I remember going to church w/ my mom where we'd need to stand while singing. I didn't really like standing that long, so I told Mom my legs were hurting so could I please sit down?

She said yes.

Sooo the next week, when I wanted to sit down, I intentionally tensed my knee-area so that my legs would hurt. Then I could tell ask my mom again and sit down while not being a dirty liar (we were in church after all).

In general, people can sometimes get what they want [attention/emotional support/etc] by making their problems worse (or creating a problem when there's none there). One simple way to achieve this is to have a genuine negative reaction to something, focus on the negative reaction until it grows bigger and bigger, and then act from that emotional state when talking to people who can give [...]