To the Adoptive Parents Who Ask What to Do About Their Child's Habit of Lying

Parents often write to ask me questions about how to deal with their child, their adopted child, who lies. The child, for example, wants something, an extra cookie, say, and when the when the parent says no, the cookie mysteriously disappears.

When confronted, the child, chocolate on her face, vigorously denies taking the cookie.

When the parents go for empathy, saying perhaps the child was angry with them or with something and the stealing was a result of that anger, the child tends to stay with her denial.

More often than not, I can’t think of any advice to give. I lied a lot as a kid. I’d be lying if I told you I don’t ever lie any more. I think I’ve said that in print, that I don’t lie any more.  

Case in point. 

I thought back to when I was a kid and I lied to my parents, said I practiced my violin at 4 in the morning. Said I did my homework. Said I brushed my teeth. Said I’d been to the movies when I was out driving drunk.  

I would have never never never never sat down with them, in front of a therapist or not, and admit that I had been lying. I would have rather set myself on fire. My life depended on my ability to lie and to live out that story.

I am a lie (I am Anne—except that once I was Sarah—I am your child—except that not entirely, etc), and so, to my brain, lying is testing the waters, living out my truth, and when the lie is rejected, then so am I. 

Here’s what occurred to me last night as I was falling asleep: what if lying is a side effect of relinquishment/mother-child separation that is as wired into the system as sweating is from exertion? What if to try to take the lie from the child/adult is like trying to take the shell from a turtle? What if trying to get an adopted child to admit they are lying to you is like asking a person to peel off their skin and hand it to you so you can hold it in your hands?

What if focusing on the lying is like screaming at clouds to get out of the sky? 

What if, as an adoptee, I need my lies to feel agency and power and that life is worth living?

What if I lie because my boundaries around morality and what is right and what is wrong are a hundred times wider than yours because the impossible happened to me: I lost myself and yet still exist? What if asking my body and mind to live by your rules is insanity?  

What if you brought a feral creature into your house and you think everything will be okay with some love and attention? (One time my marriage therapist said I was feral. Granted, he was an idiot. He also told me to cross my legs because too much energy was coming out of my pelvis, but he called me as he saw me, and the word he used was one you would use to describe a wild, untamable animal. This is one of the issues of adoptees and therapists: if you have craziness inside of you because of attachment disorder, you can attract the craziest people, even just by Googling for recommendations.)

What if you don’t have the right kind of love and attention because it’s not her? 

I’m not saying to give adoptees free reign to lie their heads off and live in fantasy world and make others around them feel unsafe. I’m saying maybe focusing on the lying is focusing on the bleeding instead of the cut. 

No one (who is helpful) in the hospital asks a wounded person to apologize for bleeding on the table, on the floor, on everyone’s clothes. The blood isn’t the issue: the body is. 

Maybe we could ask different questions if we focused on the body. Maybe it wouldn’t be about focusing on the action but about something else, something deeper, something maybe beyond language. This is where trauma-informed therapists come in so handy. This is where the books The Body Keeps the Score and Scattered Minds are treasure chests of information.

When parents take lies personally, they are acting hurt because someone who was shot is bleeding on their sofa. I know it’s an awful thing to have blood on your furniture: sometimes the item is unrepairable. 

Sometimes a lot of things are unrepairable. 

When faced with something broken, I need to rewrite my expectations and approaches. Maybe everything I think I know no longer applies. I will feel so lost and helpless! 

Now we’re talking.

When my mom was dying, I had some talking of my own to do. I had carried deep, deep shame since I was 22 for stealing from her in a premeditated and unloving way. I had betrayed her trust in me and then I had run away. I had apologized before, but not from my deep self. The horror I felt at my behavior was so hot I could barely stand to see it, never mind touch it, never mind stand in it and fully express myself from that place. But now she was dying and I wanted her to know I remembered and that I was sorry I had not honored her as my mother, as someone I loved.

We were in the living room. She was sitting in the chair she loved and I was on the couch. I brought up the event. Just thinking about it made me want to pass out. She looked uncomfortable. I told her it still tore me apart that I hurt her. I told her I was sorry.

“I know you are,” she said. “It hurt at the time but I don’t think about it anymore.”

Now I’m going to tell you the truth. I don’t remember what she said.

I hope I got it right.