Hi everyone, I'm new here and I am SO GRATEFUL that I stumbled upon this site! It's nice to have some place to vent my frustrations regarding my stepdaughter. This post may be a bit long, because I've been bottling this up inside of me for so long!

Let me give you a little background: My stepdaughter is 17, about to be 18, and she came to live with my husband and I in September of 2013, after her she and her mother got into a huge fight and her mother kicked her out of their house. Prior to this, she did visit us for extended periods of time during breaks from school, such as Christmas or summer vacation, so her and I have an established relationship of several years. Ever since she was younger (I came into her life when she was about 10 or 11) she has always had what I considered to be an unhealthy obsession with negativity. She complains all the time, everything she thinks and says is always pessimistic, and she has more ailments than an 83 year old woman.

Since she has been living with us, she has whined nonstop about a different illness or injury quite frequently. When she first moved here, she suddenly proclaimed that she had Restless Leg Syndrome, and it was affecting her sleep. I believed her because both her father and his mother have RLS, and I gave her my bottle of valerian root to take at night so she could sleep through the discomfort. She polished off my bottle, and hounded me to get her another one, which I did. Then she went to visit her mom for Christmas break, and when she returned, there was absolutely no mention of RLS bothering her anymore, and her second bottle of valerian root sits untouched. To this day I am uncertain if she really has RLS or not.

Next, she decided to mimic one of my ailments. From time to time, I break out in horrible, hot, itchy hives all over my body. Sometimes they make my hands and feet swell up, get really hot, and hurt. I mentioned this in passing to her one day when my hands were swollen and aching, and not two days later she texted me while she was at school, saying her hands were swollen, hot, and that they hurt. I gave her some of my Allegra, which helps me to alleviate the symptoms of the hives, and I have not ever heard her mention it again. A few days later, she complained of an itchy rash, and wanted more of my precious Allegra (I really, really need it when my hives come around, they are miserable!) for her itching, and when I inspected her "rash", it was nothing more than a few little bumps in an very small area on her back. I rubbed her "rash" down with Calamine lotion, which she confiscated from me afterwards, and I have never heard of the "rash" again, and the Calamine lotion sits in her room, untouched.

Next, it was her back that was hurting her. I told her to take the valerian root, which I don't think she did. Then it was constant headaches, which I bought her a bottle of Excedrin for. Then it was allergies and she needed nasal spray, which I bought for her, she used it up, I bought her another one, and she still has it, and I have never heard her mention anything about allergies again. Then it was her ankle was hurting her, and she limped around for about half a day. One day last week, she walked a couple of blocks with her friends and complained for three days afterwards that her legs were hurting her. And the "I don't feel good" is almost a daily statement.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why she would fake like she is sick or injured, because she does not receive any attention from us anymore about it. This, too, bothers me, because if she ever truly gets sick or hurt, we wouldn't be inclined to believe her. I have emptied my medicine cabinet and my wallet for these mystery ailments, and quite frankly, I'm getting sick of it. It's getting to the point that it's becoming annoying, and expensive. Her father works a lot, so she spends most of her time with me, driving me bonkers with her almost daily afflictions that magically go away after a few days. I can hear her whining to her friends when she talks to them on the phone, too, so perhaps they are giving her the attention that keeps driving this behavior, because it certainly isn't coming from us. I don't know what to do. I have tried talking to her about it time and time again, but with no progress.

I'm very frustrated that she is behaving this way, especially since it costs us money for nothing, and her birth mother is never in a hurry to send us back the child support money she still receives, despite her and my husband both calling the child support offices and telling them to cease the child support deductions from my husband's paychecks because the kid is now living with us.