Anyone ever confronted a compulsive/pathological liar?

In My Humble Opinion
61

I knew one at school. It wasn’t just the ordinary ‘boyfriend that lives in another country’ type lies; quite a few classmates came up with that sort of thing. Nope, she had this whole imaginary family, more imaginary friends than real ones, taken to a really weird degree.

She had a group of gay best friends, who lived in Ireland, (a country she had, according to her mother never actually visited). She actually went to the lengths of sending a few of us emails, ostensibly from them, from her email address (‘Oh, we’re so close I just let them use my account’). She also had a huge extended family there, including an aunt who had more children than any woman currently living, including three sets of identical triplets.

She got stung by a bee (on a school trip), then skived a few days off school because she’d had a ‘nearly fatal reaction’ (the sting happened mid trip, in front of several classmates, she was fine both at the time, and when she went home 4 hours later). When she came back, she had her whole arm bandaged, and insisted that this was because it had swollen up to twice its normal size, but the bandages were squashing it back to normal.

I forgot my toothpaste on a school trip to France, and tried to beg a bit off her until I could buy some, her being the only one in my room who had bought a full size tube, not a teeny travel one. She didn’t refuse because ew, she didn’t like the idea of maybe accidentally sharing germs, sorry; no, she refused because her toothpaste was special medicated toothpaste that could kill someone else who didn’t have her obscure medical condition. Yes, it was in an ordinary tube with the logo of a common brand on it, her Mum put it in one so she wouldn’t stand out on the trip. She squeezed it from the special tube with all the warnings on to a normal looking one. Stripes and all.

When a few of us confronted her on one of the more ludicrous lies (her imaginary gay best friend suddenly aged 5 years over the course of a week), she went into full on screaming meltdown, and refused to speak to anyone who’d said anything to her for days.
We actually did keep in touch (she was fine when she wasn’t making weird shit up), and she abruptly dropped the lying a few years later when she actually did something real and interesting.

62

I agree. Also, many of the personality disorders “overlap”, narcissists, sociopaths, anti-social personality disorders, etc.; some people are worse than others, and they always blame you, and twist and turn the situation around. They are a nightmare.

63

Two of them, a mother and teenage daughter pair, just moved away a year ago.

They both had issues. The daughter was on the Autism Spectrum and the mom had some sort of muscular skeletal issue and was most likely mentally ill or ADHD.

When they saw the miniature horse I used to own she, the mother, claimed to have owned one has a child and that it kicked their African American nanny when they brought it into the house. It honestly sounded like something from an old children’s book.

When she saw my goats she claimed she’d had one that she had loved like a child and that it had sickened and died.

Claimed her daughter had the same rare genetic syndrome I have after I told her about it.

Claimed the school system “didn’t understand” her daughter. The girl got in trouble for wearing a too short skirt and she’d talked back to the principle. :rolleyes:

It was never ending. She also at one point claimed to have bred dogs and almost been killed by her ex-husband and that her daughter could communicate with spirits.

Every day I’d hear something more unbelievable. Since I’m not the confrontational type, I just sort of slowly backed away from her and “lost” her number once she’d left.

64

I’m virtually certain the ex has undiagnosed personality disorders. Many of her lies centered around wanting to be special and she was neurotic about any perceived abandonment. I read somewhere that BPD sufferers were prone to grand confabulating.

65

We had a “class bullshitter” in 5th grade, and for awhile, his bullshit of choice was about how he’d fiddle around with his TV and watch all sorts of dirty movies, including ones where he’d seen, according to him, Dolly Parton’s bare boobs. Eventually, having known him a long time, and sure he was lying, I’d had enough. It just so happened his mom was lunch mother that week, so I, quite loudly so he could hear, started telling his mother about all the movies he’d told us about watching. Immediately, he got all flustered and started saying “no, I never said that, I never watched that” his lies laid bare before everyone to see. His mom seemed pretty mad and took him out into the hall to “talk to him” but I don’t know what ultimately happened with him in that regard. I just savored the satisfaction of him being taken down a peg.

66

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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.
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 That is interesting, I think it is great that you were able to recognize this and pull yourself back out of it at a young age.  I have known several otherwise honest people who carried one or two little bullshit lies into their lives, most of them kept it going forever. A common one was playing semi pro ball, or boxing golden gloves. I was lucky. I had more than one compulsive liar around me and just watching them embarrass themselves was enough to make me ultra conscious of getting caught bull shitting.
67

It’s interesting how many of the people referenced here seem to have difficulty recognising the likelihood of being caught out and the inevitable consequences. When I was around eight years old my uncle drove me to the park with his dog, a beautiful golden retriever. While we were there I saw a boy from school, who I rather liked. Bear in mind that this was the sixties, in the UK, when cars, and indeed pedigree dogs were a lot more rare than they are now. At home we had no car - and a moggie. Next day at school the boy asked “Was that your car, your Dad, your dog?” and I had the impulse to say “Yes” and bask in his admiration. I also saw unfolding in a flash what it would be like to keep on lying and what would happened if my real dad found out. He’d be really hurt and he might think I wished my uncle was my dad instead of him … I hated to lose the admiration I saw in that boy’s eyes but I told him no, that was my uncle. And he said “Wow, what’s the dog called?” I had lost nothing and learned a lot.

Now it didn’t stop me lying at all, I had (and still have a bit) a tendency to exaggerate but I’ve learned how to catch myself and backpedal :slight_smile:

68

Personally, I don’t think of exaggeration as real lying (although, technically, I suppose it is). Who doesn’t exaggerate now and then?

69

Me.

70

You know who? Children raised in dysfunctional homes where they are complicit in the BIG lie. That “everything’s fine, everything’s normal”! When really, Daddy beats Mommy, or Daddy gambles away the rent, or Mommy does meth!

Children from such environs will often be sticklers for truth. Driven to be 100% truthful, even against their own best interests, even when not needed, even if it pisses off other people.

Because they never, ever want to be a party to a lie or misrepresentation again in their lives. Because they weren’t given a choice as children.

Now you know what might be driving that person you know who is painfully honest about everything.

71

Are you fucking serious?

72 
This had never crossed my mind before but it does make sense. I can relate to it.
73

I don’t buy this argument. Children quite frequently follow in their parents’ footsteps. By this logic, children from druggie, alcoholic, abusive, crime-ridden upbringings would be totally upright model citizens because they want to shed their unhappy past and live as contrasting a life as possible. Yet how often do we hear about people growing up in the slums or projects…becoming gangsters, etc. themselves. Very often.

So if lying was the norm, then they might consider lying to be the norm.

A national analogy might be China. In China, the Communist government has long deceived its people and many know it. And there is a great deal of cheating on academic exams, identity theft, extortion scamming going on in China too. I don’t think it’s coincidental that when people grow up being lied to, they think lying is OK.

74

Yeah, me neither. My wife has a long time friend who exaggerates everything. No matter what you say to her, she will top it. She earns more, spends less, gets more tips, more savings on coupons, bigger bargains, more inside sweet deals, more-to-do-all-the time-so-busy, etc on and on.

It gets so tiresome. We’ve caught her changing stories many times, but just let it go.

75

When I was in high school I had a friend like that, who I lent some money and he said he’d pay me back. When the day came for the money he said I didn’t give him any money, then changed his story and said he’d already paid me back. After I threatened to beat the fool out of him he didn’t directly admit he lied he just said ok and gave me the money.

76

Wait, Francisco is gay and you’re dating him?

I thought you told us you were female, Nava (or should I say Navo?) Why have you been lying to us all this time? What else are you lying about? Now, I wonder if you really did that translation!

:wink: :smiley:

77

My best friend in high school was a pathological liar, but was very good at producing props to support his lies. I remember discussing with common friends about where the truth ended and the lies began, we were genuinely unsure.

His biggest lie was that he had lymphoma and was undergoing treatment. After many months of stories we expressed our doubts about it, and he came over to my house late one night with an IV needle in his arm. He told me that he had just finished another round of treatment. The reason that most of the people in his life didn’t know was because they wouldn’t be able to handle it.
I remember feeling like absolute crap that I had questioned him, and I apologized profusely while he sat on my couch with the IV needle. It came out years later that it was all a lie. I remember his mother describing the cancer story as “all this subterfuge” which isn’t exactly a correct use of that word.

The one time I remember he was backed into a corner, he simply shrugged. After we graduated he was telling me about how he was playing rugby for the local university. His girlfriend was within earshot, and she angrily confronted him “You don’t play rugby, you don’t even attend that university!” Eyes to the ground and a shrug.

He HAD done a lot of amazing things in his life (and had the photographic proof) so you were never sure what was true. I remember when there was a massive trail derailment in Alberta, and 800,000 litres of crude oil had contaminated a lake. It was on the news for weeks. Friend flippantly claimed to be part of an elite response team using cutting edge technology to contain and clean the spill. My father was a recently retired senior manager for the railway that caused the spill (Dad worked for this railway his entire adult life), and I invited friend over to chat about the spill, thinking that Dad would be able to provide an insider’s take on friend’s story. Dad had provided management presence at many derailments during his career. To my surprise, friend not only came over, but brought a stick full of pictures of himself dick-deep in the recovery effort, and using some pretty specialized equipment.

78

I’m another who is cheek-burningly embarrassed of some of the whoppers I told as a kid, and I’ll try to explain why I did it.

I get the mentality of exaggerating achievements (like the semi-pro ball type lie). I think for a lot of people who are genuinely very good at something or have attained a higher-than-average level at it, that skill becomes part of their sense of self. Yet when they aren’t quite good enough to go further, or they fall away from it and regret it, it can feel like telling the truth about their true level sounds more ordinary and mediocre than they feel actually truly represents what they did. So for a kid who was the star of his high school ball team and lived and breathed the sport, and had scouts poking around but nothing came of it, saying “I played football in high school” doesn’t seem to them to really express that it was more than a casual hobby. So they say they got a full ride scholarship or were scouted for a semi-pro team because that’s easier than letting how they see themselves deflate in the eyes of others.

For me, it was smaller stuff, but a similar mindset – a sort of sense of ownership of things that felt special or important to me and a need to do anything possible to not diminish that importance in the eyes of others. A few I remember (that are making me uncomfortable as I think of them, ugh):

When I was about 8, I had a dog who was incredibly sweet and well-behaved, and I was very proud of that dog. But when I would try to say what a good dog she was, I felt like it wasn’t coming across just how obedient and clever she was (in my mind), so I told people she won all kinds of obedience awards (which of course she hadn’t, and really wasn’t all that well trained, just nice).

Around the same age, I was very proud of my grandfather, who occasionally wrote a column in the local small-town paper. I told my friends that he had been a world-famous journalist who had written for the New York Times and Toronto Star, because writing for the local paper just didn’t seem to reflect his journalistic brilliance to me.

A little older, I was getting pretty serious about tennis. None of my friends played, so didn’t understand the significance of various rankings and tournaments, so naturally I told them I was going to play in the Olympics (uuuughhhh).

It of course eventually occurred to me that by exaggerating I was in fact diminishing those things. That having a nice dog is great! My grandpa’s local column was fabulous! I didn’t need to make them bigger, they were awesome the way they were. As Springtime for Spacers said, there came a point when I realized that the potential for embarrassment and hurt far outweighed any pride or glory I would gain from a wild tale, and I became very careful about not exaggerating, and if anything I swung the other way entirely and downplayed interesting stories or accomplishments. Now as an adult, I am pretty careful about being truthful, but probably still lean more towards under-presenting rather than exaggerating.

79

Maurie, did anyone ever catch you in a life?

80

I was impressed by the way you grasped the real meaning of certain types of fibs. You did a beautiful job of expressing it and it gave me a more complete perspective on something I was already sympathetic to.