My soon-to-be 14 year old is freaking me out. He has setup elaborate fictional profiles online that seem to be begging for sympathy, attention, shock, and probably many other things. These profiles are graphic and tell fictional tales of an abused childhood and severe mental illness(es) including OCD, bipolar, depression, and ADD. I need a lot of advice on how to proceed!
Here's some more random history details.
- About a year ago, I found a myspace page where he profiled himself as a 21yo who lives in another state. That was minor and since he doesn't use myspace I looked past it.
- His dad is severely bipolar and therefore receives mental disability benefits. He cannot work. His dad is >30 but seems to be rather teenager-ish himself. They scheme together frequently.
- I'm a single parent and his father lives in another state.
- He respects 2 people in the near family the most and would feel ashamed if they knew.
- He has no diagnosed mental illness.
- He is highly gifted, but classic underachiever.
- He has 1 friend, had 1 girlfriend, and really is pretty shutdown to humans in general.
- He is homeschooling this year only, because I (not him) got so fedup with the public middle. He loves homeschooling, but since I work outside the home it is largely self-directed. We review nightly and study anything confusing on weekends.
- He recently told me he wanted to kill himself a couple years ago.
- He has not seen a psych, because I do not know how to go about finding an appropriate one. He needs a dr that can handle a kid who's smarter than many adults. The wrong doctor will be manipulated like putty in a small child's hands, so he needs someone that can handle his mentally and intellectually challenging behaviors. I do not believe those behaviors are anywhere close to the root of his problems, but he could definitely learn to temper them.
- Anything anti-society and he'll be all over it. His dad is the same way.
- In 4th grade, the school counselor was concerned because he wouldn't socialize with the other kids. He told me he simply hated them all and didn't want to socialize with them. They drive him crazy and stuff like that. So, the counselor formed a group of social misfits to meet in her office once a week. After the first session, the counselor pulled me into the office because she was happy with the results. She said he took over her role in the group. He led all the kids through various activities and discussion, literally taking over role of leader, teacher, and guidance counselor. She said he had the strongest empath ability she'd ever seen and that he can actually disable/enable it at-will. She was floored at how deeply he sensed emotions, actions, subtleties, and the overall emotional feel of a room. She said he chooses not to use it in everyday activities, preferring to further alienate himself from others. In the end, she decided after that first visit that he didn't fit into the group's purpose because he knew how to socialize.
- He's not violent. Not even a little bit. He's never committed a crime. He's big on safety.
- He wants to be a writer. He writes intense stuff now that people either love or hate, depending on whether they're easily offended.
- His dad has caught him stealing his writings and passing them off as his own.
He doesn't know that I've read and watched him online. I've joined chat rooms and watched him "socialize" with others. He certainly likes to stir up fights. The problem is, in the end, half the people thank him for bringing the issue forward. That's certainly encouraging him. He's banned from multiple forums and websites. He brags about it. He brags about ruining some websites that people paid to use. He's fitting the classic troll personality I suppose, in that their anger and their appreciation equally feed his demons.
His latest profile has graduated from college, switches races, and immigrated to the US (he's American, but not proud of it) after a childhood full of beatings, death, and illness. Apparently he's rich with lots of money to give away.
In real life, he's hinted to various things going down. He said it was easy to make people believe he's an adult on-line. I figured it was something harmless like the myspace profile. But, in the past few days, activity has stepped up and he's been wanting to check in with his father more often. He's just having a good ol' ball of fun. So yesterday, I started reviewing browser history, IM logs, and email. Tonight I started quietly stalking him online.
He believes he is doing the right thing. He pits users against the forum or site owners for the greater good. In his latest mission, half the forum wants him banned and the other half admire him. They all think he's an adult. One user contacted him through AIM. They've discussed their pot, sex, drinking, and mental troubles (all of which is fictional, btw). He told how his fiance was killed, his parents beat him up, and he's addicted to pot. Then 2 days later, he admits to the stranger (who he now calls a friend) that he's a young teen and nothing like his profile. And, worst of all, he told the guy his Real Name. And, the guy in response calls him a genius and compares him to V (for Vendetta). Ugh.
So, now what? Is this part of some normal teen rite of passage that somehow eluded me? Am I raising some kind of sociopath? Am I overthinking all of this? I need lots of advice, both on the possible source for all this crap internally and externally as well as next steps. Right now, I'm pretty angry and just want to remove his computer and phoneline to his dad. He must have the computer for schooling, though. I want to humiliate him on the sites involved, to take all the wind out of his deceitful little sails. But, I worry these type of reactions will just alienate him further from me, up his secrecy, and not help the real problems.
I cannot easily block his site visits yet, but a new router with improved functionality will arrive on Monday. I know that I will be scheduling all online freetime, at the very least. That will be immediate. His computer is in my line of sight, so when I'm home I know what he's doing. I do believe his dad is a horrible influence right now, further inflaming some bizarre impulse to do these things. But, I can't justifiably cut that line of communication and I can't prove he's contributing. I know the behaviors I see on my end of the phone and I know how his dad can be in general, so I know it's a factor. Just not sure how much.
Sorry for the length. I've tried to give as much information to help as possible. But, just in case, I have setup email at teenhell@gmail.com.
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posted by fermezporte at 1:59 PM on February 10, 2008 [2 favorites]