Carolyn Hax: Faking College

[cereta]

Adapted from a recent online discussion.

Dear Carolyn:

I've pretended to go to college for almost four years when I actually dropped out my freshman year. I've been working as a temp since then and living "off campus." My family doesn't know since I fake my grades, account statements, everything. None of them went to college so it hasn't been too hard to fool them.

I've used the money they've been giving me to help me afford my room and board.

I know I'm going to have come clean soon since they expect me to graduate soon with an engineering degree. I just don't know how to do this. They are going to freak out. They're immigrants and me going to college was their dream.

I'm actually thinking of just disappearing for a while and telling them by letter. I know that's the coward's way out but I could come back when it's all blown over and they'll probably be so relieved that I'm back in touch that they won't disown me.

Is there a better way to handle this that won't also get me disowned?

-- Faking College

This knot is so tight and complicated and emotional, and the consequences of "disappearing for a while"(!) potentially so severe, that I urge you not to untie it alone.

Please find a good therapist to help you untangle its many threads -- especially your fear of being authentic.

If you still live near the school, then there is likely counseling available in the community on a sliding scale based on income. You can call the school's mental health service to see if non-affiliated people have access, and if not, where a good local resource might be. If it's a university that offers degrees in counseling fields, then there might be a clinic where the students train and charge little to nothing for their services.

If you have insurance through a temp agency, then find out who provides therapy in-network.

However you manage it, please start the work of telling your truth by sharing it with people who are not invested -- as you told me here, which is a start. Make the next person a trained health-care provider who can meet with you regularly. Do not wait any longer to face this, and take care.

To: Faking:

My brother did something similar, and came clean only when he was in distress because of the lies he told. Please take Carolyn's advice to go for therapy now. My brother told us, went to therapy, and is in a good place. My parents and I accepted him as he is -- a flawed human who made a mistake, the same as us. Please know you're not the only one, and you can get help.

-- Anonymous

Re: Faking:

There's nothing wrong with deciding an engineering degree wasn't for you, but letting your parents subsidize your alternate path without their knowledge wasn't fair. One of your top priorities should be an absolute commitment to pay your parents back.

Were it my kid, I would want to hear: "Sorry I did this, please forgive me. Starting right now, I'm going to give you [dollar amount] per week until I've paid you back." It's important to take real actions to prove remorse and bear responsibility for your actions.

-- Parent

Comments

[xenacryst]

I'm with everything except the last reply. I'll admit I'm in a better financial place than some, so I wouldn't hinge my acceptance or forgiveness on getting paid back (maybe I'd change my tune if I weren't). The important part for me would be having this person own up to the deception, accept themselves as flawed but on a better path, and then sticking to that path whatever it happens to be. Money can be a stumbling block to getting back on your feet, so taking that away seems like extra punishment.

[rosefox]

Yeah. Some parents will see the financial aspect as the big deception; others will care much more about emotional restitution. Amends should be made in the way that helps those who are hurt, whatever their priorities are.

[sathari]

Pretty much this. I'm WAY uncomfortable with making a kid whose financial position is probably not great pay back the money as a condition for acceptance. (Seriously, I am just here like, this person already probably has reduced earning potential compared to a college graduate, statistically speaking, based on this whole situation, and I canNOT with adding an additional burden to them as a condition of familial harmony. Especially if the parents were the ones who had pushed the kid into that specific major and rejected all other options for them, as does happen in some families--- like, if they would have been okay with a kid who has a degree in some other field, kid would be graduating with that degree and being honest, so depending on the parental attitudes involved I do think some of the blame could accrue to them.)

[minoanmiss]

I couldn't figure out how to phrase my issues the question of the money -- I have seen and experienced finances being used as a weapon in families -- and I totally agree with what you've said.

[sathari]

Thanks! I'm really glad it makes sense to someone close to the question!

[minoanmiss]

I am too close to this one to advise, but do I ever sympathize, with a slight touch of admiration for LW for pulling off what I only dreamed of doing. Overbearing terrifying families can twist one's mind into knots. It's one's mind and one's actions and one is responsible for them, but I can really understand creating an elaborate deception rather than dealing with a constant hailstorm of endless vocal disappointment from one's family.

[the_rck]

Is it completely weird that my questions here have more to do with the parents’ financial circumstances, how much money they were sending relative to their own living expenses, and whether or not the LW could make expenses on what they got from temping. Are they maybe also facing sufficient loss of income that they’ll have to consider living with their parents again? Are their parents trying to live on ramen in order to keep the LW in school?

Also, are there other family issues complicating the situation?

[kaberett]

Also, are there other family issues complicating the situation?

My vote is "yes", given how scared the offspring was about saying "this really isn't working for me, the actual human being"...

[the_rck]

I suspect that you're right, but I didn't read the tone of the letter as scared (which may be how the letter was edited for the column) so much as 'oops, I didn't think this through and put off the unpleasant bits.' I feel like the actual things that need asking for advice about aren't actually in the text we've got.

I got the impression of the LW having spent the last 3-ish years very deliberately avoiding coming up with plans. I could see ending up doing this myself due to sustained panic over admitting my own screw up (because I have disabling anxiety rather than because of family issues). I could see my daughter, who has similar problems, doing that, too.

But I also know people from families where dropping out might be met with violence, physical or emotional, and leaving home is a threshold point for various stages of coming out, for stopping religious observances, for a lot of things that a person might reasonably do but also find as an additional barrier to talking about the dropping out.

So I want more solid information. Getting therapy is probably solid advice regardless, but different sorts of complications need different sorts of therapists because a couples counselor is not the first choice for, say, panic attacks. Sadly, their work/financial situation probably puts them in an any port in the storm situation.

I think I'm stumbling heavily over the facts that this event was utterly inevitable and that the LW doesn't seem to have any sense of something they want to do beyond not deal with this problem. Do they even have a plan for how to pay for room and board if they disappear? Do they have any sort of support network? Any other resources?

[jadelennox]

Not necessarily. Immigrant parents can have particular expectations, and a lot can depend on the situation: the culture of the parents' origin; whether the LW would be first generation college or the entire family has PhDs in their country of origin or they were all highly educated but immigration knocked them into a different social class; whether they immigrated specifically because of educational opportunities for their kids... First generation cultural disjunction can be heavy stuff.

[kaberett]

I mean, yes? I'm third-gen, English as a second (but primary) language. Understanding why people do things doesn't mean those things are okay, and also doesn't seem to me that those issues don't qualify as "other family issues"?

[jadelennox]

If "other family issues" includes something that's just a fact of life in a cross-cultural nation (we don't know where LW lives, but their vocabulary implies US, where roughly 16 million kids are currently US-born children of an immigrant parent, and 26% of kids have at least one foreign-born parent), then I find it less useful to say. Sure, that's an issue, but exactly as much as every family has issues. And since the LW themselves raised the issue of their immigrant family's expectations, I don't see that as some set of other issues other than what's been raised in the letter.

To me what's not okay is that the LW felt scared enough of disappointing their family that they took such a drastic step, but that doesn't mean their family acted in ways that are not okay. Culture clash, if that's what it is, can be a problem of communication and expectation. My immigrant mum gave us all issues about education which played out in different ways for each of us, and it is what it is.

[minoanmiss]

To me what's not okay is that the LW felt scared enough of disappointing their family that they took such a drastic step, but that doesn't mean their family acted in ways that are not okay.

An extra-excellent point amidst excellent points. This one has been haunting me so I came back to see the subsequent discussion and I'm glad I did.

[tielan]

Family is always complicated. But I don't think there's any family that takes being lied to while embezzling funds well.

[minoanmiss]

This is very true, but... is it victim blaming to wonder why the child felt driven to such a drastic deception? Maybe they're just a manipulative, terrible kid. But maybe...

[tielan]

I don't think it's victim blaming.

But I come from a family where I was free to make of myself what I would, and where the truth would be more valued than the lost money. So my personal priority would be the truth; I don't have experience of toxic family to inhibit me on that front.

There's a part of me that thinks "did they not realise that someday they'd have to come clean about where the money had gone?" But then there's a part of me that thinks "they're, what, 19 when they took the money and 'ran' (so to speak), and although they're technically legal adults, that age group is still not really known for their rationality..."