Hi Heather, I've been meaning to post but my laptop broke and it took me a while to get around to logging back in here. My experience may be useful and it's relevant to Good Vibes's sage advice, mainly in that I don't think we followed it!
My son who is now 25 and is troubled, (can't look after money, constantly tapping me for funds in between ghosting me and blamimg me for everything wrong in his life, anxious, depressed, angry)
was a bright but slightly lonely kid, watched a lot of TV, had an older sister who didn't have much interest in him, was an avid attention seeker from 2 years old. We look back and realise we should have been MUCH more attentive to him and his needs, though we did try we were both working parents and tired, we are educators and artists, jealous of our free time and always involved in our own projects and goals. When he was around 9 or 10, he developed a 'pain in his hip' and started limping. We took him to the doctors and he was to our horror taken into hospital for a thorough range of tests and I was in pieces thinking the worst. I spent a week sleeping in armchairs next to his bed and he cried out with the pain, I was giving him all the painkillers the medics would allow.
After this the pediatrician came up to me and told me the pain was in his head, imaginary. They sent him home with crutches, and very little advice on what to do. My son would not have it and we couldn't call him out or accuse him of lying, as the docs said "the pain is real to him'. But he went to school, and was very happy he was the centre of attention, running around the playground with his crutches!
I was at my wits end and so tired. He still cried out. We still gave him painkillers. In the end I appealed to his school teacher and explained the situation. She was a very straight forward woman (I bless her even today!) and he came home the next day crying that she had taken his crutches away!
But after that the cure was complete and we heard no more about it. Perhaps it was being bullied at school, the medics had suggested, and we agreed it was quite likely.
My son I believe is what they used to call Aspie, but it seems to me that so many people including myself and many in my family are like this and we didn't think there was much that could be done and my husband didn't want son ' labelled' . We hoped he would grow out of his behaviours but he seems to have developed into something of a 'borderline' / 'narcissist' personality. I do advise you at this age to get him as much socialising help as you can. Listen to him, try to draw him out as to if any underlying trauma or issues that may be going on with him. Try to show him empathy, and give him quality time and attention when he's doing good but also enforce crystal clear consequences and boundaries when he's doing bad. I so wish we had been as clear and not constantly reinforcing bad habits and attention seeking behaviors in my own son. Wishing you all the very best, hopefully it is not too late for you.