After the time I spent doing this translation, you guys bet I plan on getting as much mileage out of it as I possibly can.
I could read these stories all day.
** Sheepishly raises hand ** …I realize this isn’t a confession thread, but it works as well as any other, I suppose.
I was once a compulsive liar, in my pre-teens and teens.
I told more whoppers than I can count. I lied about having found giant insects, about participating in an international piano competition, about having skydived as a young child, about having broken my ankle (I’ve never broken a bone,) about having been stuck in quicksand, etc. Making matters worse was that sometimes it wasn’t just telling fibs in person or to a small group; there were times when I stood with a microphone in front of a sizable *audience *and told whoppers. When I stole things as a teenager, I lied of course and said I didn’t. To this day I’m lucky that relatively few people have called me out on those bald-faced lies.
It wasn’t just the flat-out lies; I would exaggerate or distort truths into half-truths. When my dad acted in a play/musical, I made it sound to people as if he acted in a movie of the same title.
Deep down, I think much of it was a desire to impress and/or one-up people. I was like that woman that monstro, the OP, speaks of: I wanted to one-up people, to always have or say something to make people go “wow,” to always leave an impression in a social gathering - “wow, he’s remarkable”. And also, I felt that the truth was too boring. I would tell people about YouTube videos that didn’t exist (“did you see the video where the cow encounters a raw beef steak and realizes it’s cow meat…?”) It was like the truth wasn’t good enough in and of itself. If a story was truthful, I had to add some falsehood to make it sizzle and more interesting - it was like lying and exaggeration was the seasoning that I added to stories, to make them more flavorful. At a certain level it was just like the man who catches the 20-inch fish but feels the need to exaggerate and say it was a 29-inch fish.
I can’t pinpoint the exact time when I repented and had a turnaround, but eventually, at some point in my 20s i became deeply ashamed of lying and distorting the truth. I regretted the whoppers I had told. It was around or later after this time that I also began to develop symptoms of OCD - I would obsessively wash hands, avoid germs or contamination, etc. - and I think a possible associated effect of that OCD was also that I became obsessive about telling the truth, or at least, *not *telling lies. I would go to great lengths to ensure that things that I said could pass any number of truth tests and couldn’t be considered false. Which in itself I think was psychologically unhealthy.
We had a kid (let’s call him Tim) in high school who would constantly one-up anyone’s story. At the time it was harmless, and most of us would just eye-roll it away. One of my friends (let’s call him Joe) made a game of it and would just start making shit up whenever Tim was around, just to see what he would come up with. Everyone knew Joe did this, so whenever Joe and Tim were in close proximity to one another people would slow down and eavesdrop. It added a little spice to the day.
(God. My 25-year reunion will be coming up this year…)
Yup, ex-partner was a compulsive liar, from soup to nuts. She lied about her education, money, jobs, family, , having cancer, and money…even things that wouldn’t matter she lied about.
I was stupid to stay with her for so long, but I kept telling myself that she had lots of good qualities and she needed me. I learned a hard lesson about not getting involved with pathological liars and trusting my own suspicions. Shudder
To answer OP question: IMHO, confronting a habitual liar does no good, he or she will just spout a new crop of lies.
I appreciate your honesty. Thanks for sharing your story. I’m glad you stopped the habit. If it’s any consolation, I suspect you are not the only poster on the board who has had (or still going through) a pathological lying phase.
I read a good article today. It provides an interesting glimpse into a form of pathological lying: Sick for Attention.
I worked for a compulsive liar. His reaction to being called on his shit was anger. I didn’t last very long there. Fuck that guy.
Looks like there are two types here (yes, they can blend together in some cases):
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Confabulators, who do it to stroke their own egos and get attention they can’t get anywhere else.
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Those on the antisocial side of things (socio/psychopaths & narcissists) who do it to get edges over other people, as a means of control.
This kind of thing is not uncommon in adolescents; I remember kids telling me things like “I was adopted”, “I have a handicapped sibling”, “I was in a horrible accident a few years ago and missed a whole year of school” and none of it was true. I’m sure I told some whoppers at that age myself.
Worked for one for about 5 years. Just myself, a co-worker and Liar. She told lies so seamless it took at least year to start wondering if they were actually lies. She lied about clients, company issues, personal stuff like her husband marriage and divorce, about being ill (I still have the list I kept of the various completely unrelated and totally bogus illnesses she claimed to have had over a period of 5 years that kept her on a permanently reduced work week).
She was also brilliant at gaslighting - you must have misunderstood, you were the one who did that, I didnt say the deadline was this day I said it was that day to the point where myself and co-worker were convinced that WE were the incompetent ones. She also played good employee/bad employee where every couple of weeks one of us was the good and one was the bad and she tried to play us against each other.
One day she had me spend a day researching activities for seniors in a small town where one of our clients lived, definitely not in the job description but she loved to be seen by corporate going above and beyond for clients. She said this client’s daughter forced her to move into assisted living in a town where the client was all alone. Towards the end of the day I just happened to look in the clients file only to find notes written by Liar months previous about how excited the client was to be moving into an assisted living only two blocks from her daughter who she would now get to see several times a week!
Finally we complained to HR and the response was to start documenting everything. Not only did we start personally documenting everything, we started documenting every instruction she gave us on the computer calendar and computer to-do list that she and corporate could also see, as well as making hand written notes. When she realized what we were doing that was the beginning of the end. Co-worker and I both finally made lateral moves within the company and got away from her, with her blessing of course, but it took two more years and her losing clients before she got fired.
Thanks for the gracious response. That’s a really good article, too.
The scary thing about my pathological lying was how effortless and natural it became. Lying really became easy and felt good or necessary. It had really infiltrated and for a long time I felt little to no qualms about it.
I think it depends on the particular liar in question. In my case, in the few instances that people did confront my lies, I felt immediately ashamed. If they had done it more often, I might have quit my lying habit much sooner.
I work with someone who is a pathological liar. Luckily we both work remotely, but his lies appear on our work ‘chat’ function on a daily basis…once upon I time I tried calling him out on his lies, but I’m getting too old for that shit nowadays, and anyway, it hasn’t cured him one iota.
Everything from ‘terrorists put a bomb in my letterbox’ (he lives in a rural town in Victoria) to him being a champion cyclist (last time I saw him he was a flabby old man), to his daughter discovering a ‘new’ childhood cancer that was caused by being a child in a single-parent household. One time he mentioned that it was -7c in his hometown that morning…so of course I had to google the temp there, and it was 1c. Minus 7 was the coldest recorded ever there, and that was back in the 1940’s sometime.
But I did get caught short this year…his beloved wife had a kidney transplant and not 5 months later they decided to go on an ocean cruise. She took ill (of course) and was apparently airlifted from the liner to Noumea, then medivacced back to Australia. Ultimately she died from the combined effects of immunosuppressive therapy and a massive infection.
Up until her sad death, I was totes skeptical of the whole story…why did they do a cruise so early post-transplant, how on EARTH did they manage to get travel insurance (given the medical history)?? None of the story rang true. But it did turn out to be true, and whilst I feel for him losing his wife of many years, I still wonder WHY THE FUCK DID THEY GO ON AN OCEAN CRUISE (a perfect vector for getting all sorts of infections) just a few months after her initial transplant. FFS.
Anyways, he’s back at work now, and still full of bullshit…I call him out on occasion, but not seriously…he’s too far gone to be redeemed. 
I can throw my younger sister Kate into this mix. She could not be wrong ever, and the lies she told when she was wrong would fill a book. I told her to turn right at the blue house on the corner, and she got lost. It was my fault because “you said blue and the house is turquoise.” The cops said she was driving drunk? “The cops lied. They do it all the time.” There’s a tape of her using someone else’s ATM card? “It’s been doctored.” I suffered from a snapped off wrist bone? “It was just a sprain. She showed you someone else’s X-ray. Okay, the doctor emailed you someone else’s X-ray.”
On and on and on till the end of her life.
I confronted one compulsive liar by not voting for him in the election last month. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.
I personally have known several compulsive liars, and I’ve found the best policy is simply not having anything to do with them. You simply cannot win any argument. They have an answer for everything, bullshit though it may be. Not worth the effort.
For some it’s a blend of both goals, the lies and other inappropriate behavior are ways to get people to do what they want and to fawn over them.
That was my 20 year marriage.
I’m an attorney and I have to deal with bullshit all the time.
There are few situations where you benefit from exposing a liar. Most of the time when you know someone is lying, it’s not necessary or worth the trouble of making sure that everyone else knows.
That said, one situation where it is necessary is in court. I’m not a trial attorney, but trial attorneys have a cool technique they use to deal with liars. You basically walk them into a trap they cannot escape from. First, before you ask a question, you have to know what the answer will be. You know the answer by having some type of evidence supporting the truth. Second, once someone lies to you, you have to lock them into their story. Finally, you present your evidence and watch them squirm while you burst into maniacal laughter.
I think before you decide how to deal with a liar, it’s important to determine whether the liar is lying to protect their ego.
A common example of this type of lying is that every time the liar fucks up it’s never their fault. Confronting a person like this gets you nowhere. What I’ve learned to do is to ask them to commit to doing the right thing in the future. For example, if someone was late for work, I would ask why. They would most likely wine about how traffic was terrible. I would respond by asking, “are you going to leave your house 30 minutes earlier from now on?” It’s a question they cannot say “no” to without hurting their ego. Because a “no” answer means they do not care about coming to work early, which is not consistent with the image they want to protect (i.e. their ego.) They can always lie again and say they will leave earlier, but if they do you can use the same method to get them to commit to another more outlandish lie. If they come late again, they would have to come up with an excuse that accounts for the extra thirty minutes they had because they left early. Eventually the lies will become so ridiculous that it will be painfully obvious the person is lying and they won’t be able to keep it up.
If it’s not someone who is lying to protect their ego, then my policy is to “trust but always verify.” Especially with paying clients who I don’t want to piss off if I can help it. I will agree with what they say, but will always verify their information while they are not looking. Then once I have the evidence I will go back to them and say “well I know you said you never signed this agreement, but I called three people who all said they saw you sign the agreement. Do you think they made a mistake? Oh, you think they are all lying, well gosh, that is terrible, but how do you think this will look in court? You think the judge will see things your way? Why didn’t you say so! Let’s sue the bastards! But only after you sign this retainer agreement for $$$$$ that will help me sleep better at night for taking your bullshit case.”
I had a customer at the coffee bar I work come in after work everday and sit at the bar for about an hour bull shitting me about anything and everything. I finaly decided to start bullshitting him back, everything he said he did I one upped him. I did this one time and never saw him again.