Obsessed with behaving like a dog

Post Reply New Topic

I can fully understand one reason for doing it. When I was in secondary school I used to pretend I was a car and used my bag as a gearstick when I had to walk down the long corridors among masses of other children and the occasional teacher. It helped me blot out the closed in corridors full of people.
I then was bullied and beaten up by an ex friend (Now we are adults he is the only person from that school that keeps in touch. I see him once or twice a year. We are friends again) and another friend (So it was two against one but to be honest the other friend didn't do much).
My parents went down to see his parents. They had a quarrel. The other friends parents of the kid who didn't do a lot had a telling off. He admitted that I was pretending to be a car, and when my Dad got home he gave me a telling off.
So I had to live with the nurves of walking through those corridors. I was often being told off for running through them, but I had to get out as quick as possible.
School for me (And work has been similar even though every job I've had bar one has been involved in one of my hobies/special interests) was anxiety on the way in with thoughts of wanting to go home and patiently waiting for home time during lessons, and a mad rush to get home. For me it was not about education. It was about surviving the day and getting home. It was not that I didn't learn anything. It was more that I would daydream to divert my attention that I was in school. It sometimes used to puzzle teachers when they saw me daydreaming and asked me about the lessons and usually I was able to tell them what they said. (I wasn't neccessarily learning. Just memorizing words while I daydreamed so I didn't get caught out!)
To be fair I did learn a lot. But at times, school was like torture. But somehow I never mitched.
Todays schools behind those security fences... No way would I be able to concentrate on lessons to have those fences round the school. I had to try to sit near the door as it was. The thought of being hemmed in... I would not go to school.
I wonder if many of todays pupils have problems due to these fences where their minds will be tortured daily, but they won't be able to talk about it. If someone does talk, they would keep quiet as they would not want to expose their fear. (It is how I think).
Only someone I am very close to will I ever share my fears. I put them here as I am very concerned about children who maybe facing daily feelings like I was or worse. I was lucky. I was masking my way through school. I could portray one emotion on my face while my innermost emotions were something else!

Did you do it at home too? He does it at home after school & during the holidays all day long. If he's not crawling or meeowing he just licks me all day long. He just won't stop even tho he can see it's making me extremely angry.

My 8yo identifies as a cat, too, though she doesn't lick things (except for her own paw).
I interpret it as her way to cope with stress and express emotions.
I play along her feline ways, pet her and purr, because it really comforts her. I just try to make her aware of how other people may interpret it so she hopefully learns to supress it in public. My close friend identifies as a lion and, as she says, "you have to learn to stand on your hind paws for other people". She's quite a successful adult.

My daughter's other way of expressing emotions is drawing so I encourage her to draw as much as possible.

No. Two reasons. One is I would have had a telling off. Second is that due to faceblindness, I tended to be normal at home but in school and public places I hardly spoke unless my parents were there. I was very clingy to my parents and I would panic if I was in public in a shop and momentary lost them, or if we walked in the town centre and someone walked inbetween myself and my parents I would geta huge dread that I would get lost. At home, I never had this issue because it was where I lived.
It wasn't that I did not pretend to be a dog and had a string for a tale etc. Our dog was my best friend! My brother and I treated the dog as one of us, and the dog and we were always playing. The first dog saved my life when I was a baby. It was more that it was normal for children to do this now and then until their parents said "That's enough!" We would have a tap on the behind or get sent to bed if we dissobayed.

Last edited by Mountain Goat on 03 Jan 2020, 8:37 am, edited 4 times in total.

My son is probably worse at home than school

He is more relaxed at home. More able to explore through play using his imagination. School is structured. Teaching these days centralizes on communistic techniques to control future generations.
I was very fortunate when I did my schooling as we were in the transition stage, so as a pupil, I was able to identify the different teaching techniques that came in.