Expert: Paul Johnson - 7/12/2011

Question
Hi Paul,

I have a 19 year son who has Aspergers. A constant, unresolved issue we have is that he sneaksinto our room and takes my wife's bras, underwear, and has even snooped in our room and found a sex toy and took it. This has been an ongoing problem and has been addressed many times. When confronted with it, he lies until the proof is such that he has to tell the truth. Any ideas on how to resolve this?
Also, he makes up stories to his girlfriends Mom about things that have not taken place in his life. For instance, he told her he saw his best friend commit suicide right in front of him, when in fact, this was not his best friend, it was a student at his school, he saw no such thing, and he had no personal connection with this boy.
Any ideas on what we can do? These are only two examples of the lies, it is present in school and work also. He has had no success in school or jobs, because he is sneaky and gets himself into trouble.

Thank you for your time,
Bob

Answer
Hey Bob,

Thank you for your challenging and interesting question.

The issue stems from a more systemic issue in your son. That is he has a shockingly poor Theory of Mind. He is wholly unaware of how other people view him. Actually his ToM is so poor it seems that he thinks he can roam the world out of the sight of all. This is common in ASD's and with your teenager it is pronounced because he has not lived that long to understand the reciprocity of relationships.

Perhaps the ultimate fantasy for and Aspie might be to possess some grand pause machine and pause all of the people around and get our business done sans the distractions and small talk of people. Then when we fulfill all we want to do we can press the button and everybody else can resume their lives.

Why is this fantasy so exciting, because it allow us to exist in a world of our own, where people exist but they do not distract or counter our ways.

Your confrontation is jarring and so disturbing to him that he feels the need to create a lie to maintain his fantasized version of reality. I speculate he is ashamed of his secretive ideation and desires. There is an obvious need to sit him down and tell him how much you understand and accept him.

I wonder how much he accepts him self. Therefore the need to have a secret life and lose his integrity. He has people in his life but they don't know the true him because he is not comfortable being real with them. He "conceives" of who he is but does not understand that others do not understand his "conceptions".

He needs to be talked to and HEARD more often.

For more information about the my conception model let me know.

If my suggestion does not succeed, I would like to communicate with him.

Paul
Pljohnson46@yahoo.com