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Talked with Skid3's therapist about her obcession with herself...

just.his.wife's picture

I made a post on here a week or so ago about my issues with SD16 and her being conceited.

Yesterday was her appt with her therapist. I took her to the appt and talked with the therapist on the phone before the appointment. I really did listen when all of you stated you thought it was low self esteem causing her comments. When I explained skid3’s incessant comments, need for attention, constant fishing for compliments etc her therapist sounded confused.

Therapist agrees with all of you that the behavior is normally seen in kids that have incredibly low self esteem. She herself had never seen, heard or discussed low self esteem with skid3. She had never seen a sign of it. She assured me she would ‘look into it’. Ok cool. So after the session yesterday she called me back to her office, without skid3. She administered two different ‘tests’ (not sure if it’s all verbal or written, didn’t ask).

According to the tests Skid3 shows no sign of having low self esteem. She apparently shows a lot of signs of self centeredness (typical in teens! Therapist made a BIG point about that) and she appears to be entirely too fond/proud/showing off of what my checkbook has bought her. Yeah, this did not thrill me to hear. I always thought that I did an ok job of balancing need from want and fulfilling needs regularly… and only fulfilling wants when earned.

Apparently she spent a good bit of time telling the therapist how much her hair style and color cost (a lie. If I had taken her to a salon to do it, yes it would have been that expensive, however I did it at home, myself. Materials cost a whopping $18.00). How much it cost for her to be in cheerleading, what it cost for her trips at school, her clothes, her shoes, her purse. She did go into how gorgeous she is with the therapist. And once again called herself flawless. Complimented herself on her hour glass figure and continued on and on and on.

Therapist is perplexed as she does not see or hear true signs of low self esteem and skid3 totally denies low self esteem, but she exhibits behaviors indicative of low self esteem. So the therapist will continue looking into it as even she admitted hearing the kid go on and on is exhausting, she’s going to work on humility with the kid. Meanwhile, she wants DH, myself and the siblings to ignore any attempted fish for a compliment. Do not even acknowledge she was talking about the subject of herself. That’s our assignment for the weekend and skid3 is scheduled to see the good doc on Monday again.

In summary, kids self esteem is either so low she doesn’t realize that its low… or she is simply a conceited twit who is focusing on the physical (beauty/possessions/cost) instead of what is important (intelligence, personality) in life.

At least the professional is on the job. Because the kids constant fishing is driving me nuts!

Comments

step off already's picture

Wow. This girl sounds like something else. Glad the therapist confirmed its exhausting to listen to her. Lol.

just.his.wife's picture

I really think the kid is conceited as hell. Even DH is starting to think that. But when I posted here about it alot of the ladies thought it was low self esteem.

If it is, lets solve the problem so the kid will shut up about herself. If it isn't lets teach her humility/humbleness so the kid will shut up about herself.

Because if I hear the comment "God I look HOT today!" one more time I am gonna :sick:

Jsmom's picture

Have fun with this kid...My SD17 was this way and still is...Thankfully, she is out of my house. The "Me, Me, Me's" were exhausting. We ignored her all the time and led to her needing someones undivided attention, which she gets at her moms. When she left, it was like a weight came off the household. My sons are much happier.

B22S22's picture

You know, my SK's are the same way. They are sooooo into themselves and also have the habit of assigning a dollar amount to everything they have/others have.

They make a point of flashing their birthday/holiday money around us (they get TONS from their grandparents... like more than I make in 2 weeks). They have to repeat - over and over and over again - how much their newest pair of Jordans cost. With matching Jordon socks (insert $ amt here). How much their Beats cost. Making sure to try to convince my DH that the Beats my DS13 SAVED HIS OWN MONEY TO BUY were cheap knock-offs. Anything to pump themselves up and tear down anyone else's self-esteem is what they'll do.

Their mom is the same way, and I always wrote it off as poor self-esteem. But the more I have to listen to it, I've realized they don't have poor self-esteem, just poor social skills and the need to make themselves bigger than what they really are, usually at the expense of others. They too talk about how PERFECT they are in every way.

I just feel kind of sorry for them because this behavior has been encouraged and fostered over the years (they were like this even before they were despicable teens). I just wonder how many pegs they will be knocked down when they reach adulthood.

just.his.wife's picture

This is exactly what I see... poor social skills, the urge to tear all around down (telling friends their hair style sucks- that they should have gotten it styled like hers, telling her brother he looks retarded to go change his clothes).

Everything to her is important based off price tag. If I got her two identical pairs of shoes, one on sale for half off, the other full price, she would prefer the full price ones and would find a flaw in the ones that were on sale.

She is an attractive girl. Very cute but this new and building personality is ugly and is detracting away from her looks. Especially when she is throwing her looks in your face all the time.

Just as an example, on the way HOME from the therapist she was on her cellphone to see how many likes she got on MORE selfies that she posted to instagram. Complaining that this one pic ONLY got 30 something likes, while another got 50 something likes, but her friend who posted a picture of her dogs puppies got 100+ likes... and she should have had 100+ likes because she (skid3) is cuter than the puppies! :jawdrop:

This to me just does NOT sound like low self esteem!

step off already's picture

Another interesting thing here is her obsession with price tags. Are you planning on tightening the purse strings and/ or enlisting her to help to pay for these?

just.his.wife's picture

The purse strings are beyond tightened. They are tied in a knot and I used my zippo to melt the nylon fibers together!

misSTEP's picture

I remember once when I said something to my DH regarding him having low self-esteem and he vehemently denied it, stating that he had GREAT self esteem.

Well, years later, he has finally realized that he does have low self esteem....except when it comes to his work. He is highly skilled in his line of work and businesses are vying to get him to work for them. When he said he had great self esteem, he was thinking solely of work.

Could be that she thinks she looks great (and that is what she focuses on) but thinks she lacks in another area. Brains? Personality? Who knows.

fakemommy's picture

Glad you talked with the therapist about this! You'll have to keep us updated on his opinion/advice/suggestions. My skid has also become very self-involved (at 7 lol), but I think it mostly has to do with insecurities about me being pregnant.

just.his.wife's picture

I had a member PM me with an artical. I read it and well crap... because it really does describe her. No magic pill fix, years of therapy to fix.. and apparently age helps some apparently as they grow older they don't have as much energy to put into their performances

DSM-IV-TR lists eight symptoms that form the diagnostic criteria for HPD:

Center of attention: Patients with HPD experience discomfort when they are not the center of attention.
Sexually seductive: Patients with HPD displays inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behaviors towards others.
Shifting emotions: The expression of emotions of patients with HPD tends to be shallow and to shift rapidly.
Physical appearance: Individuals with HPD consistently employ physical appearance to gain attention for themselves.
Speech style: The speech style of patients with HPD lacks detail. Individuals with HPD tend to generalize, and when these individuals speak, they aim to please and impress.
Dramatic behaviors: Patients with HPD display self-dramatization and exaggerate their emotions.
Suggestibility: Other individuals or circumstances can easily influence patients with HPD.
Overestimation of intimacy: Patients with HPD overestimate the level of intimacy in a relationship.

Read more: http://www.minddisorders.com/Flu-Inv/Histrionic-personality-disorder.htm...

PeanutandSons's picture

Sd10 is like this. Last school year there was a school writing assignment where each child had to write a book. SD wrote her entire book about how great and pretty and smart she was and how she was so popular. I was quite shocked when I read it when it came home. I showed it to dh. He read it and thought it was good. I gave him a funny look and asked him if he found anything g weird about it. He said no why. I asked if he found it a bit odd that when give the assignment to write a story on any topic of her choosing, she writes about herself. He got this sick look on his face and goes, you mean the assignment wasn't to write about themselves?. Nope, and I handed him the assignment sheet and the instructions were to write a fiction piece and listed a bunch of criteria (intro, 2 plot points, conclusion etc). And this is what she came up with.

It was quite telling.

hismineandours's picture

Teens are certainly narcisstic to a degree. Yours sounds that she certainly falls on the far end of the spectrum on that one. I think she also has very poor social skillls. Has anyone told her how tacky she looks when she talks about the monetary value of things. My parent taught me when I was very small that it was rude to inquire about how much things cost, how much people made, likewise it is rude to share this information with others.

As far as the likes on the selfies-Ive heard my 15 year old dd be concerned about the same thing. I dont think she has a huge problem with narcissism-just a competitive teen thing. she has come to me and said soso always gets like 100 likes on her pics and I only get 50. With the advent of social media there are so many ways for kids to compare them selves to others-although strangely yours is comparing herself to dogs?

My dd15 is very pretty. She gets lots of compliments-I believe she would admit that she is attractive-I have heard admit this-however-I hear more frequently that she's too fat, got too many pimples, too this, too that-so despite her prettyness and moments of taking some pride (and yes perhaps conceit) in that, she has far more moments of doubting her self, questioning, having low self esteem-maybe your sd is just keeping the insecurities to her self? While advertising all the times she feels good-perhaps thinking maybe she can convince others around how beautifiul and great she is if she says ti enough times? I think a frank discussion with her about again how rude it is to tell other people that you are "flawless" and how it alos kind of makes her sound like she's fishing for compliments because she has such low self-eteem is in order.

I would just address it head on.