after school. At first she denied any knowledge of the whole thing but after a little more coaxing and prodding she visibly crumbled in front of us.

She told us she's created these characters (two boys in particular) because it was what she wanted to be like (self-esteem problem I guess) and she'd really liked them. It seemed natural to her that when her friends were really down, she could take on these personas and actually 'go out' with her friends, albeit on line. She told us that her friends confided things in the imaginary boys that they wouldn't dream of telling her in person.

What worries us more than anything is that she kept up this facade at home with us too, talking about these boys almost daily for almost 18 months...I'm worry it's symptomatic of something bigger, maybe something like the beginnings of multiple personality disorder? God forbid. I'm going to see my GP this afternoon for advice.

Luckily for dd, her friends have rallied round, accepted her explanation and decided to put it all behind them and start afresh with no more lies.

She's a very lucky girl...it could so easily have gone the other way with her being shunned and her life made a complete misery.

Hope the GP can put your mind at rest xxx

Oh how frightening for you Lainey, but please don't worry about personality disorders or anything like that. When it comes down to it your dd has a complete understanding of what is fact and what is fantasy. She's not mixing the two up as she might if she had any sort of mental problem. But she has let things get out of hand, which the internet makes so much easier.

When I was your dd's I invented myself a whole family of brothers and sisters (I was an only child). I knew every detail down to their clothes, schools, their friends, birthdays, arguments etc. I would have been mortified if anyone had discovered this, but if I had had the temptation of the internet (anonymity where you make yourself whatever you want to be) I am fairly sure my imaginary family would probably have had internet personalities. In RL I exaggerated to friends how close I was to my cousins to make them sound like siblings.

To me it really sounds like your dd just needs to grow the confidence to believe that she's a special person as she is, without reinventing herself. I'd try not to show her quite how worried and upset you are because her self-esteem is going to have to have enough of a battering while she faces up to her friends.

LaineyW, I'm sure that it will be more helpful to have the GP tell you this than a stranger online, but really you have NO need whatsoever to worry about MPD. It's extremely rare, and it's completely different from what you're describing - which is just a rich fantasy life and a vivid imagination, slightly misapplied.

Do you not think that by going on about multiple personality disorder, you may be doing exactly the same thing as your daughter? - i.e. making up an alternative version of reality that is more exciting than the real one? It's just that she's sustained it for a bit longer than you!

It sounds to me like you've all handled it very maturely, and you really need to get your feet as firmly on the ground about this as your daughters' friends have evidently done.

Your daughter sounds like she might have a great future as a creative writer or actor! And it's fantastic that you all managed to communicate about it so well yesterday.

How stressful for you!

Have you considered whether she might be sexually attracted to her friends, and is struggling with this?

I did something like this when I was a few years younger than your dd (still at primary school), I was going to namechange but I think I'll just admit it.

I don't want to go into too much detail about the things I said - it involved inventing characters and special powers and basically holding a group of other children in thrall for several months. It ended with one girl having terrible nightmares because of things I had said , and her parents coming to the school, understandably furious, and my mother having to come and speak to the headmistress. She was horrified. I felt terrible for ages, I really hadn't meant to hurt anyone. Once the fantasies became elaborate, and people believed them, it was hard for me to "remember" that they weren't real IYSWIM - I just got swept along and kept adding to it. It's hard to explain.

I am not mentally ill and I don't have multiple personality disorder, but I do have clinical depression and anxiety/panic disorder (although I didn't have quite as stable a home life as your dd). I'm NOT saying that your daughter has any of these problems, not at all - and if she did, it wouldn't be in any way your fault, they are clinical problems and are very treatable. I think you are doing the right thing in going to your GP - if there is a problem he can help, and if there isn't he can set your mind at rest.

A fresh start and lots of emotional support will be the best thing for your daughter, I think. I think you're handling it very well and you sound like a lovely mum.

My DD was the same at that age. She told all her friends at holiday kids club and school that I was actually her stepmum, not her real mum. She said her real mum died in a car crash, but her dad had married me coz he'd been having an affair with me for years and I'd had her real mum assassinated

I found out about this when I overheard her telling a load of old ladies the story at a family wedding, sitting there all sweet in her bridesmaid dress. I leapt out from behind a shrub and grabbed her by the back of the neck!

I agree with most posters. As a teen I made up alot of stories, including being in a band, holiday romances, that I had mental disorders etc, ridiculous lies for attention. Most teens go through this as they feel their own life is mundane and not interesting, or want people to pay more attention to them and think them more 'exotic' so to speak. It's usually caused by having friends with unusual life stories and wanting to measure up, or seeing the traumas and dramas of teens on TV shows and wanting to be like that. At around 15-16 I simply grew out of it, and realised my life was fine as it was. It's only something to be concerned about when they do it past this age, when people get hurt or upset by the lies, or your child is telling these stories to authority figures and causing trouble.